Cabbage with Yellow Lentils

I hope everyone had a fantastic Halloween and that you visited many houses that gave out handfuls of candy. Seth and I had originally planned to go out but changed our plans at last minute and stayed home, leaving us candy-less for the hordes in our apartment complex.  I tried to simply ignore the knocks on our door, but as the background music on the tv grew into crescendo I cringed and went running into the bedroom. I figured the farthest corner in the room was the safest place in case the kids should storm in, demanding booty. There might have been blood when I tried to give away canned goods. When I was young my mom gave out Little Debbie snack cakes, usually oatmeal pies. Yes, we were that house. I don't think Mom gave out candy until I was in college.

Goan Beef Curry + Punjabi Cabbage

I am terrible with meals after returning from vacation. Normally I make a menu for the week and create my shopping list from that, so that Seth and I can get all of our shopping taken care of in one fell swoop; otherwise, it's countless trips to the local (overpriced) store as I try to come up with things daily, only to discover that I am missing about half of the ingredients. While living the single life I would look at a can of chickpeas, canned tomatoes and a bag of rice and think, "Dinner! For the week!", marital bliss had taught me that not everyone enjoys getting by on such monkish offerings. So for a week or thereabouts after returning from a trip I find myself scrambling to put filling, protein-laden (read: meat) meals on the table. That is my first excuse.

Luckily one meal this week only used half a kilo of beef, so I had almost a whole kilo on hand, which it turns out was the only special ingredient I needed for beef curry - well, that and coconut milk. Luckily, I keep that in stock. I didn't even need cilantro! However, unexpectedly cooking a blog-worthy dish meant I wasn't feeling motivated with the camera. I have mentioned this before, but Indian can be tricky to photograph attractively; this difficulty is doubled when all you want to do is eat. Maybe you try and take a couple of pictures of your husband spooning a bite into his, but you can't get the lighting right and want him to keep posing with the food right in front of his mouth, until he gets irritated because he, too, wants to eat. That is my second excuse.