Leaning Vegetarian

Posts Tagged ‘curry’

Now, the first hints of changing maples on my commute are lovely, and the light chill in the morning while the dogs nose around in the damp goldenrod and poke is refreshing, but I gotta say that I hate that it’s dark by the time I get home from work.

On the other hand, longer dark and cooler temperatures mean more baking, soups, and richer dishes, so I look forward to that.

This curry is very quick to fix and works well for the ‘oh, I need to use up those vegetables’ days. I’m still working on approximating Cha Da Thai’s most excellent curries – this is close but I still have a way to go until I figure out how they get so much flavor in their green and panang curries.

Ingredients

3/4 – 1 cup Tempeh
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4″ piece of ginger, chopped
1 green onion, sliced
1/2 to 1 cup vegetables of your choice (here we’ve got kale and green peppers chopped finely; eggplant is great, zucchini, bamboo shoots, carrots, whatever you have)
~1 tsp. green curry paste (this is Mae Ploy; I’ve used Thai Kitchen to good effect as well, though to my taste it’s hotter)
1/2 cup vegetable broth
4-5 tablespoons coconut milk
1 scant tsp brown sugar
salt to taste
couple tsp oil

Add the oil to a hot saucepan over medium heat and stir in the curry paste. Add the garlic, ginger, green onions, tempeh, and vegetables (if you’re using carrots or something sturdy, add that first).

Saute until the vegetables are just tender, and add the broth, coconut milk, and brown sugar. Add salt to your taste. I like this over rice.

Lentils are fabulously quick, so this was another pick for brown bagging.  These are plain green lentils, though red lentils would substitute just fine.

To start, rinse the lentils a few times and pick through to make sure there aren’t any rocks. I use the very scientific measurement of a cup of lentils and then water up to the first knuckle on my index finger.

Bring them to a boil:

When they reach a good boil, cover the pot, turn down the heat to very low, and simmer them until they absorb the water and are soft to the bite.

At this point, I let it cool a bit and then put half in the freezer and half in the refrigerator.

To make the curried lentils, we’ll need the lentils (that’s half of the one cup dry we started with) and

1/2 a small onion chopped
chopped ginger to taste (this is about a tablespoonful)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
carrots, chopped  (these tiny ones are from the carrot patch we should have thinned last month)
2-3 tablespoons coconut milk (We had some leftover coconut milk in the freezer – it keeps quite well this way if you don’t use all of a can.)
1 teaspoon green curry paste (ok, here, a generous knifetipful)

Saute the onions and carrots til the onions are a bit transparent, then add the garlic, curry paste, and ginger, and then the rest of the ingredients to the saucepan.

Bring this to a boil, and it’s ready to eat.