Curry Night

Into 2nd week of our vegetarian challenge, my husband felt a bit defeated by the idea of meat-free diet.  To provoke his taste buds and encourage both of us to carry on, I prepared curry for the night. Yes, curry - but no meat, all vegetables!

Mix Vegetable Curry with Fried Rice (Serves 4)

Ingredients

Fried rice:
3-4 bowls of rice (that's about 2 cups of rice, cook the night before and keep in fridge)
80g baby spinach 
1 spring onion, chopped
2 tbsp vegetable oil
salt & pepper for seasoning

Vegetable:
1 red bell pepper, sliced
50g snap peas
1 cauliflower, chopped
1 brocoli, chopped

Curry sauce:
2 potatoes, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 tbsp mild madras curry powder
1 garlic gloves, chopped
1 red chilli
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cup vegetable stock
salt and pepper for seasoning

For serving:
2 fried egg, sunny side up

Prepare the fried rice:

In a wok, heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil, pan fry the spinach until halfway cooked, put in rice and spring onion, and stir fry together until steaming hot, season with salt and pepper .  Put in a oven safe pot, set aside.

Prepare the vegetable:

Put cauliflower and brocoli in a pot of boiling water, simmer for 8 minutes and rinse.

Layout all the rinsed and chopped vegetables on top of the fried rice, set aside.

Prepare the curry sauce:

Heat 2 tbsp vegetable in a wok, fry the garlic, red chilli until they are fragrant, put in potato, carrot and onion.  Pour in the 2 cup vegetable stock and chilli powder, stir well.  Cover the wok and reduce to medium heat.  Cook until the potato and carrot are soft.  Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper accordingly.

Preheat oven to 100C

When the sauce is ready, pour on top of the vegetable + rice in the pot.   Cover and bake for 20 minutes.

Pan fry 2 eggs to be served on top of the dish.

I think the runny egg yolk is part of the magic - when it is mixed with the curry sauce and the fried rice, it is to die for!

Vegetarian week!

If you have been reading my previous posts, it would be easy for you to understand why my husband and I are giving ourselves a vegetarian week (turned out to be 2 weeks in a row).

Meat is tasty, but every once in a while, having vegetarian meals feels like a breath of fresh air.  I don't know if our take on vegetarian meals are healthy enough, but at least our minds felt detoxed!

Let's not put an equal sign between vegetarian food and dull, there are one too many ways to make veggie tastes great - well, I am not a great cook but I do hope sharing my recipes will excite your taste buds.

Here is the 2nd recipe of my 'cook whatever in the fridge' series.

Tofu Steak Pasta (serves 2)

150g pasta of your choice (I used whole wheat fusilli in below)

50g snap peas

1 red pepper, chopped

6 thick slices of tofu (about 100g)

1 avocado, sliced

a handful of pine nut

1 large egg

salt and black pepper for seasoning

2 tbsp olive oil 

pesto sauce (optional)

Bring a pan of water to boil, pour in the fusilli and simmer for 12 mins and season with 1 tbsp salt, drain and drizzle with 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil, set aside.

In a small pan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil and sprinkle with salt on the tofu and fry both sides until golden brown, set aside.

In a separate pan, toast the pine nuts until they turn slightly brown and fragrant.

Beat the egg and fry it flat on the pan, so it becomes a very thin piece, remove it onto a chopping board, fold it twice and carefully slice it into egg strips. 

For the snap peas, slightly fry them on the pan for 1 min, they taste better when they are crispy.

Place the fusilli in a bowl, add salt and pepper to season, mix well (you may use pesto sauce if preferred), place all the prepared ingredients on top and lastly the egg strips.  There you go, a bowl of yummy tofu steak pasta!

I am a huge fan of tofu, so I really enjoyed biting into the thick slice! yum!

Lazy Pasta

While waiting for a cake to be ready in the oven, I use the time to dig out some old photos from the past 3 weeks and came across this random lunch I made the other day.

Is one of those days you want to have some warm food but too lazy to go to a supermarket - here we go, to the first of many more recipes for 'cook whatever in the fridge' series.

Simple spaghetti with tomato and snap peas

Ingredients (serves 1)

100g spaghetti 
50g snap peas
1 tomato, chopped
1 small slice of mozzarella cheese
1 garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp pesto sauce
salt and pepper for seasoning

Cook spaghetti in boiling water, add a pinch of salt, simmer for about 8 minutes (or 12 minutes if prefer a softer taste). Drain and set aside.

In a pan, heat 1 tbsp of olive oil, put garlic in and cook until slightly turn colour.  Put the tomato in, pan fry until it turns soft and add in snap pea continue to cook for 2 mins.

Add in spaghetti and stir in pesto sauce, mix well all ingredients, season with salt.  

Once the spaghetti is mixed evenly with the sauce and vegetables, serve on a nice round plate and put sliced mozzarella cheese on top.  Sprinkle a handful of black pepper on top for taste and garnish with basil leave if preferred.

This dish is too simple - only took 15mins max to prepare.