Vegetable Curry

No matter how much you love to cook, there are times when you get to the end of the day and you just don’t want to make supper.  I love to cook—really, really love to cook—but, even so, there are days when preparing a complicated meal is more than I want to think about.

In the perfect world of my imagination, the nights when I don’t feel like cooking would be the nights when my husband whisks me off to a lovely restaurant or steps into the kitchen and cooks me a gourmet meal, sets a beautiful table, and then does all of the dishes. 

It’s good to have a dream, right?

In the real world, our budget allows for very few restaurant meals and when my husband steps into the kitchen I end up with so much clean up that it’s easier just to cook dinner myself.

I have two strategies for dealing with “don’t want to cook” nights:  I keep several easy-to-reheat meals on hand in the freezer, and I have a repertoire of very simple, very quick recipes.

One of those very quick recipes is my vegetable curry.  It’s so easy to make that I can’t even really justify calling it a recipe.  It’s just a method for throwing together what I have in the fridge and turning it into a simple meal, but the finished dish is very tasty.  

Curry paste is the secret to the dish.  Every grocer in our area stocks it in one form or another and, although it may seem a little pricey, a single jar will stretch over several meals.  We’re not big on heat in our dishes so I buy mild curry paste.  My favourite brand is Patak’s but there are lots of different brands, flavours, and temperatures to choose from. 

If you’re looking for something quick and simple to make this week, this might do the trick.

To make Vegetable Curry, you’ll need:

• 4 to 5 cups of vegetables.  I used cooked cauliflower and chick peas, raw onion, and grape tomatoes from the freezer.  I ended up adding some cooked green beans (not pictured) too.  The only essential on that list is the onion. 
• Cooking oil
• Curry paste
• 2 cups of vegetable stock, plus a little extra with which to make a slurry.  As you can see, my stock had quite a bit of tomato in it.
• Cornstarch

Sauté the onions in hot oil until they’re translucent.  Stir in a heaping Tablespoon of curry paste and cook it for a couple of minutes more.  

Pour in the stock and bring it to a boil.

While the stock is coming to a boil, make a slurry with a little cold stock and some cornstarch.  I use about two heaping teaspoonfuls of cornstarch in about half a cup of cold stock and stir it until the cornstarch is completely dissolved.

When the stock in the pot has come to a boil, stir in the slurry until the stock thickens to the consistency you prefer.  Stir in the cooked vegetables, adding as many or as little as you want.  Continue cooking just until the vegetables are heated through.

I serve the curry over basmati rice, or with naan bread or chapattis to blot up the extra sauce.

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This post is linked to Delicious Dish Tuesdays hosted by Coping with Frugality, Mama Chocolate, and Full Time Mama and to Gallery of Favorites hosted by 21st Century Housewife and Premeditated Leftovers.