Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes

Potatoes are the food for students and those with smaller budgets and everyone in between. They are pretty much almost always cheap (I picked up a 2kg bag of organic potatoes from Woollies for $2) particularly if you buy the unwashed ones. I usually prefer to buy potatoes with red or purple skin because of added health benefits compared to regular white potatoes which are a little bit more expensive but sometimes you can find them at a good price (my local fruit shop had purple skinned potatoes for $2.99/kg for weeks so that's what I was buying). Sweet potatoes are also excellent and often cheap - I just picked up one sweet potato that was as big as my head for 59c/kg. Potatoes won't make you fat, by the way. Silly myth.

Want to know a really easy cheap meal to make showcasing potatoes? Curry. Pretty much any kind of curry can have potatoes in it. This one is the Potato and Pea curry from Easy Vegan Cooking by Leah Leneman. All it is is potaotes (duh), frozen peas, onion, garlic, ginger, carrot, coconut milk and garam masala powder. We didn't have to go to the shops to buy anything for this meal (which made 4 large servings) because all the ingredients are basics that I always have. If you don't have garam masala just use curry powder. Or throw in some random Indian spices like coriander, cumin and chilli.

I need to buy a couple of plain white plates I think. Photographing yellow food isn't all that fun when it's on a yellow plate. Under yellow light.

Some Food We Ate This Week

I love food. I love thinking about food making food and eating food. I love having enough of a variety of stuff in my 'pantry' that I can come home and just throw some ingredients in a pot and call it a nutritional meal:

This is a pantry curry-like meal, it was so quick to make, neither of us knew what we felt like and this sort of thing is usually what I make in that sort of situation. Bonus points for having tins of tomatoes in the pantry and not having to go to the shops! I don't measure anything for this type of throw together but here are the ingredients: about 1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas, 1 400g tin crushed or chopped tomatoes, most of a medium sized cauliflower, onion, carrot, the end of a bag of mung bean sprouts, spring onions, about half a block of soft tofu I found lurking in the fridge (it disintegrated), and a fair chunk of garam masala powder and some dried chilli flakes. I think I served it on brown rice. No garlic left, decided I didn't care. Oh, I also grated some fresh ginger in the last few minutes of cooking because ginger makes everything better.

Terrible photo, I was in a rush to eat it.

This meal I planned! All day at work I'd been thinking about how I haven't had eggplant for a while, so by the end of the day I wanted it pretty bad. I also felt like lentils for the same reason - they are so quick to cook and are delicious, why then don't I use them more often? So I picked up my copy of Appetite for Reduction and found Lentil & Eggplant Chilli Mole on page 242. Mmm cocoa powder in a non-sweet dish. It always freakes me out a little, I mean, it sounds gross. It really does. But I have made a mole before (I'm sure I would have posted about it, it being so weird to me and all but I can't find it), decided I like chocolate spicy things and this one had both eggplant AND lentils in it so it was a winner. I served it with the suggested Corn and Scallion Corn Bread from page 244 of the same book and it was delicious. I love corn bread. I should also make THAT more often! 

The supermarket didn't have any of the big eggplants left so I had to buy a kilo of the little lebanese ones. I swear there was like a hundred of them. Cutting up one big one is sooo much easier than slicing a million little ones. They were the same price though, so it was okay. I thought it wasn't all going to fit but it cooks down quite nicely. One thing I find confusing about US recipes - the amount of chilli powder called for. Often it'll say a few tbsp of the stuff! (I just read this recipe again and it specifies mild, there's my answer.) Australian chilli powder (I just buy the stuff from the fruit shop) must be like a bazillion times hotter than American, a tsp or two is usually plenty, and I like spicy heat.

Onto a breakfast! I can't remember when exactly I made this, probably Sunday. For a plethora of deliciously interesting pancake recipes, go to Chocolate Covered Katie's blog. These are the Apple Pie pancakes, but Nadine had stolen my apple I had my sights on so I used a grated pear instead. Just as delicious I am sure! I made the Vanilla Ice Milk too, sort of - I should have frozen it the night before but I didn't, so I was lazy and had semi frozen blended almond milk on top of my pancakes. The semi frozen almond milk was freakin delicious by the way - almond milk is probably going to be my ice cream milk of choice when I finally buy my ice cream maker. I have no patience for the freezing and stirring business.

I'm so glad I love to cook. I have no idea what else I'd be doing with my spare time!

A little bit of a foodie update...

So I was craving dessert this week. I even bought ice cream.

I made an apple and pear tart/pie. I cooked up two medium apple and one medium pear (it was a different pear - got it from the farmer's market. Can't remember what it was called but it looked like an apple but pear shaped. It's skin was thick but cooked well) with some cinnamon, and put in my tart pan with a basic wholemeal pastry base. As you can see I went all out and made a proper lattice top! Pretty sure I did it the hard way. Is there an easy way?

