Cauliflower Curry

I don't mind telling you that I'm not an adventurous eater. I am not a person who wants to travel the world to taste food everywhere. I have never lived anywhere that had Indian, Cuban, or any other authentic ethnic cuisine. I grew up on all-American food, with Americanized Italian food on the side. :)

So, all of that to say I have little-to-no experience with curry. Normally, if I had seen this recipe in a book I would not have even considered making it. If I had looked at the ingredients, double that. But thankfully, my mom made this while we visited her last week and Oh-me-oh-my! this is Soooooo Gooood! My husband and some of the kids loved it too. And I have been dreaming of making it here at home ever since.

Today's the day!

I love crock pot recipes that don't ask me to do much beyond throw everything in the pot. If I have to pre-cook stuff, to me it kinda loses the point. Well, this is one of those easy-peasy recipes, so, give it a try! (ok, you will have to chop some stuff....can you handle it? :) )

Throw into the crock pot:

4 cups cauliflowerets (fresh or frozen)

3 medium tomatoes seeded and chopped (2+ cups) or the equivalent of canned diced tomatoes (get cans without BPA please!)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 14-ounce can coconut milk (not cream of coconut) (I'm not really sure how healthy this is, so report back to me if you have anything to say about it. There is no sugar in it, but there were some preservatives. I found mine by Chinese food at the grocery store.)

1 Tablespoon soy sauce, or you could substitute Bragg's liquid aminos

1.5 teaspoon (not 15!) curry powder

half a teaspoon sea salt

half a teaspoon dried crushed basil

Cook on low 4-6 hours.
Shortly before you want to eat, stir in 6 ounces fresh organic spinach. Cover and continue to heat on low for 10-15 minutes or so.

The perfect accompaniment to this is organic brown rice. If you have a rice cooker and will not be home while this is cooking, use it!

Experiments I look forward to trying with this:
-throwing already-cooked rice into the pot for the last hour of the cook time
-you could add cut up bits of cooked chicken to this as well
-the recipe book I saw this in suggested topping this with chopped peanuts, raisins, and/or shredded coconut. I would not have thought of any of those, but now it sounds really yummy.

This is very warm, soothing, comfort food. Perfect for fall and winter! Be brave and give it a try. Let me know how you like this. :)

Try This: Baked Doughnuts

Thanks to a tip from Jessica at Balancing Everything, I found out about this recipe for baked doughnuts. We made 'em the other day too.

Some things I changed:

1. I warmed the milk too hot and killed the yeast. but I saved the dough by adding some more activated yeast in warm (not hot!) water and finally got the stuff to rise. This mistake added a significant amout of time onto this enterprise. (ended up taking us 5 hours from start to finish!)

2. I used whole wheat flour which worked just great.

These were a very yummy treat. Highly recommended, and will definitely be a repeat at our house. :)

Dinner Plans

Too often lately I've not had a real dinner plan. Around 4 or 5 o'clock I start thinking that I better come up with something to feed these people....

Well, today I took a few minutes and put a simple soup into the crock pot that my kids love. Here's the recipe:

Crockpot Potato and Corn Chowder

6 potatoes-cubed
1 can of corn undrained, or the equivalent in frozen corn plus a little water
1 can creamed corn
1.5 cups milk
1 medium onion, chopped
some chopped up cooked ham or bacon (maybe a cup or two of this)
half teaspoon worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Throw it all in the crock pot and cook on low 6-8 hours.

My husband says this doesn't have enough flavor if you leave out the ham or bacon, but my kids like it either way. And THAT, my friends, is golden.