Indian Cooking Class

I had the wonderful opportunity to take a cooking class (B-day gift from Ruthann) with another friend Kamud Vanderveer. She was born and raised in India and really knows her stuff. Her sister Hema was visiting for a couple of months so they did the class together. I was very excited because we all love Indian food and I'd had the pleasure of dining at Kamuud's before.
The menu for this class was from southern India which is quite different from what is offered in most Indian restaurants around here. They demonstrated the making of Avial -kind of a vegetable stew, Ollan- black eyed pea and vegetable dish, brown rice (which they make in a pressure cooker), Gothanmai Payaasam- a dessert, Pineapple Pachaddi- a pinapple chutney, and Mambalam Morkootan- a mango chutney.
Everything had so much flavor, and besides a little ghee (clarified butter), was completely vegan.

Sauteing the spices with curry leaves.

I learned about jaggery, a sweetener. It's pictured on the far left. Lots of coconut was used, either fresh or  pulp frozen.

The vegetable stew cooking.
And on to the best part. After all the demonstrating, questions, picture taking etc., we sat down to eat it all! It was fantastic!

Now I need to get inspired to try this at home. I think I'll just try a couple of items from the menu at a time.
She may do another series of classes so if your interested e-mail Kamuud at kmdvanderveer@yahoo.com.