Autumn squash + tofu curry

If I had to choose a favorite vegetable, it’d be winter squash. This time a year ago I was working at a little pumpkin market in my hometown – the farmer grew over 40 varieties of pumpkin & squash(!) – and right about now I’m missing my daily cucurbita intake and stocking up on my favorite varieties for the year to come.

It didn’t quite feel like squash season here in Austin until the past few nights when it got down to a chilly 55 degrees. Yes, time to leave the windows open and feel the cool breeze through the house at last.

These chilly evenings have also put warm, comforting curry on the mind, and soon after onto the kitchen table.

green kitchari

This is kitchari. Indian comfort food. A traditional Ayurvedic cleansing dish used for detoxifying and healing.

Grounding, calming, warming, balancing.

Kitchari can be made in infinite ways, but in its basic form is a stew/porridge-like mixture of split mung beans and grain warmed with spices and enhanced by vegetables. Perfect for giving your digestion a break while still providing the body with a nourishing and filling meal. And even more perfect now that it’s fall and the cold is starting to seep into my bones, when I desire nothing more than curling up on the couch with a steaming bowl of comfort.

In this specific recipe I use both whole and split mung beans for extra protein and fiber, but adding a grain like brown rice/quinoa/barley etc. to the mix is the traditional way and tastes just as well. Use whatever veggies you’re into or whatever can be found in the fridge; this time I felt like sticking to solid greens.

kohlrabi-lentil curry & tandoori grilled chicken

A summer Indian feast.

Recently I started working on a small-scale organic farm (and am gaining a whole new appreciation for the hard work that goes into growing our organic food!) along with selling the fruits and veg of our labor at local markets. Although quite the exhausting and dirty workday, it’s great to be reunited with the outdoors during my favorite time of year (bring on the summer heat and tomatoes!) and to bring home some fresh-from-the-earth vegetables to throw on the grill.

We tend to have a good variety of unique vegetables that people are not as familiar with, like garlic scapes, caraflex cabbage, and the star of today – kohlrabi. Puzzled customers examine these alien-looking crops and ask “What is this? What do I do with it? Have you cooked with it?” And of course, I need to be able to answer! Never having tried kholrabi myself did not make it the easiest to explain to intrigued customers at my last market. So I brought some home, told my boyfriend to get excited for an Indian feast (our favorite when cooking a big scrumptious dinner) and decided to create a curry featuring this lovely, seasonal kholrabi.

Kohlrabi, I learned, translates from German as ‘cabbage-turnip’. To me it tastes very much like a broccoli stem when cooked, but eaten raw it is mildly sweet and crisp almost like a jicama. I imagine it would be delicious sliced up thin into slaw. But right now this curry — filled with chickpeas, lentils, butternut and lots of warm spices — has won my heart.

Forrest is a pro at the whole grilling thing, so he was in charge of that part of the meal. Not that I was surprised, but his tandoori chicken was awesome. Like only-marinated-for-10-minutes-yet-unbelievably-flavorful, crispy-on-the-outside-juicy-tender-on-the-inside …awesome. Mucho props to him.

And all together — doused in fresh cilantro and a dollop of yogurt on the side — this made one healthy, satisfying Indian feast, perfect to enjoy on the patio alongside a summer sunset.