Chicken and kumara curry

Such a great Tuesday night dinner food, and pretty healthy. Read about why you may want to include more coconut in your diet, especially using coconut oil for cooking here.

But seriously, how comforting is a creamy curry in a bowl sound? This recipe is dairy-free, and would be vegan if you substitute chickpeas for the chicken, or vegetarian if you include some boiled eggs at the end of cooking instead of the chicken.

What's even better is the carbohydrate portion of this meal is low G.I. and included in the same pot so, less cleaning up!

Ingredients

1 large or 2 medium organic onions
2 cloves organic garlic
2 Tablespoons coconut oil
2-3 Tablespoons curry powder
2-3 Tablespoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons garam masala/cinnamon powder
750g chicken breasts, cubed
400g peeled kumara cut in 2-3cm chunks (potatoes or pumpkin is fine here)
400g can chopped tomatoes in juice (or 400g fresh tomatoes with skins removed with boiling water)
400g can coconut milk OR cream (I like Ayam because reasons)
1/2-1 cup homemade chicken stock (straight from the freezer is fine if you've frozen in cubes!)
200g green beans (spinach, silverbeet, whatever green vegetables you have in your fridge)
1 tsp salt (more to taste)

Preparation

Chop onion(s) and lightly brown in the oil in a fairly large cast-iron casserole or pot.
Add curry powder and cumin according to taste and cook uncovered, stirring often, until fragrant.
Add the coconut cream, tomatoes, and kumara (or potatoes or pumpkin), then cover and simmer until tender.
Add the chicken and stock and cook for 15 minutes.
Add the coarsely chopped green vegetables and simmer 5-10 minutes until cooked.
Add salt and adjust seasonings.
Test one piece of chicken is cooked by cutting into it and checking for pinkness. Cook longer if it's pink!
Serve in bowls, topped with plain yoghurt and chopped coriander/baby spinach leaves.

I like mine with poppadoms and maybe some cauliflower rice.

Chickpea and spinach curry

So I asked a few of my best Twitter friends (who are also my friends in real life, we're a bunch of internet geeks) which were my favourite foods they make I should blog about.

Chickpea curry is one of my favourite foods. It's hearty, healthy, makes your house smell like India... and I make it wrong. I have been to India. None of the curries I ate tasted anything like what I make. Then again, none of the curries I buy at the takeaway store down the road taste like the curries in India. The beautiful Indian men who cook them change them for our tastes. Less sulfuric black pepper, less mustard seeds, more cream and butter and richness and thickness. Anyway, I love my chickpea curry. I hope you do too.

Ingredient:

1 medium onion
2 tablespoons coconut oil or ghee

1 teaspoon garlic
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon ground tumeric

3 teaspoons ground cumin

1 standard can diced tomatoes
1 standard can OR 300 g chickpeas
200g spinach (fresh or frozen, baby or adult)

Directions:

1. Chop the onion very finely while the oil heats in a large pan. Or make some ghee. It's really easy and so so delicious. Also very good for you!

2. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is translucent.

3 .Stir in the curry powder and garam masala, ginger and cumin. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, for one to two minutes longer.
4. Add the canned tomatoes, and chickpeas, simmer (with some fresh stock if you have some around) until the curry is almost the consistency you like.
5. Add the spinach, cook until soft.

6. Serve with quinoa, brown rice, or cauliflower rice. 

Flickr|blackbiscuits

Freeze any leftovers in meal-sized containers for a very quick and delicious work lunch (or a dinner when you run out of food in your house, although maybe you're more organised than me and that doesn't happen to you...)

Oh and if you want to be REALLY fancy a decent butter chickpeas recipe can be found HERE