Butternut squash and cauliflower curry

Joe did the shopping this week, and I'd put cauliflower on the list. I don't think he's ever bought cauliflower before. It was giant. He bought the biggest cauliflower in the shop. Seriously, it was bigger than my head. After a massive cauliflower cheese bake, there was still half a cauliflower left, and I didn't have many ideas that didn't involve more cheese sauce. Then I saw one of Jamie's 30 minute meal programmes on repeat and he turned it into a curry. He massively cheated and used store bought paste, which I never have in, so I made up my own version. It took maybe 45 minutes.

I've written up a lot of curries on this blog, but I love them, and I love making them. They're also a brilliant way of using up stuff. The following recipe makes an awful lot of curry. It fed us tonight, then another pot of it to freeze so we can have it another night, then three portions for me to take to work. 

Giant pot of curry

This would be good with fresh coriander in both the curry and the raita, but I didn't have any.

Ingredients:

2 red chillies, in big chunks

5 cloves of garlic, peeled

a piece of ginger the size of your thumb, peeled and in big chunks

3 onions, sliced

a butternut squash, chopped into rough chunks

a normal sized head of cauliflower / half a giant head of cauliflower, cut into florets

half a bag of spinach

tin of tomatoes

tin of coconut milk

a tablespoon of cumin

a tablespoon of coriander

teaspoon of turmeric

teaspoon of mustard seeds

half a tablespoon of garam masala

half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Raita ingredients:

I make this every time we have curry, and it changes every time. It just depends what I 

have in. It's not authentic raita

half a big tub of natural yoghurt (I used low fat)

a couple of inches of cucumber, grated

a couple of chopped spring onions

juice of half a lemon/lime

plenty of salt and pepper

1.  Fry the onion on a medium heat in some vegetable oil with a pinch of salt for about five minutes, then add the butternut squash. Fry for another five/ten minutes. It's ok if it starts to brown, just don't let it stick or burn.

2.  Meanwhile, put the chilli, garlic and ginger in a hand blender and blitz it.

3.  Add the spices to the vegetables, stir and fry for another minute or two, then add the chilli, garlic and ginger. Fry for another few minutes, it should start smelling amazing.

4.  Add the tomatoes and coconut milk, plus half a tin of water. Shove a lid on, then leave it to simmer for fifteen/twenty minutes.

5.  Now make the raita, by mixing all the ingredients listed above.

6.  After fifteen minutes, the squash should be nearly cooked. Taste and season if it needs it. Stir in the cauliflower, and cook for another ten minutes, adding the spinach towards the end.

That's it, serve it all with rice.

Whilst making this I listened to 6 music. And drank wine. I needed a bit of time out.

Two more curries

I'm genuinely enjoying the Olympics. I'm not into watching sport as a rule, but it's won me over. The opening ceremony was brilliant, and I've just been to London. Not for any events, I mostly watched bits of it in the pub/on a big screen in Greenwich etc. Not the healthiest approach to an enormous festival of sport, but one that I enjoyed.

Right, now on to the recipes. When I'm craving healthy stuff I will almost always make a curry. In fact, so much so that this blog is full of curry recipes. See here:

http://idontjustmakesoup.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/three-curry-feast.html

and here:

http://idontjustmakesoup.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/one-for-hippies-and-veggies-potato-and.html

But these are different recipes, and you can never have too many curry recipes up your sleeve. I like to make two at a time, so that at least one of them is veggie. 

A note on spices: I think it pays to invest in a load of them, as you will never be far from a really tasty meal and you will always be able to tart up the cheapest ingredients.

Curry one: Prawn with Spinach and Peas

Ingredients

an onion, sliced

a red chilli, including seeds

three cloves of garlic

an inch of fresh ginger, peeled

a teaspoon of mustard seeds

½ teaspoon of turmeric

4 cardamom pods, smashed a bit with the back of a knife

1 cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

¼ teaspoon chilli flakes (leave out if you don't like spicy food, it had quite a kick)

a tin of coconut milk

a packet of prawns (peeled)

a good few handfuls of spinach or some frozen spinach

a small cup of frozen peas

1. Make a rough paste by blitzing together your chilli, garlic and ginger in a hand blender with a tablespoon of water.

2. In the meantime heat some oil in a large pan, then add all the spices and fry for a couple of minutes. Keep a close eye on them, they're easy to burn!

3. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onion, fry for a minute or two before adding the chilli/garlic/ginger paste. Turn the heat down, and fry for ten minutes before adding the coconut milk. Simmer for five minutes before adding the peas and spinach.

4. Add the prawns towards the end, and give them a few minutes to heat through

Curry two: Chickpea and Peppers

Ingredients

an onion, sliced

a pepper sliced

a tin of chickpeas, drained

a clove of garlic and an inch of fresh ginger, peeled and blitzed together with a little water

½ teaspoon cumin powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

¼ teaspoon of turmeric

¼ teaspoon of dried chilli flakes

¼ teaspoon of garam masala

half a dozen cherry tomatoes, halved or one whole big tomato

1. Fry the sliced onion and pepper in a little oil for a few minutes in a medium – high heat then add the garlic and ginger paste

2. Add all the spices and fry off for a few minutes, before adding the tomatoes

3. After another few minutes add the chickpeas and half a can of water, then let it bubble away for 15 minutes, squashing a few of the chickpeas as you go along to thicken it up a bit.

Serve with some brown rice, some yoghurt or raita and naan bread if you've got some.

