mixed vegetable and lentil curry

After several weeks of eating at a lot of restaurants, I'm trying to do a similar thing to Jess, and eat mostly at home for the next little while.

I started before Danni's parents even left, kneading the pizza dough as they loitered waiting for Danni to take them to the airport. But you have seen my standard pizzas before, so I don't really need to blog them!

Tuesday I slacked off, and we had scrambled tofu for dinner (but I made it!).

Wednesday I had the day off work, so I spent the afternoon experimenting with kaya, and then decided to cook a curry before I hurried out the door to my class. We have a lot of chillis growing on our balcony (it's awesome!), and the weather is growing colder, so I'm starting to cook a lot more curries.



mixed vegetable and lentil curry

This is sort of based on the Sindhi vegetable and lentil curry in The Asian Vegan Kitchen (pg 23). I took the basic idea and then modified it to suit what I had and what I wanted.

ingredients
half cup yellow lentils
half cup red lentils
1 teaspoon ground cumin
half teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 clove garlic
a little bit of ginger
3 fresh red chillis from my garden! (these were quite hot)
1 brown onion (diced)
4 tomatoes (diced)
2 potatoes (peeled, washed and diced roughly)
1 carrot (peeled and diced)
quarter head of cauliflower (wash well! then chop into small florets)
1 bushell spinach (wash super well, and roughly shred)
2 cups water
2 cups stock


method
Rinse the lentils, then soak in a little hot water. Saute the onion (in some oil) with the cumin, turmeric, cayenne pepper and ground coriander, then add the ginger and garlic (both minced), as well as the chillis. Chillis should have been chopped, with their seeds.

After the onion starts to soften, drain the lentils and add them, as well as the tomatoes, potatoes, carrot, cauliflower and spinach, preferably in that order. I like to let the tomatoes, potatoes and carrot cook for a couple of minutes before I add the cauliflower and spinach, but you may not!

Add the stock and the water, and mix, then leave to simmer on medium to low, covered, for about 25 - 30 minutes.

This is a tiny bit spicy! Also very liquidy, perfect for rice and roti.