Curried Squash, Cauliflower and Apple Soup with Pizza Dough Breadsticks

With 3 days to go before braving I-95 and heading home for the holidays, I found myself trying to find uses for the random assortment of veggies crowding my fridge and counter. Cue curried winter squash/cauliflower/apple soup, served with apple/walnut/goat cheese/pomegranate salad and pizza dough breadsticks.

Loosely based on a couple of recipes, the soup came out pretty well! I took the veggie cues from this one (although I used one kabocha squash, a whole head of cauliflower, and 2 apples) and the spices from this one (plus a couple teaspoons of garam masala). Swirled in some sour cream when I served it.

Then, for the breadsticks, I used leftover pizza dough from the other night, and generally followed these instructions for turning them into twisty breadsticks. I brushed mine with olive oil and sprinkled them with garlic salt. Mine didn't poof up as much as hers did, but that's probably because I was using dough that was several days old. They were tasty anyway!

Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry

So I haven't posted in a while due to a busy schedule (trip to Ann Arbor, softball playoffs, etc.) and a lack of new ideas. I've been re-making and enjoying old favorites over the past couple weeks. However, my former OSW girls came over for dinner and a Costa Rica trip planning session a couple weeks ago, and I prepared a vegetarian feast in their honor using veggies I had on hand from the CSA.

This chickpea and sweet potato curry from the voluptuous Nigella Lawson, via the New York Times seemed like the perfect meal for the occasion... vegetarian, but interesting, consisting of beans and rice (to slowly ease us into the diet de rigueur of Costa Rica), but still having some veggies and vitamins. I served it with a side of spicy roasted okra.

We all liked the curry- I think everyone came back for a second helping. The tamarind paste gave it a tangy authenticity that I liked. Plus it was pretty easy, using canned chickpeas and onion, garlic, ginger and chili chopped up via food processor. Colleen sagely observed that one could throw a handful of spinach or some green peppers for more color and veggie goodness (I lean towards spinach because green peppers are my personal devil).

Crispy Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs

Sorry for the lapse in posting! I've been in Hawaii (Kona and Waikiki), snacking on kalua pig, plate lunches, sushi, poke, malasadas, Kona coffee and lots of beer... mmmm.
Tonight, in our post-travel stupor, we easily pulled this ginger, curry, lime chicken dish together- very easy and very tasty. Served with whole wheat couscous cooked in veggie broth and topped with lime, raisins, cilantro, green onions and parsley.

Sweet Potato and Chicken Curry

This sweet potato and chicken curry is a super easy, super quick weeknight meal... very gingery with some lingering heat to it. We sprinkled some cilantro on top...

I bet you could substitute some canned chickpeas for the chicken to make it a veggie meal.

Curried Lentils with Sweet Potatos and Kale

Chuck made this recipe on her day off. Good flavors, although texturally a little bit of a mushy one-note. SmittenKitchen is definitely right though: not pretty to look at!

I think we're a little tapped out after three days in a row of healthy legumes and grains and such. Nurse, bacon and cheese, stat!

Indian Deliciousness, Take 2: Chicken Tikka Masala and Cauliflower Curry

After my last foray into Indian (which was mostly successful), I was watching TV and happened upon an episode of America's Test Kitchen on PBS in which they were making Indian food. I looked up their recipes online to see if they might be the magic bullet. Their method seemed pretty easy, and I know they obsessively test their recipes repeatedly, so I thought they had potential.

With cauliflower and potatoes from the CSA this week, I thought this was a good time. Plus, I could tell Tony wanted to bust out some of the Bollywood dance moves he learned from last week's Psych episode (which, funnily, featured Madhur Jaffrey, a famous cookbook writer who specializes in Indian and vegetarian).

The chicken tikka masala was really good- marinating the chicken in a yogurt mixture and then cooking it separately from the sauce made it really juicy. The veggie curry was good, too! My hands definitely still smell like the curry spices now, though, 4 hours later. Such is the price for a tasty dinner.

Indian Deliciousness

UPDATE: When I originally wrote this, I forgot to tell you that when Tony was asked his opinion of this meal, he said it made him want to dance in a train station.

I bought some okra from the farmers market this weekend, and decided to try this okra/tomato curry recipe. It was ok, but nothing special- it needed a little less of the cinnamon-y flavor and a little more heat, I think.

The other dish fared a little better: spicy Indian potatoes. Chuck made these and they were really tasty. We used a pound of small mixed potatoes- purple, red, etc.- rather than the 2 Russets the recipe called for. We didn't peel them.

Neither dish is much to look at, as you can see from the photo. But the potatoes are definitely worth making again! Served with rice and some garlic naan from Whole Foods.