Curry Thing

I could live the rest of my life eating nothing but curry. I prefer Indian curries, but never make them because they require ingredients that I'm either not familiar with or am intimidated by. Most of the curries I make at home utilize one of those bottled pastes or powders and coconut milk. Knowing that I love curry so much, I don't know why I hadn't made it in such a long time. So when my son asked for curry last night, I eagerly obliged. Yesterday we picked up our bi-weekly produce box. I used the potatoes, carrots and lovely red onion from the box along with some curry flavor Small Planet tofu. Yum. I had leftovers for lunch today.I don't know what I had planned for dinner tonight, but when Ben asked for curry again, how could I say no? Again I looked for inspiration in the vegetable crisper. This time I found celery, carrots and onions. (What's that French term for the trinity of these three aromatics? I've watched enough cooking shows in my life to know that these ingredients mean something together, I just can't remember what it is.) I threw in the rest of the tofu, more coconut milk and this time added a little tahini and some garbanzo beans. Looks like I'll have leftovers for lunch again tomorrow. There really aren't any major flavor differences between these two (or four) meals, but I don't care. That's how much I love curry.

I served a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA a few years ago and I had to go to a few three or four-day training conferences where we stayed overnight in another city. They always had the meals catered and much to my surprise, always had vegan offerings. On one of these trips, the first veggie meal served was a delicious peanut butter curry that was subsequently used in each of the following meals for the duration of our stay - even as a topping for baked potatoes! After day two, everyone was complaining, but I was in heaven. Food at a catered event like that can be iffy, even if it is vegan. But I feasted on delicious curry for the better part of that week.