Category Archives: Beans & Legumes

Simple Tomato & Chickpea Curry

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I actually made this um, months ago, and had completely forgotten about it have been saving it up specially.

I like to have a few tricks up my sleeve to make a filling, healthy, comforting meal at short notice, and to make said meal from a few cheap ingredients that are always in my pantry. These recipes are my best friends on hungry and/or grumpy and/or flustered and/or busy evenings when I just need to Eat. Something. Now. Or. Will. Fall. Over. I think that no matter how amazing your life is, you always have days like this. And if you don’t, you really ought to share the secret with the rest of us in the comments section.

There are loads of tomato and chickpea curry recipes out there – I can’t claim this as an original idea. Most recipes are a variation on tinned tomatoes + chickpeas + spices = good. So as long as you have those things in the cupboard, and bonus points for an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic, you can be munching through this in a lot less than half an hour.

Tomato & Chickpea Curry
My recipe notes that this is supposed to serve four, but from memory, that assumes you are serving it with bread or rice. Serving just the curry, Mr. J and I got through the whole lot on our own! So if you have a large and hungry family, it would pay to at least double the recipe. If you end up with too much, you can always welcome it back for lunch tomorrow, or freeze it and enjoy it on another hungry,flustered and busy day.

Another note – if you’re missing one or two of the spices, don’t worry, just press on ahead!

small dash of rice bran or canola oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp chilli powder (or adjust quantity to taste, or leave out altogether)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp garam masala
1x 400g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or dried chickpeas, soaked)
1x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
5cm piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
chopped fresh coriander, to serve
Heat the oil in a large saucepan or frying pan. Add the chopped onion and garlic, and cook gently until softened, and just turning golden. Add the spices and stir for a couple of minutes, coating the onion with the spices.
Add the drained chickpeas, and stir to coat them in the spices too, then add the tomatoes. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the ginger and stir through.
Serve with crusty bread or, ideally, brown rice, and garnish with chopped fresh coriander. You may also like to add a dollop of low fat natural yoghurt.

Fresh Broad Bean Salad

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A wee salad for Mondays.

I don’t think I ever had broad beans going up. My parents HATED them as kids and they were a vegetable they didn’t want to inflict on the next generation.

I am nothing if not curious. Last year I decided to give them a try, just to see what the (negative) fuss was about.

I’ve just been using the frozen variety. Tipped out of the bag into hot water and steamed gently in their pods, they are pretty average. Not that bad, but kind of grey and a bit too chewy. I think this is what mum and dad were fed, but maybe boiled for 15 minutes longer than that, even.

If you just lightly steam broad beans though, and take them out of their pods, Good Things Happen. I admit, shelling beans is not a fun pastime. It’s a bit time consuming and possibly too fiddly for a weeknight. But it’s worth it once you know the secret: grey broad bean shells are hiding tender, zingy little bright green nuggets of goodness inside.

I think they’re a nice green side (instead of, or mixed with peas, or green beans etc), or I came across this salad recipe last year and have been loving it ever since. In fact, I made it for my parents without really saying what we were eating… and they loved it. Mum even copied out the recipe. I think she’s made it a few times since and has surprised herself by becoming a broad bean fan!

The recipe’s not mine, it’s from Healthy Food Guide, so I won’t reproduce it, but I really recommend it! The recipe can be found here.

Hope your Monday’s been swell :)

Food Bloggers Conference & Red, Red, Red Beef

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I spent last Saturday at New Zealand’s first annual food bloggers conference. It was such a great day! It was nice to meet lots of the other food bloggers, and come away with heaps of new ideas and enthusiasm. Other bloggers have done great write-ups (see accounts from Pease Pudding, At Down Under, Alessandra Zecchini, Easy Food Hacks and Toast.

Thanks to Alli of Pease Pudding for putting the day together, and also to the sponsors:

Cook the Books – Kohu Road -  Gü - Teza - I Love Pies - Mad Millie – Pacific Harvest - Whittakers - Kokako - Gravity - Bell Tea - Annies - Photo & Video International - Coopers Creek - Loaf - Cuisine - Hubbards - New Holland Publisher

The conference got me thinking about why I started my blog in the first place. There were a variety of reasons – including to meet new people (after Saturday, tick!), to try new things in the kitchen (tick), and to have a way of sharing favourite recipes (well, obviously, tick). I set out with a plan to focus on tasty, healthy, not-prohibitively-expensive, every day food. Because while I love cooking fancy food and putting dinner party menus together, I take great pleasure in rustling up simple but delicious food on weeknights. I also find that a lot of my friends want to cook this kind of food, but don’t have a lot of recipes to start with.