It went perfectly with vanilla So Good ice cream and a bit of lindt 85% dark chocolate. I ate most of the rest cold for morning tea at work during the rest of the week.

Nadine hasn't been working much so she's been queen of the kitchen lately! This is a spinach and potato curry from appetite for reduction. Delicious. It is so fun to eat quinoa!

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Nadine has cooked a delicious looking dinner for me tonight! We are celebrating our third anniversary with Dvd's, a yummy dinner, and tomorrow we will spend the day bush walking and...car shopping. Guh!

A day of cooking

I couldn't go to work again today because my car is yes, still broken. And unfortunately my previous assessment of it not costing too much has changed.

So today I decided to cook up food for the week! Mostly as a way to relax, and also to try and make some food without buying anything. It worked :) I even cleaned my oven, organised the crockery cupboard and did all the dishes!

The above picture is tomorrow nights dinner and Friday's lunch. I was inspired to make it after seeing this recipe for Sweet Potato and Black Bean Salad on Oh She Glows. I changed it up a bit to suit what I had, and I sort of mated it with another salad on her blog.

I roasted together 1 diced small sweet potato, 1 large onion and a whole thing of garlic for about 1/2 an hour. I defrosted two can's worth of black beans that I cooked up last week. Meanwhile I was cooking 1 cup of dry wheat berries in 3 cups of water (this took about 40 mins). When it was all done I put the sweet potato, onion, black beans and wheat in a bowl and squeezed out the garlic cloves and mixed it together well.

It's really delicious just like that without any spices or dressing, but I might go with some lime juice tomorrow, and maybe some fresh herbs. I have all sorts in the garden right now. Wheat berries are awesome, by the way. I've never used them before, but now I may never cook rice again! Nah, kidding since rice doesn't take as long! But they are chewy and sort of pop in your mouth. And taste really really good.

I made up some whole wheat pastry on Monday, intending to make these little pies that afternoon but got distracted, so they had to wait until today. Last week I made a large pie with the same filling (red lentils, mushroom gravy, broad beans, peas, tofu) and I made too much filling so I froze it to use for little ones. I think these ones are better than my original 'family' pie! Maybe it's the pastry/filling ratio. I made 6, had two for lunch and froze the other 4 to have as emergency lunches in case I forget to make enough dinner for leftovers.

At the same time I made dinner for tonight and lunch for tomorrow! It's essentially a chana masala type dish. I threw together in my awesome red frypan rescued from mum's house: 1 sliced onion, 4 cloves garlic, 3cm ginger, 1 can's worth of frozen chickpeas, 1 pkt frozen tofu, 1 small carrot, 2 tbsp tomato paste, 400g can crushed tomatoes, 1 tbsp garam masala, 2 tsp coriander seed ground, 1 tsp chilli powder and black pepper.

And so now I'll be doing the dishes I made by cooking while waiting for the mechanic to tell me my stupid car is ready to be picked up.

On the upside, all I have to do all week now is turn on the microwave.

Carribean Curry - Black eyed peas and sweet potato

I have been so broke this week because I spent all my money on Christmas presents (I got in early this year) and a few...quite a lot rather, new things for me! I shouldn't be allowed to spend money. But I now have enough vintage dresses to last me my whole life! Almost.

Anyway very very cheap meals have been on the menu. I don't really ever make expensive meals, this IS a cheap food blog for students such as myself after all, but you really can't get any cheaper than lentils and rice.  Last night I made a dal type thing which was quite yummy, though looked like vomit so I won't post the picture. Only thing is I keep forgetting to put carrot in my cooking, which is annoying because I have almost 2kg in the fridge going soft. I might just make a carrot cake.

Tonight I made this Carribean Curry with black eyed peas and plaintains from Post Punk Kitchen.

Black eyed peas are pretty much my new favourite legume. I don't know what a plaintain is, and I've never seen one so I used sweet potato which I think was suggested as an option. Though if I do see one I'll probably buy it - it does look rather intriguing.

Anyway! This recipe was pretty damn good - fluro yellow, from the curry powder I bought - but very delicious.

:)

Macaroni Cheese, Tamale pie, red curry

Recipe from FatFreeVegan kitchen blog. I have tried other nutritional yeast based 'cheese' sauces and been dissapointed. This one, however, was exactly what I wanted :) I added some mushrooms, used fresh onion and garlic, and added some thin slices of vegan sausage. I also baked it in the oven, because that's what grandad used to do. I could eat this all day.

Tamale pie from Easy Vegan Cooking by Leah Leneman. We will be making this if ever we have company :) it's really delicious and easy to eat. Basically your favourite bean chilli recipe in a polenta pie. Mmm polenta. 

