You are what you eat, and that makes you a big delicious curry.
Below are three of my go-to meals that are quick to make, nutrient dense, wont break the bank and freeze well. Ticking all the boxes says you! I’m always on the lookout for more box tickers so if you’re holding on to one, do please share it! You can get me at heywhatsup@smallchange.ie
Black Olive Tapenade
Adapted from a recipe in one of Rita Serano’s amazing books, this is an incredibly easy crowd please. I’d highly recommend both of Rita’s books, Vegan in 7 (kindly gifted to me by Fran Frank Frankie) and Vegan for Good.
This one is stupidly quick and stupidly delicious. You do need a food processor or a blender though, but if I can fit one in my tiny house surely there’s room for one of those in your life too.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
80g Sun-dried Tomatoes (or thereabouts)
1 jar of black olives (drained and rinsed)
Cúpla cloves of garlic (2 - 6 depending on how much of a freak you are for garlic + how good your garlic is)
Salt to taste
40g Green leaf of your choice. Rocket, spinach, kale - you do you. Cavolo Nero (black Kale) is 10/10 and it grows very happily in the Irish climate.
You can skip the greens if you like, they’re not mission critical here, but.. Eat your greens etc.!
Method
Cook your pasta of choice.
While the pasta is cooking, bang all of the ingredients (except the pasta) into the food processor
Turn it into deliciously Olivey sludge.
Add some oil to loosen the mix, or water if you’d like to keep the fat content down.
You can use some of the pasta water either.Add the tapenade to the pasta
How easy was that?
That was very easy, you’re right
If you’re going to the bother of making this dish, you may as well double the amount of freeze the extra. The only thing that takes any time really is cleaning the food processor. Just freeze the tapenade, you can cook the pasta as you need it.
Make it Boujie:
Oven roast some cherry tomatoes in balsamic and salt, add these on top along with a healthy serving of parmesan and more balsamic.
Add basil to the tapenade blend and top the dish with some basil leaves, your chosen green, pink peppercorns or Korean chili flakes.
Cost from Lidl: About 6 quid all in.
Almost-better-than-Kate’s Beans
This is a bastardised version of a recipe my pal Kate showed me. Their culinary skills far surpass my own, but this is still a banger, that I eat every other day.
Prep Time: Approx 36 mins
Serves: 8
Ingredients:
4x tins chopped tomatoes
4x tins of your beans of choice (I use red kidney beans)
4x large carrots (diced)
2x onions (diced)
4x garlic cloves (sliced or diced, up to you. Use more if you’re a freak for the garlic or less if you’re a vampire).
Dry Spices
4x tsp smoked paprika
2x tsp cumin
2x tsp coriander
1x tsp ground smoked chili /chipotle (if you can find it, if you can’t just use chili flakes to your taste)
Seasoning
Maple syrup/your sweetener of choice to taste (3 tsp’s)
Soy Sauce to taste (I use about 2 tbsp of tamari)
Method
Have your 4 tins of chopped tomatoes opened and ready to rock.
Put the biggest non-stick pan you’ve got on a high heat (a pot could work either, we’re not fussy here, but consider using a small amount of oil if you think it’ll turn into a sticky situation)
Whack the 4 diced carrots in there, I like to let them char a bit, because that’s how I like things, but sear them to your taste. This is your party. If they start to stick, use some of your tinned tomats to deglaze that pan. Don’t do an Usher on it and let it burn. No one wants to have to clean a burney pan.
This usually takes 5 - 10 mins. While they’re getting nice and flavourey, put on Burn by Usher and then open and wash your beans. You can use a colander, once they stop being bubbly, it usually means they’re good to go. Don’t be afraid of a little kitchen dance, it’s no harm.
Add the onions. Let them cook for 3 - 5 minutes while you add the dry spices. Once all the dry spices are added give it a good mix about for 1 - 2 minutes.
Add the 4x tins of tomatoes. Once its starting to bubble, reduce the heat and let simmer for 10 - 20 minutes. The time depends on how you like them: watery, short simmer time, pastey, 20+ minutes.
