Dinner with Mother Teresa

In spring of 2007, we studied India and its culture. One book on cd we enjoyed was Homeless Bird, about a young girl married off, then widowed. It covered some serious topics, but was appropriate for our family even though Marianna was a few months shy of 7. We also learned about Gandhi and Mother Teresa. (It's still hard for me to call her Blessed Teresa of Calcutta!)

Cooking is one of "our things", so the children and I made an Indian dinner, complete with homemade cheese. Since Mother Teresa's anniversary is coming up this Friday (September 5), I thought I'd share our meal with you. If you're inspired, there's still time to get to the grocery store! ;-) Joe reminded me just in time, so we're going to repeat the treat this week.

We made Kabab Masala, except we formed the seasoned ground meat into patties rather than kebabs. They were so much easier to cook that way, and just as tasty. Our side dishes were Aloo Mattar (potatoes and peas) and Keera-Tamatar Raita (yogurt with cucumber and tomato).

We made chapatis--a flat bread, almost like tortillas. They're not difficult, but are time consuming. I've since seen frozen chapatis and pyrathas in ethnic markets; you just heat them up--EASY! I'm not sure which we'll do this week; the meal is an undertaking (if you have a lot of helpers), but everyone loves playing with dough...

Indian desserts are quite different from what we're used to. They're generally mildly flavored (no intense chocolate, for example) and not as sweet as we expect. For our meal we made some cheese and nut dessert balls. The cheese (chenna) was homemade that day (an awesome project!) and is very mild (not even as tangy as cream cheese), so don't think this is savory. It's gently sweetened and flavored with orange rind. Not all the children cared for it, but many of us enjoyed it. A single batch (maybe 20 small balls) was enough for the family.