I made a thai red curry from the Organically me blog. I made twice the amount so we could have leftovers, used cauliflower instead of eggplant because that's what I had in the fridge. Adding the lime juice and zest was really different (I don't normally do that) and overall it was a very delicious and cheap to make. I had tofu in the freezer so I used that - I've never used it frozen before and the experience was quite odd - in a good way. It was kind of spongy and chewy.

I made a split pea and cauliflower soup for tea tonight but I forgot to take a picture :( It kind of looked like vomit anyway! But tasty :) I've never cooked split peas before.

Riding a bike is terrifying on the road. I took it for a practise run today. Just got to remember to look beore going around parked cars! My bum bones hurt (it has been years since I rode a bike properly! I did a day bike tour in Europe last year but that was different :P) but I'll get used to it. There isn't much suspension in a bike from yesteryear :D

Masaman curry

I made this last week to have before we went out with a friend to the little bar up the road, where we drank entirely too much wine (and thus spent entirely too much money on food the next few days - I just found a reciept from Mrs Flannery's and on it is $9 worth of vege chips! I obviously can't read price tickets when I am hung over.)

Anyway it's totally delicious and quite mild compared to other curries I make. My mum makes a killer version of this (but with chicken so I don't eat it any more). I think she may even use the same brand of curry paste as I do. The only thing that would have made this better is chopped peanuts or cashew nuts. However since I spent hideous amounts of money this week I'll have to go without nuts for a few more. Haha.

Emma’s version of masaman curry
Serves about 8

Ingredients:

1 med onion, sliced
1 long red chilli, sliced
½ a green, red or yellow capsicum, sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 med-large eggplant, cubed
1 med carrot, diced
about ¼ head of brocolli, chopped
about ¼ head of cauliflower, chopped
1 med zucchini, diced
handful white button mushrooms, diced
1 can chickpeas, drained
1 can baby corn, drained
tin masaman curry paste
1 400mL can lite coconut milk
1 400mL can lite coconut cream
Cooked rice

Method:

1. Have all vegetables chopped and ready in the beginning. It’s easier!

2. Lightly fry onion, capsicum, chilli and garlic until slightly softened. I use a little bit of water usually but you can use oil if you like.

3. Add eggplant. A few minutes later add tin of curry paste. Stir to combine.

4. Let cook for a few minutes (don’t burn it) and then add can of coconut cream, stir.

5. Add in can chickpeas and tin corn.

6. After 5-10 minutes add in the rest of the chopped vegetables minus the zucchini and mushroom. Add the can of coconut milk here. Stir it, and then let it simmer (I usually put my rice on about now). When the rice is almost ready (about 20 minutes later) stir in the zucchini and mushroom. Leave this to simmer until rice is cooked.

7. Serve curry on top of rice and enjoy!

This can of course be frozen, you can add or subtract any vegetables you like. I think a traditional masaman curry uses potato. I only have sweet potato so I opted against it. This is by far not a traditional masaman. When I make curry I like to use as many different coloured vegetables as possible. I also usually put tofu in it but we had omnivorous company for tea and I don’t know how they feel about the magical little white blocks!

I bought some thai red rice a few weeks ago at a Chinatown supermarket. Apparently it has the same sort of nutritional value as brown rice. It tastes similar but has more of a bite to it. I cook it in the same way as I cook brown rice (one part rice, two parts water - bring to boil turn down and simmer for 30 mins) but red rice is supposed to take only 15 minutes. I reckon it takes more like 20. It's nice - but I don't think I'll go out of my way to buy it again. I prefer the brown rice tetxture :) Next type of rice I'll buy from there will be the black/wild rice. There's a black rice pudding I want to make.

We will be eating this curry for days :)

Kofta curry

I am slowly working through my mound of potatoes. I happened across this recipe for potato and spinach kofta balls and thought they sounded delicious (on FatFreeVegan Kitchen) but thought we really haven't been eating much rice lately so I made an Indian Kofta Curry sauce to pour over the balls instead of the yoghurt sauce as described in the recipe. Kofta curry is one of our favourites to order when we are at Indian or Himalayan restaurants :)

So I made the potato spinach kofta, and let it cook while I had the rice on and started the following sauce:

Ingredients:

2 onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
1 tbsp ginger, chopped or grated
1 tsp ground tumeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chilli powder
400g can of crushed tomatoes

Method:

Fry onions, garlic and ginger in a little bit of oil or water until soft. Add tumeric, garam masala and chilli powder. Stir and cook for a minute - don't burn! Add in the can of tomatoes and a little bit of water to make it go further. Simmer on very low heat until everything else is ready :)

Serve on top of potato spinach balls on top of brown rice.

The balls worked perfectly, the texture was just right - crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. The sauce was quite spicy (use less chilli powder to change that) but definately edible, it certainly cleared out our sinuses though.

This recipe is definately a keeper :)