Everything, Up To and Including the Kitchen Sink...

So, this week hasn't quite gone as I'd like it to. Some of you watching this know why, some don't. I'll spare the details, but the short version involves shit hitting the fan in several aspects of my existence and my resulting displeasure with a lot of things in my life. The result? A continued lack of motivation when it comes to cooking anything more than twice a week, at least when I'm at home. While I'm at work I find lovely recipes for things like pasta carbonara, almond cakes with grapes, panko-crusted baked salmon and all sorts of things that take actual work were I to make them when I come home. Right now, that's just not going to work. My solution this week is to make a huge batch of mujadara and a veritable bucket of kitchen sink curry. This is a japanese style curry that is about as short-cut as you can get. I use an instant curry sauce and throw in whatever looks good or almost dead in my pantry and crisper. This week's version combined chickpeas, potatoes, onion and cauliflower. Ladled over a bowl of basmati rice at the end of a long, cold day it's just about as close to perfect as I'm likely to get this week.

Kitchen Sink Curry

Ingredients:
-olive or canola oil, for sauteing
-1 onion, roughly chopped
-4-6 medium (tennis ball sized) yukon gold potatoes, cut into bite sized chunks
-1 15 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
-1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
-1/2 pack vermont curry, or any similar curry sauce in whatever heat you prefer
-3 1/2 cups water (or whatever amount your sauce pack calls for)
-basmati rice

Directions:
In a very large saucepan (15 inch, at least) or dutch oven heat just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan on high. When hot, add onion and potatoes and saute for 3-5 minutes, just until the edges start to brown. Add the curry sauce cubes and water and stir until the cubes are dissolved and the sauce starts to thicken. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the chickpeas and cauliflower and simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes until potatoes are soft and cauliflower is cooked. Give it a last stir and ladle over basmati rice.

Notes:
-Use whatever you want to make this. In my experience, rather little that lives in your pantry goes badly with yellow curry sauce. I recommend lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans, peas, really most beans and legumes and leftover carrots. Cashews can be thrown in when you first start cooking it, as can drained tofu. Just brown the tofu and then throw in the rest so the tofu doesn't break down too much. Not that that would hurt it anyway.
-I've used up frozen bagged mixed veggies this way, but it's just not as good, in my opinion. This is a good recipe to use up nearly dead cruciferous and root veggies, but watery ones don't seem to like it as much. They still taste fine, I just don't like the textures. Carrot/Lima/Corn/Pea mixes work ok, frozen cauliflower/broccoli/carrot mixes not so much.
-I've made curry noodles by mixing cooked lo mein noodles into the pot at the end of this and letting them soak up some sauce. My ratios were 1 bag frozen mixed veggies/1/2 pack curry sauce/1 pound pack noodles. It made a lot.
-Bonus--The curry sauce can be made one 12th of a packet at a time, which is just a perfect amount for either dipping french fries or dressing a few baked/boiled potatoes. Yellow curry sauce and potatoes go together really, really well.
-Vermont curry--This is a product that I buy from my international market, but isn't too hard to find in the international aisle of some supermarkets (it's just a lot more expensive). I've started keeping a pack in my pantry for whenever I get hungry and don't really feel like making something terribly involved but still want something that tastes good. This particular brand claims to have an apple flavor--hence the designation as "vermont curry." I don't taste it, but I like it anyway.