Perhaps you haven't heard of her, but Robin Robertson is an excellent vegan cookbook author. She recently (September 2012) published a cookbook titled Fresh From the Vegan Slow Cooker, and this is the first dish I've made. I'm not sure what it was supposed to look like, but I do know the dal tastes excellent with some rice and my homemade vegan garlic naan. The texture of my dal was similar to refried beans....thick, slightly lumpy, almost creamy. I have no idea if that's how it was supposed to be, but I did end up cooking mine 9 hours while I was at work, so that may be to blame. Regardless, we LOVED IT!!
If you haven't noticed before, I tend to always alter recipes, and this one was no different. I added in a few tiny carrots from my garden, along with a bit of my favorite curry powder. Because I started cooking this at 9:30 am and didn't get home until 6:30, It may have been slightly overcooked, but it was still 100% delicious. Like, insanely delicious. The recipe called for cardamom, and I will admit that I was skeptical. I'd only really ever used cardamom in sweet treats and zucchini bread. It turned out perfect, though, and I'm interested in adding it to other curries in the future.
I think the only other change I might make in the future is to add a little wedge of lemon when I serve it. Lemon is such a perfect complement to lentils, especially Indian-spiced lentils. Unfortunately, this isn't my recipe to share, but I do highly recommend that you check out Fresh From the Vegan Slow Cooker from your local library (hey, I can't help it; I'm a librarian) or just splurge and buy it. I am so excited to try a ton of the other recipes now!
Happy MoFo, everyone!
I'm scared of librarians!
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