When Jack and I decided to become vegetarians in 1993, we were both fairly meat and potatoes sort of people. At the time I never made a meal without meat, so in the beginning it was a challenge. But giving up a whole food group basically opened up our taste-buds to alot of possibilities. I now eat lots of veggies I thought I hated, including Brussels sprouts, Spinach, mushrooms (raw only still can't stand cooked ones) and eggplant. It also opened me up to different cuisines, like Indian. I now love a good curry. In Australia we used to go to a Gaylord's hidden in China Town.

When we moved here I was stoked... with such a large growingIndian Population We were bound to find some incredible restaurants. The truth however is that every restaurant we've tried is way to spicy for me, even when I order mild I can't seem to eat the food brought.

When Megan was first born I was told she was allergic to dairy and since she was only breast feeding it meant i had to give up all diary. I was really craving for Indian and since there is alot of diary in it, I decided to try my hand at making it. I used goats milk and made paneer (indian cheese) and then I cooked a couple of dishes. But in reality it was a bit of work and as Megan got older making my own cheese, seemed too time consuming. So we relied on the other cuisine of yummy curry - thai. After a while, we found ourselves eating alot of pasta and pizza, and japanese, because that was something Megan would eat, Ok so what is the food history all about?

Well Trader Joes the best store in the world now sells blocks of Paneer. which inspired me to try cooking Palak Paneer(Spinach), Matar Paneer (Peas), with Yellow rice and some naan. I started at 6 and everything was on the table by 6:40 - almost qualified for Rachel Ray!

The best part was it was yummy. I left out most of the chilies, so it wasn't spicy, and as usual I didn't follow the recipes exactly but I used them as a general idea. (Case in point - i didn't make the spinach paste - instead opting for putting fresh leaves in the sauce and letting them cook down) I also never bothered to measure amounts ingredients (except for the rice).