Veg Out With This Spicy Curry!

This is our one year landmark blog posting, and we are paying homage to that first meal with another Indian flavored dish. We learned the hard way (see first posting) that a spice grinder is a necessary tool for making your own spice combinations. The hum of the grinder is music to our ears!

This time around we were inspired by a friend’s vegetable curry recipe, which was posted on her Facebook page. We thank Verla for the recipe and allowing us to share it with all of you. We have included it below.

As usual we could not leave well enough alone and decided to roast the vegetables. (For all of you following the blog, you know how we love our roasted veggies.)

Due to Meg’s fascination with all things mechanical, we are using her new “Yonanas” machine for our frozen desert. For those of you who don’t watch QVC, the “Yonanas” machine makes a dessert out of frozen bananas and other fruit combinations. (We have since seen it at Target and Wal-Mart, so hopefully you can find one where you live.)   You can expect more frozen concoctions as we move into summer. (We have it on good authority that summer is coming.)

Chai "Yonanas" being made

Our Vegetable Curry


1 butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed, and cut into bite size pieces
1 large onion, cut into wedges
2 cups mushrooms, halved
5 medium red potatoes, cut into bite size pieces
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
1 package firm tofu, diced
1/2 c. golden raisins
2  tsp. curry (or to taste)
3 tsp. garam masala (or to taste)
2 tsp. fresh grated ginger
2 Tbsp. coconut oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. turmeric
1 can (14 oz.) lite coconut milk
2 cups chicken stock
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt & Pepper to taste

Toss all vegetables except mushrooms with olive oil. Spread on parchment lined cookie sheets, season with salt and pepper to taste and roast in 375 degree oven for approximately 40 minutes, stirring once during roasting.

Put coconut milk and chicken stock in pot, add roasted vegetables and spices and bring to low simmer.

Melt coconut oil in sauté pan and add cubed tofu, grated garlic, grated ginger and mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until tofu is slightly brown. Add to the pot with other vegetables.

Cover pot and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. (This is the amount of time you will need to cook the jasmine rice and steam the green beans.)

Vegetable Curry!

Curry and sides.Yum!

Apex Brut Reserve

Verla’s Butternut Squash Curry

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed, and cut into bite size pieces
1 large onion, diced
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
4 medium red potatoes, peeled and cut in bite size pieces
12 baby carrots cut into bite size pieces
1 package firm tofu, diced
1/2 c. currants or raisins
2-3 tsp. curry to taste
2 tsp. garam masala to taste
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. pepper
5 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 tsp. chicken boullion
1/2 tsp. tumeric
1 can (14 oz.) lite coconut milk
1/2 - 1 C. powdered milk

Put veggies in stock pot, add enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Add spices to taste. Add coconut milk and currants when curry is about 1/2 cooked. On medium-high heat boil for 40 minutes or so until squash, carrots, and potatoes are tender.

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

When you are cooking this meal you need to step outside (even the garage works) and come back in to appreciate the exotic aromas wafting through the house. It is intoxicating!

We love spice and by tasting as we cooked, we  adjusted the amounts to suit us. One of the advantages of making your own spice blends is that you can control the heat and other flavors.  Here's Meg's version of garam masala which we used in our recipe.

Meg’s Garam Masala

Heat the following in a dry skillet until toasted, about 4 minutes, then pulverize in a grinder:

2 T coriander seeds
2 T cardamom seeds
2 T black peppercorns
1 T cumin seeds
1 T brown mustard seeds
20 cloves (1 t)
1 stick cinnamon, crushed
1 arbol chile, without seeds and stem
1 t nutmeg
1 T star anise, crushed

Store, airtight, in a dark, cool location.  Use with abandon!

In Verla’s recipe she used vegetables she had on hand, and we feel this would work with a variety of vegetables. We chose to use the same selection and were pleased with how satisfying this meal was.
Our sides included jasmine rice and fresh green beans.

The Apex Brut was a wine we sampled at one of the Total Wine classes last year. It was $12.99 and went well with the curry. Our ten dollar limit on the wine price has been challenging, due to escalating prices, and we are giving ourselves some latitude this year.

A dry Riesling would also complement this meal very well. See our very first blog for a good Riesling.

