Lentil-Spinach-Curry with Naan Bread

I badly have to admit that I didn't have spending very much for my blog....... I had just so much going on and in the evening I was so tired after work, that all I wanted to do is relaxing, keeping the cookingpart pretty short. Mostly I prepared was just something so fast and unspecial - not really worth for posting.

Sometimes - as I'm just one person - the effort for great cooking special food is just too much. But I made myself a promise to post more - and I have to say preheat some of the posted dishes may not come with the very best picture, the Handycamera is sometimes just faster done, than preparing all the lights arranging around the plate, position the camera and so on and on... Hope you can imagine.

Anyway, now I have one week off from work -glad about that, I hardly needed vacation. AND to start my vacation this very delicious curry came out. 

The ingredients are pretty simple as most curries, but does it always be special to be good dish. ?? No

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Lentil-Spinach-Curry

Serves 4
35 min

Ingredients:
150 g onions
500 g carrots
2 tablespoons oil
3 Tl fruity curry powder,
200 g of yellow lentils
500 ml vegetable stock
200 g baby spinach leaves
1 Pk.Naan bread,or flatbread
1 organic lime
200 g of soy yogurt
Salt

Direction_

Halved onion, cut into 5 mm wide strips. Peel carrots and cut diagonally into 1 cm thick slices. Heat oil in a large pot, fry the onions on medium heat for 3min until soft.  Stir in carrots and sauté further 2 minutes.

First only stir under 2 tsp curry powder and then the lentils. Add the vegetable stock and 300 ml. water, and bring to the boil, cover and cook for 25 minutes at low heat.

Meanwhile, clean the spinach, then wash and spin dry. Freshen naan bread according to package directions. Stir spinach under the curry and coincide. Wash the lime hot, dry and peel finely rub 2 teaspoons. Mix the lime zest with the soy yogurt.

At the stir the remaining curry powder into the curry and season with salt. Serve with lime yogurt and naan bread.


VERY DELICIOUS! 

Baked Potatoes with spicy dhal

I got to say that I'm not a big lentil-lover. For a long time I only could eat them when cooked and pulsed to puree. But I guess it took me a while - with trying out many kind of variation to prepare them. And the more I try out the more I learn to like them. May sound strange but it's a kind of childhood rememberies. (It's kind of grandparents-stuff). 

A few weeks ago was taking pass the first indian market with indian foodcorners. I while looking for spices and whatever I saw, there was a odor in the air that catched my nose and I followed the smell. What I found was a truck who showed how to cook indian dishes and I was immediatly caught up. 

For a small price you could buy the dish and tried. It's taste was delicious, spicy, tasty everything. They served the spicy dhal over rise or over a jacket potato. 

For luck the had the spices they used standing around the dish and I wrote everything down, even the way they prepared the dish and I knew I'm going to try this dish once at home. 

And now came the time and the preparing was really easy and the odor that filled my kitchen was great (and as most times my whole appartement will smell a while after food, no matter how often I open the windows..) 

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Baked Potatoes with spicy dhal

Ingredients:
2 baking potatoes
1 tbsp. sunflower oil, or any other oil
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp. tumeric
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 garlic gloves, sliced
1 red chilli, deseeded and sliced
85 g red lentils
1 tomato, chopped
400 ml vegetable stock
210 g can chickpeas, drained
handfull chopped coriander

Optional: Chutney or lime pickle, to serve with

Direction:
Preheat oven up to 200C. Put the potatoes in the oven and bake for 1 hr until tender and the skin is crispy. You may wrap them in foil, as I did 

While they are baking, prepare the dhal. Heat oil in a pan and fry the spices till they pop and the flavours exvaporate. As soon as they start to crackle,  give in the onion, garlic and chilli, add a splash of water to stop the spices from burning. Cook for 5 mins until the onion softens.

Add the lentils, tomato and stock, then cover and cook for 10 mins. Add in the chickpeas, cover and cook for 10 mins more until the lentils are tender. Season to taste, stir in the coriander and spoon onto the jacket potatoes. Serve with chutney or lime pickle.

And enjoy a healthy and delicious meal. 

Coconut-Curry-Lentils with smoked Tofu

You can't imagine about my bad weekend I've been having. Well in fact it was the very loud noise coming from upstairs from the new renters moving in - and this over the weekend. Saturday evening I heard the noise till after midnight and I couldn't sleep. He finally left but came back at 07.25 to start again. I immediatly woke up and was pretty angry as all he could do, was letting falling something down right over my bedroom and continuited rumoring. I just screamed then after went out the door in the hall and just screamed for some quite to sleep at least a few hours. Well I was quite afterward but only till 10 a.m. and the walking up and down with furniture continued till 5 p.m. I really wondered if moving in on sundays is aloud. I really easy to handle with but this sunday morning was defentiv too much! From the old renter I never heard something and this was so easy living.