One for the hippies and veggies: Potato and Chickpea curry

It’s the weekend before payday, which means I’m putting off buying nice ingredients and I’m determined to use up whatever I’ve got in the fridge/cupboards. Thankfully, you can make a decent curry out of just about anything, and it’s perfect for using up veg.

So I had: a few potatoes, some green beans, half a pepper. Thankfully, we almost always have garlic and ginger in. A quick raid of the tin cupboard and the freezer and we’re sorted.

The first thing is the spices; we have a cupboard full of them (largely thanks to Joe going on a spice buying spree) but if you want to cheat, I won’t hold it against you. Every spice cupboard should have cumin, because it’s ace and brightens up a stir fry or a curry (or a boring lentil soup) no end. Every spice cupboard should also have a decent curry powder as a massive cheat, and some chilli flakes for times like this when you’ve run out of fresh chilli.

First toast some mustard seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds and the inside of a couple of cardamom pods until the mustard seeds started popping. Just put them in a dry pan over the heat for a bit. (skip this if you’re not doing the whole individual spice thing) Then grind them up in a pestle and mortar.

Fry a sliced onion in a little vegetable oil, then add the ground up spices along with some turmeric, ground coriander, garam masala, and more or less any other suitable curry-ish spices. 

Blitz up a couple of cloves of garlic, and a decent chunk of ginger in your mini-food processor and then add this and a good pinch of chilli flakes. 

Add your chopped potatoes and veg. Give it a good stir so that everything is coated in spices.

I’ve mentioned before my issues with the price of coconut milk, so this time I tried coconut cream, which came in a big block. It looks slightly odd at first, but it melts down pretty quickly. Add half a block, and your tin of chickpeas. Then top it up with hot water, it should be nearly covered, and allow it to bubble away to cook the potatoes.

Put on your rice, you’re nearly done. (I always have brown rice, as I prefer the taste, so it takes a while to cook)

As ever with cooking, taste it as you go along. It may need a touch of sugar if it’s too spicy and you want to calm it down, and I added plenty of salt and pepper.

I always have spinach in the freezer as it’s really handy, and I love spinach in a curry, so I added some of this towards the end of the cooking. Done and done! Healthy, tasty and, most importantly, really cheap.

This weeks soup: Turkish lentil. I had this in Istanbul, loved it so came home and worked out how to make it. It involves paprika, lemon juice, bulgur wheat (I'm a little obsessed with this at the moment) and mint. Cheap and very tasty.

Three curry feast

We were supposed to go out for a curry on Friday night to Arti’s, our local cheap, cheerful (and very tasty) curry house. Unfortunately, I’d been working overnight at the election on Thursday night, had very little sleep, and hit a wall. I ate a massive Chinese takeaway instead, then fell asleep.

We still wanted a curry though, so tonight was a home made curry night.  With this I work on the same basic principles as with a roast: you can make the meaty bit go a lot further if you have a couple of really good veggie dishes.

Joe’s input was needed for this one too. He got the Madhur Jaffrey Curry Easy book for Christmas, and has cooked two meals from it, both of which were absolutely amazing.  I’m not going to retype someone else’s recipe, but Joe’s side dish was South Indian Potato Curry, and it looked like this: (yum)

I made a lentil dahl.  First I toasted some cumin and coriander seeds and the insides of cardamom pods. Then crushed these in the pestle and mortar.  As I’m making two curries I did a couple of teaspoons of each.

I then fried some onion and plenty of garlic, and added half the spices back in, along with some turmeric. It'll go very yellow!

 Add some lentils and some water and let bubble till the lentils are nearly cooked. Then add a couple of tomatoes (from a tin is fine) and some green beans (I keep these in the freezer)

The lentil dahl takes about half an hour to cook, be careful it doesn’t dry out. Add some finely chopped fresh coriander at the end.

I also made chicken and spinach curry. First, brown off some chicken pieces. I prefer to use chicken on the bone, such as thighs and drumsticks, as they’re much tastier. Then put them to one side, and fry sliced onions with blitzed up garlic, ginger and chilli. Then add the remainder of the spices from earlier, and a good pinch of curry powder (bit of a cheat), some turmeric and some garam masala. 

(It is the easiest way to deal with chilli and garlic etc.)

Put the chicken back in, and give it a good stir around. Add the remainder of the tinned tomatoes that you used for the dahl.  I would normally at this point add coconut milk, but I got in a strop with my local supermarket yesterday for only having branded, organic coconut milk which cost more than £1.80 a tin.  Ridiculous, I know, but the non-branded stuff is less than a pound, and I needed a few of them! Instead I bought coconut cream, which is much cheaper.

Add some water (to cover) and let it bubble away. That’s just about done. Five minutes before serving, add at least half a bag of spinach, it’ll wilt quickly, then stir it in.

Just about done. Whilst that’s bubbling away get some rice on, and make some raita. This would normally be made with mint, but I’ve been growing fresh coriander and have a lot of it. Mix natural yoghurt with chopped coriander, chopped cucumber and salt and pepper. 

All done! This is going to last us a couple of nights. Presentation might leave a little to be desired... but it was ace.

I’ve made quite a few changes to the blog: let me know what you think of the redesign. I think everyone should be able to comment on the posts regardless of whether you’re signed up to google or not.

This weeks soup: Mushroom, made with the stock from last week’s chicken. I made some rosemary bread the other day when I was bored too, so going to have some tasty lunches at work this week!