Yonanas Chai Spice

Prep time: 2 minutes
Serves: 2

Ingredients:

2 frozen over-ripe bananas
1 t garam masala spice
2 t grated fresh ginger
ginger snap cookies for topping

Instructions:

Sprinkle garam masala spice over bananas.  Insert fozen bananas.  Stir in bowl to combine.  Sprinkle crumbled ginger snap cookies on top.

Chai Spice Yonanas

Cheese Please. . .

It is still brutally cold here, and we are still not happy about it. We have discovered however, that wine chills more quickly outside than in the refrigerator.  It is a stretch but you have to find those silver linings where you can.

Luckily, we found another meal to warm us up on the inside. Sue claims that she has never met a cheese she didn’t like; so we used three for good measure . . . fondue for you?

We went overboard selecting the prettiest and most colorful vegetables. Case in point, there were four different colors of cauliflower, but the purple begged to come home with Meg.  Instead of a salad we chose an array of raw vegetables, which is a great way to provide everyone with their favorites. The contrast with the warm gooey fondue was refreshing.

The colors of the rainbow.

The thing about fondue is that it can be as simple as bread and cheese or as lavish as you choose to make it. Really, a perfect party food or an intimate dinner for two. Paired with a great wine there is nothing better on a cold night!

To accompany the fondue. 

Cheese Please . . .

Meg and Sue’s Three Cheese Fondue
Total Time:   1 hour
Prep:  40 min 
Level:  Easy
Yield:  4 servings

Ingredients
8 ounces grated Fontina
8 ounces grated Gruyere
2 ounces crumbled American Blue Cheese
6 teaspoons cornstarch
 2 cups dry white wine (we used Vinho Verde)
Freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste
1 clove of garlic mashed
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme for garnish
Roasted small crimini and white mushrooms, steamed broccoli and cauliflower (purple) florets, small purple, white and red potatoes, grilled chicken sausages (your favorite), toasted 1 inch cubes of French and whole grain baguettes

Directions
Toss the Fontina, Gruyere, and blue cheese with the cornstarch in a medium bowl to coat.   Saute the sausages in olive oil until brown. Remove from pan, add the garlic clove and sauté on low for about a minute.  Pour the wine into the same saucepan and bring to a boil. Decrease the heat to medium.  Remove the garlic clove. With a wooden spoon, stir in the cheese mixture about a cup at a time.  Continue stirring until the cheese is completely melted and the fondue bubbles, about 5 minutes. We used an immersion blender to fully incorporate the blue cheese.  Season the fondue with salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer the cheese mixture to a fondue pot and sprinkle the fresh thyme on top.  Set the pot over a candle or a canned heat burner. Serve with bread and vegetables.

The Fondue dippers!

Dig in!

Tupungato from Argentina to go with the fondue.

Winter Coffee

Total Time:   10 min
Prep:  10 min 
Level:  Easy
Yield:  2 servings

Ingredients
4 shots espresso  (about 1 cup)
1/3  cup heavy cream plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream divided
1/2 cup Kahlua liqueur, divided
1 tsp powdered sugar
1 dash of vanilla
Cocoa powder, for sprinkling

Directions
Using an electric mixer, whip the cream, sugar and vanilla in a small bowl until hard peaks form. 
Add ¼ cup Kahlua and 1 tablespoon of cream to each glass and stir to combine. Pour espresso into glasses and top with whipped cream and dust with cocoa. Sit back and enjoy.

Winter warm up!

Our biased and unsolicited opinions:

We could blame this recipe on the weather but we really wanted cheese and we loved every single bite! We liked the edge that the blue cheese added to the mix.

We strongly recommend the raw vegetables to provide a fresh counterpoint to the fondue.

Although we used a white wine in the fondue, we wanted a red with the meal. We discussed a Zinfandel and a Rioja, but this Tupungato won out. It is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec and Merlot from Argentina. It was dry with rich flavors of blackberry and strawberry and complimented the meal very well. 

Our “Winter Coffee” is fuel for Sue’s twenty-mile-freezing-cold drive home. Meg thinks she is a sissy, but she willingly accommodated her nonetheless.  It’s good even if you don’t have to drive twenty miles in the freezing cold. Next time, we won’t add the cream to the liqueur, as it diluted the espresso. We might also add a touch of cinnamon or cayenne. See, we even change things up on ourselves.

Stay warm wherever you are and hope for an early spring. That’s what we are doing.