The biggest avocado in the world

On Friday night I ate half of the biggest avocado I had ever seen!! This thing Just HALF was more than an average avocado! I made it into gucamole, with fresh cilantro and salsa! I saved the other half for the next day, sprinkling it with lemon juice so it wouldnt brown.

I've been on a bit of a curry kick recently! I love Indian food and its actually a cuisine I'm good at cooking (having grown up in West Bengal). I find its a great way to get my veggies in and have tasty food too- sometimes veggies are so bland (not with curry though!) Actually we didn't call it 'Curry' in Bengal it is called "Subji" just a lil tidbit of info...I will call it curry for all my readers though as it seems to be what is used to describe Indian food in one big lump lol!

This is my lunch for work today, I made it last night: Butternut squash/sweet potato/chickpea/tempeh curry (ahem- subji!) in coconut sauce with spiced yogurt rice (brown)

I love the yogurt rice as it takes away some of that earthy flavor brown rice has and gives it a little more kick!

It is one of my favorite rice dishes- and boy have I had a LOT! Growing up in India I've had sweet coconut rices for breakfasts, savory  lemon rices for lunch, opulent Bengali Pushpanna or "Royal" Rice for dinner feasts (loaded with curd..mmm!!) and rice in condensed milk with mangoes to top a meal off....nobody makes rice like Indians, just saying...

But my favorite go to rice is yogurt rice :) Its really simple to make!

 Basically, I use Uncle Ben's Boil in a bag brown rice (it only takes 10 minutes to cook). In a small saucepan I heat up two teaspoons of olive oil, 2 teaspoons of black mustard seeds, as many chilli flakes as you want (or fresh chilli) depending on how spicy you like it, and three bay leaves. You can also add some garlic/onion powder. When the mustard seeds starts to pop, take the mixture off the flame and mix it in with a cup of unsweet plain yogurt, and mix this all with the rice. Salt and pepper to taste. Let it chill in the fridge and thicken. Serve cold. The mustard seeds are the key ingredient- if you don't have bay leaves its no biggy!

I used the yogurt rice with another dish too- Aloo Mathar Gobi (Potatoes with Cauliflower and Peas). I had a head of cauliflower sitting around and didnt know what to do with it, so I turned to an old Indian favorite :D

I had my last summer berries over the weekend too....I doubt fresh raspberries will be a decent price much longer!

Check out this Stop Action shots I took for photography class of a capoeira demonstration for the Downtown Latino festival I went to on Saturday (had my first tamale- didnt like it- almost plain polenta/grits style with NO seasoning, yuck!)

And one of Tux for good measure, with that perpetually sad face he has