Making Indian from scratch

Zips and I have a been watching BBC America during the mid-mornings because How Clean is Your House and You Are What You Eat are a couple of our favorite shows-- certainly the most motivating to both do chores around the house and eat well and exercise. In fact, we just bought Gillian McKeith's books You Are What You Eat and the Food Bible. This morning, nearly a week into trying to follow a more Gillian McKeith-like food lifestyle, we hit a food lull (no idea what to fix today), and in the meantime, Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares came on with an episode of Ramsey fixing up an Indian restaurant in Nottingham called The Curry Lounge. Lamenting our current promise not to eat things like ghee (mmmmmm) and naan (ooooooooh), we wondered if we could scrape together enough change to hit the local organic-friendly Indian buffet, and then I said, why don't I make us something? SO I hit up a couple of recipes online for a good Chana Masala (this is adapted largely from a recipe purportedly taken from a cookbook called Heart Healthy Indian), and when I couldn't find my garam masala anywhere, I also found a recipe for that made up of spices I already have! I think a real version of this would involve whole spice pods dry roasted together and ground, but I'll wait until I have a spare coffee grinder to use as a spice grinder. Until then:

Easy Garam Masala:

1 Tb. cumin
1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

I measured everything out and then poured it into an empty spice jar and shook it until a uniform color. Smells like HEAVEN!

The Chana Masala recipe is a little more fast and loose, I cobbled together two recipes (so I could use just one can of garbanzos), then tweaked them so I'd have more sauce, and added a small potato and a carrot.

So I chopped 1/2 an onion and put it into a food processor with
2 tomatoes from a can of whole tomatoes + 1/4 c. of its juice
1/2 serrano chile (use the whole thing if you think you can take it!)
1 inch ginger peeled and chopped
3-4 garlic cloves peeled

Process these together until a nice tomatoey liquid paste forms.

Then in a large saucepan, I put the other 1/2 onion (diced) with
1 small potato diced
1 carrot peeled & diced
2-3 bay leaves
saute until onion is translucent then add the tomato/onion/ginger/garlic/chile mixture & stir. (**note: Because Zips and I like plenty of saucey gravy to eat with the rice, at this point I actually went back and doubled the tomato/onion/ginger/garlic/chile mixture and added it to the veggies). Then add:

1 tsp. red chili powder
1 tsp. coriander
2 tsp. garam masala
1 15oz. can of garbanzo beans.

Heat together (I put the lid on) 7-10 minutes, or until your basmati rice finishes cooking! Garnish with cilantro leaves. We ate it with brown basmati rice (which I had never tried or cooked before)-- and it was hearty and fine. It smells SO GOOD in here! This has given me a boost of confidence in other Indian cuisine favorites that I have never attempted. Something with lentils next time, I think.