Challenge recipe 19: Curried vegetables

Oh, hey. Y'all probably thought I'd forgotten about this, seeing as I haven't posted a challenge recipe since LAST YEAR. #uberfailcake

Anyway, for those of you who don't remember/weren't here back in the day, the challenge is to make two recipes from each of my cookbooks. At least one has to be savoury, and they have to be recipes I haven't made before. To check out the full list of recipes I've made so far, click here.

So. Now that I'm on uni break and have a bit more time, I'm determined to cross at least a few recipes off the list!

Here's the book:

And here's what you'll need:

Just go ahead and ignore that packet of beans at the front. I had every intention of using them, but there was insufficient room in the frying pan, so...yeah.

Start by slicing up your eggplant:

Then place it on a tray, and sprinkle it liberally with salt.

Put it to one side for half an hour while you chop up the rest of your vegetables:

Butternut pumpkin

Carrot

Red capsicum

Onion

Two potatoes

After half an hour, the salt will have drawn a lot of the moisture out of the eggplant, so you can rinse it off, dry it thoroughly, and chop it up too.

Heat up some vegetable oil in a frying pan (or, if you're actually following the recipe, a cast iron casserole dish. But my beloved Le Creuset is in a box in the depths of the garage. So an electric frying pan it was!). Once it's heated, add the onion along with two cloves of garlic, two teaspoons of curry paste, one teaspoon of mustard seeds, a cinnamon stick, a big chunk of ginger, and half a teaspoon of turmeric.

Stir it all up and cook for a few minutes, then add in three curry leaves (there's a third one there, I promise).

Cook for a couple more minutes, then dump in all the vegetables.

Stir them well to coat in the paste, then take a 400mL can of whole peeled tomatoes, blitz the crap out of them in a food processor, then add it into the pan and stir it all together.

Put the lid on, and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Add a can of coconut milk, put the lid back on, and simmer for another ten minutes:

Salt to taste, take out the curry leaves, the cinnamon stick, and the big lump of ginger (small problem: we couldn't find it. It's somewhere in the leftovers...) and serve with steamed rice:

Verdict: It was good. And it was really easy. But considering how many spices went into it, it wasn't all that flavourful. If I were to make it again, I'd probably use a medium or hot curry paste rather than the mild paste I used. Because really, 2 teaspoons isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things! I'd also probably use coconut cream instead of coconut milk for a stronger flavour. And I'd also fry the vegetables for 5 minutes or so before adding in the tomatoes. I think it would let them absorb more of the spices.

According to the recipe, you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, as long as it includes potato. So it's pretty adaptable!! And, depending on the contents of your curry paste, it's vegan (unless you dump a spoonful of plain yoghurt on the top, like my dad did...)!

Do you have a go-to curry recipe (one that doesn't involve a jar of sauce from the supermarket!)??

K xx

Lasagne time!

I don't make lasagne very often, because the way I make it uses my usual bolognaise sauce recipe cooked down for a couple of hours, so it's pretty time consuming, and this is accordingly going to be kind of a long post. But if you've got a Sunday at home with nothing to do, make this for dinner - it's pretty awesome, even if I do say so myself!! And even if you don't want to make lasagne, you can use the sauce recipe for spaghetti or penne or macaroni or whatever the hell you want! Here's what you'll need for the sauce (including the lasagne sheets):

Start by chopping the veggies roughly. I put them all through the food processor (it's the way Mum's always done it - an easy way to get a ton of veggies into fussy small children!), but if you don't have one/don't want to do that, just chop them smaller!

Stick the onion through the food processor:

Then brown it in a pan, and add the lean beef mince and a couple of spoonfuls of garlic:

Once all of that has cooked through, add some tomato paste:

And some ketchup (technically, you don't have to add ketchup. I just like it):

Then put the chopped carrot through the food processor and add it in:

Do the same with the zucchini:

And the capsicum:

Mix all the veggies through, then add in a tin of diced tomatoes:

Then add in a jar of ready-made spaghetti sauce - you know, the stuff that's just tomato and some herbs:

Add some water - I usually just put some water in the tin and the jar, swirl it around, and add it in, then add some salt and a ton of pepper:

Some Italian herbs:

And some cinnamon:

Then reduce the heat and let the whole thing simmer away on low for a couple of hours. You can see how much it's reduced. At this point, feel free to just cook some spaghetti or whatever, and cover it with sauce and cheese:

When you're ready to assemble the lasagne, whip up a batch of cheese sauce. Here's what you'll need:

Start by melting a chunk of butter (God, I'm so awesome with my measurements, aren't I!):

Once it's melted, add in some plain flour:

Mix it through, and add in some mustard powder:

Let it cook for a couple of minutes to allow the starch grains to burst, then add in some milk:

Eyeball the amount of milk so that it makes enough sauce to spread over the size of the baking dish you're planning on using. Stir it slowly until the milk is absorbed and the sauce is smooth.

Bring it to a boil and then add a handful of grated cheese (technically, you can leave the cheese out and just use white sauce. But I don't really like white sauce, so I add cheese into the mix!):

Mix it through until the cheese has melted. Once the sauce is done, you can start assembling the lasagne! Start with a layer of lasagne sheets (I use the ones that don't require precooking. Screw THAT for a joke!):

Then add a layer of bolognaise sauce:

And another layer of lasagne sheets:

And a second layer of bolognaise, along with a sprinkling of grated cheese:

Keep going until you run out of room in the dish - I had room for three layers of bolognaise and four layers of lasagne sheets. Then add the cheese sauce to the top:

Spread it across the top, and then cover the top in grated cheese:

Bake it for about an hour at 180 degrees. If it starts to get too brown, cover it with tin foil. I always test it with a skewer before I turn the oven off, just to make sure the noodles have cooked all the way through. Here's the finished product:

Sorry it's kind of a rubbish photo. I was on the phone to my mum and was wielding my SLR with one hand... And here it is ready for me to eat it:

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM. And because it's full of veggies, you don't have to bother with having salad on the side! It's pretty damned filling, so I don't usually have garlic bread with it, but feel free to go crazy. Similarly, you can put cheese between every layer if you want. And you can probably put cheese sauce between every layer if you want, too.

It's pretty versatile and pretty delicious, even if it does take a while to prepare!

Enjoy :)

K xx

Challenge recipe 9: Vegetarian paella

That's right kids - it's time for another challenge recipe! This time, it's vegetarian paella. Here's the book:

And here's what you'll need:

Start by pouring 2 cups of vegetable stock and 3 cups of water into a saucepan:

Heat until boiling. Meanwhile, dice an onion. It was meant to be a red onion, but I didn't register that part when I wrote down the ingredients:

Dice a red capsicum:

And two tomatoes, with the seeds and cores removed:

Add the veggies to a large frying pan, along with some olive oil and 2 crushed cloves of garlic:

Then add in 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric:

And 2 teaspoons of sweet smoked paprika:

Stir it all around and cook until the vegetables have softened. Then add in 1 3/4 cups of arborio rice:

Pour in the stock/water mixture and reheat until boiling:

Reduce to a simmer and leave it for 20 minutes or until the rice is ALMOST cooked through. Then sprinkle 1 cup of frozen peas and 100g of frozen baby beans over the top:

Cover the frying pan (and it's kind of helpful if it has a lid. Mine didn't, so I used tin foil...) and keep on the heat for another five minutes. Then remove it from the heat and let it rest for another five minutes before removing the tin foil/lid.

Stir it all together, and serve:

And, if you like that sort of thing, sprinkle sliced black olives and flat leaf parsley over the top.

The verdict? It's pretty damned good. It's got a *little* too much of the smoke flavour for my liking, so if I make it again, I'll probably decrease the amount of smoked paprika. But it's pretty quick and easy. Once you've chopped the veggies, you can pretty much just let it do its own thing, which definitely makes it my kind of meal! And it's really filling.

If I make it again, I'll probably mix up the veggies a bit. I'm not a huge fan of beans, so I might replace those with snow peas or something. And I might use cherry tomatoes to save on the scraping the guts out of the tomatoes part, which always frustrates me. If I do make these changes, I'll let you know how they go!

(Or, you know, you guys could do it or me and let me know how it goes??)

K xx