30-Minute Pork Vindaloo (page 83)

This has been a week of firsts for me. On Tuesday I made Hungarian for the first time and tonight I made my first Indian dish. I’m loving this!

The biggest issue I had with this recipe was finding the spices. First I went to Kroger for the garam masala and couldn’t find it. Then while I was flipping through our cookbook I found a recipe for garam masala on page 56. Since I still needed 2 of the ingredients to make my own (coriander and cardamom), my husband and I walked to Central Market to pick them up. When we found them in the spice section our jaws hit the floor at the sight of the price tag. It was going to cost us $16 just to make the spice I originally wanted. We decided that it wasn’t worth it and we would just pretend it was there. Then we walked over to the coffee section (we’re BIG fans) to get our weekly coffee. Since the coffee section is adjacent to the make-your-own spice section, we decided to check if garam masala was there. *It was there, AND for $5.99/lb!* So I got more than I will ever use probably for only 42 cents!!!! So the problem was solved and we didn’t have to pretend! It was certainly a hunt but well worth it. I was expecting the spice to be really hot, but instead it had a sweet flavor. I served the vindaloo over whole-wheat rice with naan crackers. I was pleasantly surprised with how well this dish turned out. I especially liked the flavor that the cilantro added to the dish.