I’d go for the 20 minute mark myself now.Add your sweetener, salt and soy sauce. Give a good stir and adjust to taste.
Serve on the best bread you can find, toasted with some kind of fake butter and hot sauce.
Make it Boujie:
Add some Stubb’s liquid smoke toward the end of cooking (1 tsp)
Add some jarred chipotle peppers (they sell ‘em in SuperValu and they’re banging).
Add these when you’re adding the dried spices.Use spring onions instead of boring ass regular old oniony-onions. Only add the green parts of the onions toward the end.
Beef it Out:
This recipe can be fairly easily developed into a bean stew and goes great with short grain brown rice.
Add broccoli florets (chopped into small pieces, half a thumb size per floret) with the carrots. Add mushrooms and peppers after 10 minutes of broccoli-carrot cooking time along with the onions. Don’t let the sauce reduce as much if you’re planning it to be a stew.
Whack a load of red split lentils in with the tomatoes and 1L of veg stock if you really want to make it calorie dense and filling. Will take a lot longer but lentils are freakishly filling. Oompht!
Nang’s Thai Green Curry
A lovely thai woman took me on a tour of a food market in Chiang Mai where my mind was sufficiently blown by the sheer quantity and variety of vegetables I’d never seen before. The aoul one’s slinging veg and Nang both took took great joy in my incredulity and astonishment at all of these unreal greens. Classic ignorant westerner!
If you ever find yourself in Chiang Mai, you can book yourself into Nang’s cookery school here.
Nang taught me how to make the below and it is my favourite meal. Admittedly not as cost effective as the other's if you go for the Asian Supermarket herbs, like Holy basil, but the holy basil keeps in the freezer and you don’t need much. Treat yourself! You deserve it!
It freezes really well and its very calorie dense - a perfect substitute for a takeaway after a slog of a day.
Prep Time: Approx 20 mins
Serves: 8
Curry Paste Ingredients:
1x thumb of galangal (thai ginger) or ginger
2x shoots of lemongrass, peel the outer layer off if its really tough and slice into rounds
2 - 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 - 4 shallots or 1 onion, roughly chopped
Green Chili’s - quantity depends on your spice threshold but 2 - 3 is good
1x tsp cumin seeds
1x tsp coriander seeds
a load of coriander leaf - go mad
kefir lime leaf if you can find it
Smash that to bits in a mortar and pestle or else make your life easy and use the blender.
Curry Ingredients
2 Tbsp oil (of your choice)
1 Tbsp sweetener (of your choice, thai use palm sugar usually) adjust to taste
1/2 can coconut milk
3 - 4 Tbsp water
Fast cooking veg of your choice - cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, peppers. Make sure they’re cut small enough to cook quickly (broc/cauliflower florets about the size of your thumb)
Sweet basil AKA Holy basil AKA Tulsi - this is hard to find, some Asia markets have it, but it really adds another dimension. Asia Market in Dublin on Drury Street usually get it in on a Thursday. It actually grows pretty well in Ireland but, presumably you haven’t grown any at the time of reading this. Hard luck.
Mushroom Powder (also most easily sourced from an Asian supermarket. You can make your own by blending dried mushrooms. Which, are also most usually found in an Asian supermarket.
Method
Put your wok or non-stick pan on a low heat
Add 2 or 3 tbsp oil (1 if you’re using a non stick pan)
Add 2 - 4 tbsp green curry paste
Keep moving the paste in the wok. When the oil starts to seperate from the curry paste, add about 4 tbsp coconut milk.
Keep moving the mixture so it doesn’t burn or stickAdd your fast cooking veg, let it cook for about 5 minutes.
Add 3 more tbsp coconut milk and about 6 tbsp water.
Stop mixing it now and just let it cook. It should be at a light simmer.
Add 2 tsp mushroom powder, 1x tbsp soy sauce and sweetener to taste.
Mix it around and cook for another minute or two.
Add sweet basil (AKA Tulsi) and chopped chili, keep going for another minute. Turn off the heat.
Add 1 - 3 more Tbsp coconut milk.
