Jainism and Mustard Sauce

Well I had a good day at work today. Finally made some good progress on one of my projects and I am feeling much more confident with the direction of it all.

I tried a new recipe tonight and it was absolutely brilliant. Roast chook as usual but I tried something new with the vegies.

• about 12 small spuds halved - by small i mean golf ball or smaller sized
• red, green & yellow capsicum each cut into about 8 strips
• couple of carrots cut into thumb sized bits and split lengthways (twice if really thick)
• 6 small onions quartered

lob all that in a bigish mixing bowl

now in a small bowl mix

• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce
• 2 big teaspoons of cracked pepper
• 2 rounded teaspoons of crushed garlic

give it a good mix and spoon that over the vegies and then toss until they are well covered.

Bang it all into some oven trays (try not to stack the vegies), pop it into the hot box and cook for 45-60 minutes and give em a stir once halfway through.

while that's cooking make the sauce to go over the top. In the food processor blend:

• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons cream
• 2 teaspoons hot english mustard
• couple of big tablespoons of basil 'paste' from the tube
• 2 teaspoons of crushed garlic.
• tablespoon of hot water
  

spoon that goop over the vegies when you serve them

Brilliant! So tasty I could have eaten it without the chook. Usually my response to vegetarians is to throw a handful of oats on the floor but this was incredibly tasty even if I do say so myself. I'll post a photo of the vegies sometime. Try it for yourself though and tell me what you thought via comments.

By the way, my general sniggering at vegetarians does not extend to proponents of Jainism. Jainism is a dharmic religion (like Buddism) which requires all its proponents to be vegetarians. As far as I know that is unique. Jains do not believe in a supreme being but rather in an eternal universe in which all souls are equal and compassion towards all living beings is paramount. Its hard to snigger at someone who believes all life is sacred and forms part of a glorious whole of existence.

Don't panic...I still ate the chook.

Speaking of which, I picked up 5 books on keeping chooks from the library today.

Ssshhh don't tell anyone, but I really don't have any antipathy towards vegetarians, they are just tremendous fun to tease. Which reminds me, next time I will try to remember to tell you all about 'terduckens'.