Evanne Schmarder: While I can do just about anything in my RV kitchen that can be done in a stick kitchen, I’m always on the lookout for space savers. That’s why when my Aussie pal Graham Dalton, inventor of SmartSpace Cookware, called me to tell me about his new product, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on them. Big down under in Australia. and New Zealand, they’re ultra-compact, super high quality, and perfect. for my RV stovetop, cupboards, and sink or really any small kitchen or galley.

The flagship product is a set of three pots. It also includes one handle, lids, and silicone stacking mats. The set’s a little bit
like those nesting dolls where one fits into the other. So let me show you.  They’re really thick and beefy, the lids fit just so,
and the handles are silicone so it keeps them cool to the touch. The small pot, ta-da, is 1 1/2 quarts, the medium pot is 2 quarts, and the large pot is 3 quarts. By the way, this is what the silicone stacking mats look like. The pots are coated with an almost catering grade thick Teflon. They have an induction base so you can use them on induction cookers. And now I want to show you the handles. Here’s how they work. The pots have little grooves, one on each side of the pot, where your handle’s going to go right into. So I’m going to stick the handle right into that groove and I’m going to clip it shut just like that. It’s really easy to release the handle, you can do so one of two ways. There’s a button on the top so you can press the button or there’s a lever on the bottom. You can pull the levernjust like that. Really easy. Now, when you’re holding the handle, say lifting the pot, it can’t release. So that’s nice and safe.

I also have a fry pan. It comes with its own handle, and it’s pretty terrific. Same quality, same concept, super cool. We’re going to put this cookware. to good use today making. a warm and delicious comfort food meal.  So when somebody mentions Indian food, it conjures up the idea of complicated recipes, exotic ingredients, and a certain know-how. While that’s true for some Indian dishes, it’s not for the one I’m going to show you today. We’re going to be making yellow split peas with onions and garlic, we’ll toast up some flatbread in our SmartSpace fry pan, and we’ll serve it all with a nice mound of beautiful brown rice. We’ll be using
ingredients you can get in any grocery store: yellow split peas, cumin seed, onion, garlic, cayenne pepper, and a little bit of oil. That’s it. So let’s get cooking. 

First thing we’re going to do is we’re going to add 3 tablespoons of avocado oil to our SmartSpace Cookware pan. This is the 3 quart pan. We want it to get nice and hot. Once the oil starts to shimmer, we’re going to add some cumin seed,
not cumin powder. This is cumin seed. It’s about 1/2 a teaspoon. We’re going to drop it in. It’s going to start to cook in the oil, and in just a moment or two, it’ll start to pop, become very fragrant.  In goes the onion. Well, these onions are coming along so nicely. They’re almost done. And by the way, I hope you notice with the SmartSpace Cookware, the corners are radius-edged, so there aren’t any hard corners for any food or particles to get stuck. Garlic is up next. Now, a lot of recipes will tell you to add the garlic first and brown it and then put the onion in. In my experience, when you add the garlic first,  it gets very cooked and brown and a little bit bitter by the time you get the onions in and the onions cooked. So I do the onions first and then the garlic. By the way, this is just kind of a rough-chopped garlic. 

Typically in an Indian recipe they use lentils, but I like to use split peas. I use the yellow, I use the green because they cook really fast. If you were using lentils, this would cook over an hour,  about an hour. Using the split peas, I think we’ll get it cooked in about half that time. So I’m going to put one cup of yellow split peas, and now we’re going to add the liquid. In this case we’re going to add water. I’ve got some spring water. I’m going to add 3 cups. Well, these little beauties have come to a boil. We’re going to leave the lid on,  we’re going to turn it all the way down, and we’re going to let them simmer. We’re going to cook them until the yellow split peas are nice and soft, and everything’s going to be kind of a delicious stew.

Well, it’s been about 35 minutes, maybe a little bit more,  and I think that we’re. almost ready. And you can see. that our yellow split peas are nice and soft. I’m going to mix in a little bit of salt and a little bit of cayenne pepper. It’s the final touch. And we’ll just let that slightly bubble while we make our flatbread.

Okay, we’re heating up our fry pan. And what I’ve got here, some Trader Joe’s flatbread, really simple and delicious. This is frozen. So I’ve got my olive oil mister, and I’m going to put. just a little bit of olive oil on my flatbread, not a whole lot, just a little bit like that, some salt, some pepper. Perfect.

Here you have it, our fabulous yellow split pea, onion, and garlic Indian dish. It’s warm, comforting, really easy, right, and it’s good for you. Well, thanks so much for joining me today.  We’ll see you again right here next time. Cheers