Post Thanksgiving Feasting

Thanksgiving weekend was a typically busy time of food prep and miles of travel all over South Florida to visit scattered relatives. For the Big Day, we had the usual trimmings of turkey, stuffing, my wife's great cranberry sauce, etc. etc.  Things were a bit different this year as we additionally celebrated my in-laws' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, attended a wake, and had house guests from Georgia and Pennsylvania. The latter being my wife's second cousin who decided that we should cook an Indian meal for her aunt and uncle, who visited Sunday evening.  He's quite handy in the kitchen - his first night he gored several avacados for guacamole and the next morning whipped up tasty omelettes.  Lately we haven't cooked as much so it all seemed so, I dunno, magical.

But Sunday night's dinner was especially ambitious.  The main course was a fabulous salmon smothered in a store bought tikka masala sauce, with almost everything else made from scratch: the not too spicy lentil based dal (good to serve with whole wheat roti), the yogurt and cucumber dish known as raita, and the flavorful okra you see below.  Cleansing the palate at the finish was gulab jamin, a dumpling style, ball shaped dessert in a sweet syrup. 

In case you're a local and want to attempt a similar meal check out the comprehensive Indian/Pakastani grocery in West Palm Beach called India Bazaar, 4780 Okeechobee Blvd., (561) 721-9202.