Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mmmmm...Curry

The vegetables of the previous post turned into the curry above on Sunday night and have provided me with scrumptious lunches for the last two days as well. Since it was a recipe of my own invention, I'm putting it here before I forget what I did and I spend the rest of my life kicking myself for losing it. (Yes, it really was that delicious to me.) I'm pretty sure we broke some sort of rule using garam masala and curry powder but it was good anyway. It was lacking something toward the end and somehow the garam masala was just what it needed.

Mixed Vegetable Curry
olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 t. onion powder
1 1/2 T. curry powder
2 t. garam masala
1 T. salt (or to taste)
1 large eggplant, cubed
1 large yellow crookneck squash, cubed
1 head cauliflower (8 oz.), cut into bite-sized pieces
green beans, handful cut into pieces
3 ears of corn, corn cut from the cob
3 large tomatoes (I had Cherokee Purple), diced

Heat the oil in a large flat pan, add the garlic and saute until fragrant. Add onion powder and half of the curry powder. Saute the eggplant and squash until they start getting tender (5 minutes?). Add the cauliflower and beans. After another couple of minutes add the corn and, finally, the tomatoes. Add the rest of the curry powder and the garam masala now. Cover and let the whole thing simmer, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour. Everything all blends together. If it's too watery (probably depends on the nature of the tomatoes, mine were quite meaty), simmer to desired consistency, uncovered. Serve over jasmine rice.

It's been fun having leftovers from a dinner made from garden produce, broccoli from our garden, and homemade yogurt with frozen local strawberries mixed in for lunches. A whole new delight comes with eating food you grew yourself (and I like food an awful lot to begin with).

Q and I harvested plums tonight. This is just under twenty pounds. There are a few more pounds on the tree that we'll take tomorrow night. It was getting dark. I'm going to can tomorrow night. Thankfully, plums are easy. I think they're going to replace pears in the desired canning list for the season. Q said he'd be just as happy with them in his lunches. A couple more boxes of peaches this weekend, some apples into applesauce in a couple more weeks and canning will be done for the season. The small batch tomato processing continues with 3 lbs. I harvested tonight on the stove simmering into sauce right now. The last batch ended up as 12 oz. of paste in the freezer. There seems to be an almost endless supply gradually ripening out there.

Another huge batch of turnips really should be picked to let light in to the parsnips planted among them. One of the cabbage varieties is basically ready so cabbage burger filling needs to be frozen and sauerkraut needs to be made. The eggplant has about 6 that will be maturing within a couple of weeks. There are 3 orange pumpkins, 2 big still green ones, and at least one smaller green one on the vine. I just measured the banana pink jumbo and it is 16" long!

No comments: