A Recipe from my Youth

My mum is a fabulous cook, and always had some interesting recipe up her sleeve that she would crack out and it would leave a mark in my memory.  This recipe is one of those lovely memories and the best part is that I actually have a recipe to go along with that memory. 

This is a Sweet Curry Sauce that works really well with chicken and rice.  I bet that it would work well with just about anything but I have use it for chicken with rice, because that is the way that mum did it.

I have adapted the recipe a bit with ingredients that I keep in the house.  I am more likely to have greek yogurt in my house then sour cream or light sour cream.  Plus, I love the extra protein found in fat free plain greek yogurt.

This is not a true curry, since I am sure that real curries would never include ketchup.  Don't let the ketchup keep you from trying this; it has a great flavour.

Sweet Curry Sauce

Makes 4 servings, 2 Points+ per serving.

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1/2 cup Onion, diced (I usually don't measure but use a whole small/medium onion)

2 tsp Curry Powder (I add more when I feel like it)

4 tsp Ketchup 

4 tsp Dry White Wine (I use white cooking wine with tarragon in it)

4 tsp Apricot Jam (I used cloudberry jam since that is what I had in my house at the time, it is also good. Probably any light coloured jam would do)

3/4 cup Fat Free Plain Greek Yogurt.

~In a saucepan over medium, saute the onion in the oil until they are translucent, about 2 minutes.  Keep stirring to keep the onions moving so they do not burn.

~Add curry powder and cook 1 minute.

~Add ketchup, wine, and jam and simmer until reduced by half (this does not take very long.) 

~Add yogurt to the cooked onion and stir.

*You can serve this sauce hot or cold.

*If you want to make it a head of time you can cook it up but leave out the yogurt until you have reheated the onion mixture.

Saute the onions.

After I have added the ketchup, jam and wine, then reduced.

My completed dinner including; 2/3 cup white rice, chicken thighs and carrot parsnip mash.

I'm back

I haven't been posting in the last little while since my life has become very entrenched in studying for an up coming licencing exam.  Plus, my self esteem hit a bump, although, I am not actually sure what that bump was.  I decided that I need to start looking after myself, especially since I have had this stupid cold for almost 2 weeks and I am running out of energy and I ran out of patience last week.  So I started with my breakfast which is the easiest meal to get better but also one that is fairly easy to not have time for.

I bought some vanilla almond milk last week and thought that I would like to substitute that for milk.  Well it so didn't work in my tea, but it worked really well in my oatmeal.  So I vamped up my oatmeal.   

Morning Kick Start Oatmeal

1/3 cup Old Fashioned Oats

2/3 cup Almond Milk

Sprinkle of Cinnamon

0.5 oz (about 10) Almonds, chopped

1 small box  (14g) Raisins

1 tbsp Unsweetened Coconut

Place all ingredients in a microwave safe bowl and cook on high 1 1/2 minutes.  Let stand 1 minutes and then enjoy.

Simple but filling.

Recently, I have been truly interested in anything butternut squash relate,  I have made 3 different lasagnas and tonight concoction is a Roasted Butternut Squash, Red Lentil and Chickpea Curry served on a bed of sauteed Kale.

For this Kale I sauteed it in the bacon drippings from the kids breakfast this morning, delicious.

There is nothing better then roasted butternut squash; I knew I was putting it in the curry so I didn't bother to cut it up and that worked well for this application.

Fairly simple curry but still has a whole bunch of flavour.

Although I looks like a pile of kale, this Kale has that something extra with a bit of bacon fat.

Roasted Butternut Squash, Red Lentils and Chickpea Curry

1 Whole Butternut Squash, halved, seeded and roasted at 350 until tender and some what caramelized

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tsp Butter

1/2 large Onion, diced

3 cloves Garlic

Salt to taste

2 tsp Curry Powder (I used a vegetable curry blend)

1 tsp Garam Masala

1 cup Red Lentils

1 L Chicken or Veggie Stock

1 can Chickpeas

-In a heavy bottom pan, heat butter and oil to medium.  Add onion and cook for 2 minutes, then add the garlic and cook another 2-3 minutes.

-Add the spices and cook until fragrant.

-Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until lentil are cooked soft and the chickpeas have a nice texture, about 20 minutes.

-Serve over sauteed Kale.