I’ve posted a few of these kind of recipes on the blog, but not as many as I’d like. The thing is, baking and sweet treats are a lot easier to photograph and blog about! When I’m cooking on a weeknight, we’re hungry and tired from work, and just want to eat, rather than set up a photo shoot while our dinner gets cold! Plus, the natural light’s dim by then, and photographing gets a bit trickier. You get the… picture.

But I’m setting these concerns aside. I’m going to try and focus back on these weeknight meal recipes, and so to start as I mean to go on, here is what we had for dinner tonight! It has red meat, red wine, red curry paste, and red lentils. And tomato paste. Which is also red. Yeah.

Red, Red, Red Beef

600g beef (I used rump steak; chuck or blade would also be good)
cooking oil spray
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 large carrot, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 courgette, sliced
1 cup red wine
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp red curry paste
1 Tbsp tomato paste
2 cups beef stock
1 Tbsp dried rosemary, or a couple of sprigs fresh
1/2 cup red lentils*

*You got me here, I actually meant to use red lentils, but discovered we had run out. Turns out brown lentils work too.

Preheat oven to 170º(C). If you’ve got a casserole dish that works on both stove top and in the oven, use that; if not, use a large frypan. Spray chosen vessel with cooking spray, and place over medium-high heat. Brown beef in two batches, and set aside.

Spray the pan with a little more oil, turn the heat down a little, and cook the onion, garlic, carrot, celery and courgette until softened. Add the red wine and simmer until the liquid reduces – by about a half. Then stir in the flour, curry paste and tomato paste until smooth. Add the beef stock and rosemary, and bring to the boil.

If you’re using a frypan, now is the time to transfer the mixture to an oven-proof casserole dish. Tip: I put my casserole dish in the oven while it preheats, so that you’re not putting your nice hot beef casserole into a cold dish and then waiting for it to heat up.

Place the casserole in the preheated oven and cook for an hour. Then add the lentils, cover again and cook for a further 30 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Season to taste and serve. I had mine plain but would be yummy with mashed potatoes or couscous, and some steamed greens.

Burritos!

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I looooove Mexican food. I still haven’t been to La Boca Loca in Miramar, but everyone tells me I should. I will obey this ‘everyone’ as soon as I can. In the meantime, there’s cooking Mexican food at home to tide me over. And next week I’m going to a Mexican cooking class at Social Cooking (which will be my first visit there, anyone else been yet?).

I’m worried my future experiences at La Boca Loca and Social Cooking will result in learning that all my Mexican cooking thus far is a dismal Speedy Gonzalez Americanized Tex Mexing of authentic Mexican food. I’m worried because I really like my fudged home Mexican cooking. But one can’t be close minded about these things. I might find a whole new world of authentic Mexican cooking that is even better. I’ll keep y’all posted.

We occasionally have these burritos at home. Most people probably do. I soften onions and garlic, and add prime beef mince, and get that cooking with cumin, chilli (fresh, powder, flakes or minced from a jar, depending how energetic I feel), oregano, paprika, tomato paste, a can of kidney beans, and whatever else seems like a good idea at the time. While that cooks, I prepare all the veges and fillings – this day we had avocado, baby spinach, capsicum, cucumber, spring onions. Always essential is grated cheese (I like reduced-fat stuff, Bega do a good ready-grated one) and lots of coriander. And I make my tomato salsa (recipe below).

Then when the mince is cooked Mr J. and I get our tortillas ready. He insists on microwaving them to separate them nicely. I respond that that’s a myth and you just need to know how to do it right. I proceed with trying to split them myself. I ruin two tortillas by tearing them to shreds before Mr J. takes the pile off me and microwaves it. The remaining tortillas are saved and Mr J. smugly puts one or two on my plate. We assemble our dinners at the table, debating about how full to fill tortillas, and how best to fold them up.

This happens every time we have burritos. It’s the rituals that keep us strong.

Fresh Tomato Salsa
Enough for two people with plenty left over for bruschetta lunch the next day. 

2 tomatoes, or a bunch of cherry tomatoes, or a combination
½ red onion
½ red capsicum
a few peppadew peppers, if you like them
good handful of fresh coriander and mint
1 lime, zest and juice (or lemon works, too)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp sugar
splash of hot chilli sauce (optional)
salt and pepper, to taste

Chop the tomatoes, red onion, capsicum, peppadews and herbs, as coarsely or as finely as you like. I like mine at a medium chop – fine enough that you can pick up a spoonful or forkful of salsa and not just get a lonely chunk of tomato, but not so tiny that it’s like gazpacho to eat.

Then just toss everything together in a bowl and season to taste. You can use up lots of fridge lurkers in salsa too – I had the last 2-3 Tbsp of a tin of tomatoes that ended up in there. You might also like to add garlic, or even finely grated ginger.  The salsa is good with burritos, on bruschetta, as a dip, in salads, or alongside bbq’d fish or chicken.