Masala Dal = Yum, and also, mess

I've had this recipe for Masala Dal bookmarked on my phone's browser for over a year, and I've only cooked it twice before today. The recipe is super yummy and easy, so we really should have eaten it more than twice in the last year and some odd months. Today I remembered why I hadn't cooked it in so long.

First off, the recipe says to cook the lentils in a pressure cooker. We have a pressure cooker which Robert inherited from his aunt, but we rarely use it for pressure cooking. We (meaning, of course, I because Robert rarely cooks) generally use it for soups and atole. The handle on the lid was broken when I moved in here, and the weight that we have is not the one that came with it (I imagine the weight for Robert's Aunt's pressure cooker doesn't fit too well either) and clearly has been through the garbage disposal one too many times (maybe that's why our garbage disposal doesn't work ... Huh). Add to all this the fact that I'm not even really sure how to use a pressure cooker, and well, you get a huge mess of sputtering and spraying lentil water all over the stove, hood, floor, cabinets, refrigerator, etc. So I turned off the stove after the sputtering spewing mess, and it took a good five minutes to pry off the lid-without-a-handle.

However, the lentils cooked beautifully.

The next problem is that I invariably forget to measure the mustard seeds and cumin seeds before heating the oil. So when it says to heat the oil and add mustard seeds until they crackle, I end up overheating the oil and those mustard seeds just will NOT stay in the pan. I put them in and they're jumping around the kitchen like bare feet on summertime asphault. So while my mustard seeds are scattering themselves to Connecticut and back, I'm struggling to turn off the flame and get the pan to a cooler locale, and the hot oil is spattering all over my arms. And this has happened not once, not twice, but THREE times. And as I mourn the death and burial of my memory, I provide endless entertainment for my kid and my hubby.

Anyway.

It tasted delicious over a bed of rice. If I had remembered to buy some naan it would have been even better. But, my memory is a goner. Wait, didn't I just say that?