There was good eating at my house today.
I’m feeling very energetic, so in honor of the DVD release of Bend It Like Beckham, I made aloo gobi, dal saag and basmati rice for dinner.
In the meantime, Youngest Son whipped up a batch of strawberry-banana jello.
At the same time, Eldest Son was making two pumpkin pies (with fresh ginger!).
Just before dinner, I noticed that what I thought were roasted, salted Spanish peanuts were actually raw Spanish peanuts (incredible, what you can learn from pre-dinner snacking). Since the oven was still hot from the pies, I put in a cookie sheet of peanuts to roast, and we started munching them between dinner and dessert.
The smell and taste of home roasted peanuts was a major Proustian moment for me; when we lived in Nigeria, it was the world’s largest exporter of peanuts, but there was nary a processed peanut product to be found. My mother would roast and sugar pounds of peanuts.
I couldn’t quite remember how she sugared the peanuts, but while Eldest Son whipped cream and served up pie, I heated up about a half a cup of sugar in a cast iron frying pan, stirred it till it liquified, then tossed in a couple handfuls of peanuts, stirred to cover, and dumped them out onto wax paper.
All in all, very interactive and tasty. Three desserts was maybe overkill, but since we hardly ever have dessert, it’s ok.
