Kicking off the Season with Curry

The 2023 Holiday season has officially begun. The turkey was carved, holiday wish lists exchanged (mostly), and Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping is complete! 

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Dan’s family again this year - 20 people, 1 house, lots of food. I did try a small piece of turkey - it was very good but not going to make my own anytime soon. We had roasted veggies, stuffing (2 kinds), mashed potatoes, squash, green beans, and of course pie; pumpkin, pecan, and apple. Good thing we took that 3-mile walk in the morning before the celebration. 

We put up the tree over the weekend and finally got around to decorating it last night. We compromised on a smaller tree this year - I would like an artificial tree and Dan likes a big real tree - so we have a small real tree. In theory, we are getting new windows - of the 10, eight have been installed but we are still waiting for the 2 largest windows from the factory so we’ll see. 

I’m working my way through the freezer and all of the goodies we harvested; okra, green beans, and tomatoes. Between the freezer and pantry well, let’s say we won’t go hungry. I was cleaning out the fridge and found a bag of carrots I had forgotten I had and I needed to make a quick dinner. I grabbed a can of chickpeas, an onion, some spices, and a couple handfuls of spinach and threw together a carrot & chickpea curry that was tasty if I do say so myself. 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 yellow onion

3 large garlic cloves (or 6 small garlic cloves)

1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger (about 3 tsp grated fresh ginger)

2 tsp coriander

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp smoked paprika

3/4 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup water

2 tbsp chopped cilantro

4 carrots

1 can chickpeas

2 handfuls of spinach

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Peel the onion, ginger, and garlic and chop them up as finely as possible.
2. Add oil to a large frying pan and set on the stove on medium heat.
3. Add finely chopped onion and let saute for about 5 minutes.
4. Peel and slice the carrots. Chop 2 Tbsp of cilantro and set both aside.  
5. When the onion has been sautéing for 5 minutes, add in the ginger and garlic and stir well. Let the onion, garlic, and ginger saute for another 5 minutes.
6. Add the carrots and chickpeas and stir well. Also, add in the coriander, turmeric, smoked paprika, coconut milk, water, and cilantro and stir to combine. Cover the pan, reduce the heat, and simmer for 8 minutes - the carrots should be tender at this point.
7. Add spinach and stir until wilted. 
8. Remove pan from heat and season with salt and pepper. Garnish with more cilantro and enjoy.

Serve the curry with rice, naan, or other bread; we had a spicy potato bolani that was a perfect compliment. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Japanese Simmered Lotus Root

Have you ever wandered through an Asian market and tried to figure out what all those things were -yep me too. For starters, I don’t speak Chinese, Japanese, or any other Asian language, which means I can’t really read the labels in the store either - sigh.

Some things are obvious - noodles (sometimes they even have an English word on the package), chips, bread, and for the most part mushrooms - that is of course provided you know the difference between a cremini and king oyster. 

We have a favorite Chinese restaurant not too far from our house. They make the BEST garlic eggplant and veggie potstickers. We tried a new dish; seafood and tofu hot pot a few months ago. The spices were perfect, the tofu and seafood fresh and the dish contained lotus root, which I don’t recall ever having before but I really liked it. 

Fast forward to a trip to the Asian grocery store and in the prepared foods, they had - you guessed it - lotus root. It was peeled, sliced, and vacuum-packed. I thought what the heck let’s try it. So, I brought it home put it in the fridge, and promptly forgot about it until last night.

Since I’ve never tried it before I had no idea what to do with it so I consulted my friend Pinterest and turns out there are many ways to prepare it. I wanted something easy so I settled on the recipe below. It’s a simple method with just a few ingredients and the end result was delicious - I’d definitely try it again. 

Thanks to Janet at The Taste Space for the recipe!

Ingredients:

2-2.5 cups lotus root, peeled and thinly sliced

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari

1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

dash of chili flakes, optional (shichimi togarashi is recommended)

Instructions:

1. Soak the lotus slices in cold water for 10 minutes and drain.

2. In a large saucepan over high heat, warm both oils. Once hot, add the lotus root slices and cook until they become soft. Stir in the mirin, soy sauce/tamari and reduce heat to low. Simmer until the marinade has almost disappeared. Remove from heat, sprinkle with sesame seeds and shichimi togarashi before serving.

Thanks for stopping by!