Kitchen Sink Curry

Every once and a while, I open the veggie drawer in my fridge and I gulp... This happens when the drawer is overflowing with piles of produce that need to be cooked - half used onions, carrots beyond peak freshness, pounds and pounds of potatoes lacking inspiration. At this point, I know there's only one solution to this problem - Kitchen Sink Curry.

If I do say so myself, I make a great veg curry. Despite himself, even my husband likes it (when I married a Brit, I was wistful about the fabulous curries we'd concoct together... little did I know that his version of adventurous eating was having rice with a roast instead of mashed...).

Aside from being very flavorful, healthful and stupid-easy to make, the best part of this curry is that you can toss in whatever you've got on hand - and lots of it, especially if you make a double batch (the leftovers freeze beautifully). Just got your CSA delivery of local squash and greens? Get it in there. Leftover crudité from your cocktail party? Dice it up and throw it in. A drawer full of veggies you hate to see go south? Start chopping.

While you can toss almost anything you want into this dish, onions and carrots pretty much always form the base. However, use any quantity you like... I just chopped up what I had - a HUGE yellow onion, half a red onion, and about six carrots - for about five to six cups of vegetables. Cook them down in some olive oil for five to ten minutes.

Once the onions and carrots are tender, get your spices in the pan - two tablespoons of curry, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a tablespoon of ginger, a teaspoon of red pepper flakes (or, to your heat-liking) and a few cloves of garlic, chopped - and cook for another minute or two. Over the years, I've learned to take a few shortcuts in the kitchen - one is to use jarred ginger over fresh. I find few things more annoying than grating my own ginger. The jarred stuff saves time and aggravation and loses nothing in flavor.

Since I had it on hand, I chopped up about three cups of potato. Another shortcut is that I almost never peel potatoes. I actually love the flavor of the peels, plus that's where all the nutrients are. I also had some snap peas, a few red and yellow pepper strips, and cherry tomatoes left over from a party. Chopped 'em up. I also like some kind of legume in my curry. For this, I used two cans of garbanzo beans, rinsed.

Get the onion-carrot mix into a large crock pot, along with your other veggies and legumes. I like as much variety of color as possible in my curry, so I also put in a can of diced tomatoes. Salt and pepper liberally. If your large (five quart) crock pot is full-ish with veggies, you'll need about four cups of liquids in there. I recommend vegetable stock - but chicken stock, or even water will do.

Set the crock pot for the six hour setting and just let it do its thing. At about the five hour mark, you can put in whatever more tender veggies you have - greens, butternut squash, summer squash. If you cook certain vegetables for the whole six hours, you'll end up with mush. Today, I had kale and dandelion greens, chopped into bite sized pieces.

At the end of the six hour cycle, add a can of light coconut milk. This gives it that slightly sweet, creamy consistency that makes curry spectacular. It's the secret to the whole dish. About now, your house will also smell awesome.

Cook up some couscous or jasmine rice to serve with the curry and you are ready to eat!

Got everything but the kitchen sink in your veggie drawer? Not to worry. A delicious use of everything in there is just a little chopping and slow cooker away.

Skinny Bitches Ruin Everything

They steal the attention of the cute boys at the bar. They wear all of the clothes that you can’t pull off. They go for quick five or six mile jogs. And they write books about food and fill them with so much horrifying information, they keep you up nights – and not in the good way.

If you’ve read the book, Skinny Bitch, you know exactly what I am talking about. There are details in this book about how pork is processed and what goes into your milk that could – quite literally – paralyze you into never eating again. (The good news? Then you get to be a skinny bitch.)

It is often said that ignorance is bliss – something that I never bought into. I like to be educated about things… that is, after all, how this whole organic/local food adventure began. I read articles, I read books. And, yes, I saw Food, Inc. It was all pretty eye-opening and scary, but I was glad to have learned what I did. I am not all that glad to know what I know after reading Skinny Bitch. Because, Skinny Bitch doesn’t let you get away with anything.

Skinny Bitch will let you know – in a terribly frank, no nonsense way – why Diet Coke could kill you. It tells you the real story about bacon. You learn about how the USDA is run by a bunch of corrupt f*&%ers. No Diet Coke? No bacon? Why go on living? (I already suspected as much about the USDA, so no great loss there…)

The book heavily promotes an organic, alcohol-free, caffeine-free, sugar-free, vegan diet. Yeah, right. I could potentially see myself giving up drinking wine or even coffee, but I’m gonna tell you right now, I could never be a vegan. And there is only one reason why: cheese. I love cheese almost as much as I love my iPhone. For those of you that know me personally, you can deeply appreciate what this means. I love cheese a lot.

With that said, lots of stuff that the book’s mean, evil authors wrote really resonated for me – particularly the parts about meat production and the affect of too much meat eating on your body. Reducing the quantity of meat that you eat is also something promoted by Food, Inc. Food, Inc. (via an organization called Meatless Monday) recommends – surprise – going meatless on Mondays, claiming:

“Going meatless once a week may reduce your risk of chronic preventable conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It can also help reduce your carbon footprint and save precious resources like fresh water and fossil fuel.”

So, as part of my personal food journey, I am actually flipping this recommendation around… I am trying to go meatless six days a week. I will fully admit that I am not quite there yet. I am probably still eating some meat about three days a week – but I am viewing this as a progression. I easily used to eat meat every day, so this is an improvement.

Thus far, I’ve had some hits and misses… on the positive side, I actually got my husband to eat tofu! On the less positive side, I tried to get creative with a beet-sweet potato salad that just ended in a mushy mess. Needless to say, submissions of your favorite veg recipes are welcome.

As for my monthly suggestion, think about going meatless once a week! It’s really not as bad as it sounds… and there truly are some great health and environmental benefits. Start with this recipe… it’s a gem and there will be lots of leftovers for lunch the next day: Vegetable Curry.