Tag: rice

Lazy, cheap vegan curry

Yes, we do have a pretty decent range of vegan options when eating out in Atlanta, and you’ll be seeing many of them this month. But if you like to cook, Atlanta is also well-stocked with almost any international ingredient you might want. And we have most of the major chains that carry the foods vegans want and need, like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.

This post starts at Trader Joe’s. I go there every six weeks or so. They’ve got great prices on frozen fruit for smoothies, tempeh, tofu, chorizo and non-dairy milks. And lazy food. The lazy food isn’t necessarily that cheap, but it’s cheaper than going out.

So I got my staples and I’m in the canned food aisle looking for lazy food that’s vegan. An employee asks if I need help because I might have been at that hangry stage and unable to make any decisions. So I said I was looking for lazy food. That’s vegan. One of the things he showed me was this vegan Curry Simmer Sauce.

trader joe's vegan curry simmer sauce

I did a quick mental inventory of what kinds of  vegetables were in the fridge. Yes, this will work. When it came time to make it for dinner, I started a pot of rice. And then heated a little bit of olive oil in a pot. To that, I added half a chopped onion. Once softened, I poured in the jar of sauce plus the one cup of water it says to add, then a sliced carrot, a diced russet potato, a can of chickpeas and about a cup of frozen green beans. If this doesn’t sound lazy enough for you, you can always just use a bag of frozen peas and carrots and a can of chickpeas. The onion isn’t necessary at all.

vegan curry

All this simmered covered until the potatoes were tender.

Remember earlier when I was talking about international ingredients? If you’ve ever been frustrated because your curries don’t taste like the ones you get in Indian restaurants, one thing you are probably missing is asofoetida or hing. This is the one I have. I added about a half a teaspoon to the curry, but it would be fine without it.

asofoetida or hing

I got this jar at the now closed Taj Mahal market, but Patel Brothers is sure to have it. Another place to try is Buford Highway Farmer’s Market.

The curry came out nice. Much better than those vacuum sealed meal packets you can get. And five minutes of chopping made a much fresher tasting meal than that. This is a great option if you don’t have the space or patience to keep a bunch of spices around.  Oh, and this jar was less than $3 and with the vegetables I added made 4-6 servings.

 

Citrus spare ribs

This time, I followed directions. The second product I picked up with the coupons VegeUSA sent me was the Citrus Sparerib Cutlets. And I just followed the easy microwave directions. Combine with rice and steamed broccoli and Boom! dinner! Oh, and I sprinkled mine with gomashio because I do that.

The sweet, chewy nuggets are mostly soy based which is nice if you have issues with eating a ton of wheat gluten. The texture was fine microwaved, but I’ve also had these pan fried in the past and you can get a little crispy edge to them when you do that, but you also sacrifice some of the sauce.

The package ambitiously says there are 2.5 servings inside, but not in this house. It was a solid two servings for us though. The main downside to these is the price. At around $7, it’s more than I would normally pay for a fake meat for 2, but it’s still cheaper than ordering out. And I know there are a ton of people out there that don’t cook like I do and rely on prepared foods or eating out. So you might find this handy. In Atlanta, I found these and the pepper steak at Whole Foods on Ponce.

Creamy all-in-one bowl

When I’m scanning recipes in Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites, I tend to get visions of buying even fatter pants and possibly investing in a rag on a stick.

But the Creamy All-In-One Bowl didn’t look too terribly waist expanding, so I gave it a go. Tofu, broccoli and pineapple in a creamy peanut butter dressing over brown rice. Look, bonus fruit serving! And it was really good. The dressing had a nice tang.

The laziest bowl of food

Saturday afternoon I’d planned on going grocery shopping. But I had a headache and decided to wait until Sunday. Oh, what’s for dinner then? After rooting around in the cabinets a bit, I came up with this concoction. Start with some ready to eat rice and an instasoup.

Let’s see, a vegetable would be good. How about some frozen green beans? Sure! So, a little rice in the bottom of the bowl, some vegan broccoli cheese soup, next and green beans. I did add some nutritional yeast to the soup because I could. Oh, and sprinkled parm on top.

It was actually really good. And made enough that I had some for lunch as well.

Black-eyed Pea Masala

I love Indian food. Asafetida seems to be the magical ingredient that pushes a dish from close to spot on. If you like to cook Indian, do yourself a favor and secure some. One jar will last you forever.

This recipe is one I saved in my RSS reader to try some time. I have tons and tons of stuff waiting to be tried. This one worked nicely because I was also trying to clean out my freezer a bit and had a bag of frozen black-eyed peas to use. If you use those instead of the dried called for, you can skip the soaking step. You could also used canned and it might cook a little faster. Just for fun and added nutritional value, I tossed in some chopped fresh collards. I mean, they go with black-eyed peas, right? Right! It was perfect. We ate this over brown basmati.