A Four-Page Recipe
Curry When Not in a Hurry
You won’t find many recipes here. Or pictures of me cooking, except for the whacky picture of me making butter tarts at Christmas.
I’m quite picky about recipes. I carefully peruse them to see what ingredients and the amount of prep required. When I’m driving around the city seeking a specialty item, I know I’m in trouble. I tend to shy away when the ingredients get too rare or ‘exotic’ or the time required to assemble the recipe edges into days.
This recipe happens to be Tofu Tikka Masala. (I know I lost some of you at ‘tofu’— the chameleon of plant-based eating). This is ideally a multi-day process between pressing, marinating and cooking the tofu and preparing the masala to build the flavours successfully.
As I move toward a fully plant-based diet, bordering on veganism, I wade into a greater time commitment and ‘unusual’ ingredients—unusual for a white woman raised on the Canadian prairies in the 1970s. I have ventured many times into North African, Caribbean, Vietnamese, and Indian recipes with enthusiasm and success. I’ve thoroughly appreciated others’ labour in creating delicious gourmet vegan meals when dining out.
With new recipes, especially four-pagers, there’s always the risk that I’ll make a full batch and absolutely hate it. Then what? Or, I’ll have to add other ingredients to make it palatable, to me. I tend to double the spices if a recipe seems targeted at an ‘I don’t like spicy’ audience.
I have long loved curry from any culture, and it probably isn't quite spicy enough if I’m not dabbing my nose with a tissue while eating it.
So here I am on the precipice of this journey. I know I won’t have time to enjoy this meal tonight. So, I will start and see where it takes me.
My mouth is watering, imagining sitting down to this dish and tucking in!
Perhaps I’ll do part two of this post once I have gotten it underway or am enjoying the results! If it's successful, I may even include a link to the recipe.
What are the kinds of culinary adventures you are willing to take? Any you’d care to share? Especially if they are vegan!
HA! Love this post and I would say my go to recipes are stir fry with quinoa or rice. LOVE veggies and I use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce. I'm also loving this easy flatbread recipe to dip in hummus cover with veggies or use as a pizza crust: Socca Flatbread. I'll get the recipe later to post if you want. It's yummy and my family loves it. I cook it in a cast iron skillet.
Hi Linda! The planning and making of Tofu Tikka Masala has my mouth watering. After a couple bites my eyes would be doing the same. My cooking ranges from “work with what I have on hand” to those that require the jaunts around town.
I started preparing quinoa about 5 ya. A complete protein! One easy use is to combine the cooked quinoa with a simple stir fry - red bell pepper, onions, zucchini or yellow squash - adding a zippy chutney containing ginger, jalapeño, and mango! Once the quinoa is cooked it can be stored in the fridge for wraps or adding to salads. With Florida’s hot summers I appreciate the lighter, healthier meals.
Bon appetit!