So my first attempt at cooking Indian food was a huge success, but my second time, not so much. The food is beautiful, colorful and uber healthy, which is all good. But after a spoonfuls, I was done. I couldn’t take more than a few bites. Is that horrible? I followed the recipe to a T, did everything right, but it just didn’t turn out the way I had hoped.

My first dish was “Spicy Eggplant with Tomatoes.” This hearty meal was succulent and colorful, but collapsed in the mouth. It’s super spicy because of the cayenne, but the mushy texture made me make funny faces unknowingly as I ate it. While the “Punjabi Red Beans” look more exotic than they taste. It had a heavy ginger flavor, but this dish needed lots of time for the flavor to grow, because it tasted much better the next day. I am going to give “5 Spices, 50 Dishes” a few more tries before I try another Indian cookbook.

The funny thing about these recipes is that I already had all the spices on hand.  If someone looked at my spice rack they might mistake me for an experienced Indian chef. Ha!