Easy Vegetable Coconut Curry

Want to know something that bothers me about British English?

I actually hate how they call ANY Indian dish a curry.

How inaccurate is that?

Curry is a spice.

A spice Indians don’t use in their cooking.

There you have it.

When Sebastian and I were in London, we went to an Indian borough to eat one night. As we walked down the street, the restaurant workers were calling to potential customers saying, “Hungry for a curry tonight?”

I wanted to stop in the middle of the street and have a ‘be true to yourself and your food-culture identity’ conversation, but alas, I didn’t.

We went in to a restaurant, ate the most bland ‘Indian’ meal of my life and then realized why these British Indians could call their food a curry.

It wasn’t really Indian at all. It was British-ized and appropriately called by another name, a curry.

Anyways, tonight I made a curry.

An unauthentic, super simple Indian-ish dish.

Surprisingly, it was good enough to share with you!

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

2 Tbsp. curry paste (I used korma)

About 2-3 lbs of whatever veggies you need to use up

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 can coconut milk

Fresh cilantro to garnish

Method

1. Prepare your veggies into bite sized pieces. Heat the oil in a large sauce pan and fry the onions and garlic for about 2 minutes. Add the curry paste and continue to fry for another minute.
2. Stir in the vegetables and fry for 2-3 minutes before adding the tomatoes and coconut milk. Stir well and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the vegetables are cooked. Garnish and serve with rice or naan.

I used 1 eggplant, 1 red pepper, 2 handfuls of green beans, 1/2 can of chickpeas and tons of mushrooms in my veggie mixture.

I can’t wait to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

What is your favorite Indian recipe?

Do you call it a curry, too?

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Turtle Brownies

Sometimes, concentrating through 8 hours of a boring lecture is too much, even for teachers.

Yesterday and today, the teachers at my school participated in a course on speaking and listening. Unfortunately, the presenter didn’t demonstrate many of the teaching practices she was encouraging us to do with out students.

We sat for 8 hours yesterday and 8 hours today flipping through a ridiculous amount of resource books without any practical application of the skills which we were meant to learn. I can tell you though, I’m now a wiz at using a table of contents!

After yesterday, I knew my colleagues were going to need a mid-afternoon pick-me-up during the session today. One day was enough of the madness… but two!?!?!

After finding a recipe for salted fudge brownies, the wheals in my head started to turn in the direction of turtle brownies.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the photos, it was already getting dark when I started baking last night.)

Ingredients

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

2 cups sugar

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

4 blocks soft caramel, chopped

1/4 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Method

1.Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a baking dish with foil, draping the foil over the edges. Lightly butter the foil.
2.In a small saucepan, melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate over very low heat, stirring occasionally. Whisk together the cocoa, sugar and flour. Make a well in the dry ingredients and scrape the chocolate mixture into the well. Whisk the ingredients together. Add the eggs and vanilla thoroughly incorporating.Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Sprinkle the salt, pecans and caramel evenly over the batter. Using a butter knife, swirl the toppings into the batter.
3.Bake the brownies in the center of the oven for about 35 minutes, until the edges are set but the center is still a bit soft. Let the brownies cool at room temperature in the pan. Lift the brownies from the pan and peel off the foil. Cut the brownies and serve.

Let me tell you, these are by no means healthy, but the taste is to die for!

Mom, please make these. I’m pretty sure I’ll be your favorite child if you do.

I wish I would have gotten a photo of the brownies all ready to serve. One of the ladies at the school did such a beautiful job of carefully slicing and arranging these super fudgy brownies.

After a mid-afternoon break and a sliver of these lovelies, my colleagues were able to pull through the last lap of the lecture.

Without this recipe, I’m almost certain we would have had casualties due to boredom. Thanks Jane Deere for planting the seeds of this recipe, the harvest was much appreciated.

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