Hopefully this will not be going. I really want to enjoy my vacation.

Anyway. After a short breakfast and a few hours of officework, I defently needed some nerve-food to stain the loudness from outside and upstairs. Standing in the kitchen, with the cabinet open, my brain worked about an idea about what I should do.. Then I decided to do something simple and not much ahead working to do. Lentils with vegetable and Tofu, creating the taste came by cooking. That's how I cook when it had to be fast done.

But, back to how I cooked the dish. Most ingredients you will find in your closet so no special ingredients needed :)

Enjoy this dish! For myself it gave me my nerve-strenght back to fight the noise.

 

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Coconut-Curry-Lentils with smoked Tofu



4 Portions

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. Rapeoil

1 Onion, finely chopped

2 knob of garlic, pressed through

200 g Leek, cut into half and cut into 1 cm slices

200 g Carrots, cut into 1 cm sticks

200 g Celleriy, cut into 1 cm sticks

200 g green lentils

1 ½ Tbsp. little spice currypowder

½ - 1 tsp. Sambal Oelek

4 dl vegetable broth

2 ½ dl Cocosmilk

salt to taste

200g smoked Tofu

 

Direction:

Preheat oil in pan, add the onion and garlic and roast until translucent. Give in the vegetable and lentils and roast for about 3 min. Stirr in the curry and sambal oelek and roast. Pour in the vegetablebroth and lower the heat.

 

Let it cook covered at middle heat for about 20 min. Add the coconutmilk and finish it cooking open for about 20 min. Taste with salt.

 

Meanwhile cut the smoked Tofu into slices. Preheat a pan with some oil  and roast the tofu on both sides for about 2 min.

 

Take a bowl or a plate put the lentils on it and garnish with the roasted Tofu and enjoy your meal!

Vegan meat balls

After the last kinship meeting - which was great and a lot of fun - I'm up to make some faux meat balls. You can place them atop a pile of spaghetti or line them up in a hoagie roll, smother them with tomato sauce and your favorite vegan cheese and bake.

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"Meat" Ball

(vegan of course)

 

 

Makes 10 to 12 balls

 

Ingredients:

4 ounces tempeh

1/2 cup raw walnuts

1 tablespoon nutrional yeast

1 teaspoon minced fresh italian parsley

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1/4 cup diced yellow onion

1/2 teaspoon vegan Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 teaspoon low-sodium tamari or soy sauce

1 tablespoon water

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to lube the baking sheet and coat the balls

salt and pepper

 

Preperation:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Using a steamer basket, steam the tempeh for 25 min. to soften it. Then let it cool. In a food procesor, combine the walnuts, nutrional yeast, parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, garlic, onion, Worshestershire, tomato paste, tamari, water and oil, and process until you have a semi-moist meal.

 

In a bowl, crumble the steamed tempeh with your hands until there are no big chunks left. Then add the mixture from the food processor to the bowl, plus a pinch of salt and a grind of pepper, and mash it all togheter with your hands. You will now be able to form this mass into little balls. Make them just a bit smaller, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

 

Lube up a baking sheet with the oil, lay the balls on it, coat them with a little more oil, and bake for 30 min. The balls are now ready for consumption.

 

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Vegan Masoor Red Lentil Dahl with Chilli Peppers 

 

 

 

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes
I
ngredients:
4 cups red lentils
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 head of garlic, finely chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped
2 serrano peppers, finely chopped
2 Thai chili peppers, finely chopped
2 tablespoons turmeric
2 tablespoons Indian curry powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 cup pickle juice or juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon sea salt
1-1/2 (10 ounce) cans of Rotel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, finely chopped or grated
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
11 cups of water

Instructions:

1. In a 6 quart stock pot, add garlic, onion, celery, extra virgin olive oil, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Sauté over high heat 3 minutes and then add turmeric and curry powder and sauté 1 more minute.

2. Add water, red lentils, jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, Thai chili peppers, cumin, pickle juice, Rotel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies, ginger, black pepper, and the remaining 2 teaspoons of salt.

3. Bring to a boil and then simmer on medium heat for 35-40 minutes, Stirring occasionally to make sure it does not stick to the bottom of the pot.

4. Remove from heat and let stand for 5-10 minutes, then serve.

 

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