Crock pot Veg curry

Herm, the colors on my photos has been odd lately.
Anyway, Saturday night's dinner was a curried veg done in the crock pot and a brown and wild rice done in the rice cooker.

The curry had onion bell pepper, a sweet potato, both those giant carrots, a cauliflower, a few cloves of garlic crushed, and a can of organic diced tomatoes from Costco.  The curry part was a yellow curry powder from Costco mixed with paprika and olive oil and some water and then it was all cooked on low in the crock pot and severed over the brown and wild rice. 
I am going to need to go get me some more brown rice soon.
But since I made this in my giant crock pot, and the girl child is on strike against spicy foods, we have leftovers.  She isn't starving herself, she had leftover spaghetti from the other night from when the husband and I went to celebrate our mini Ides of March anniversary.

The Meal Designed for Leftovers

 Tonight was lentil stew and acorn squash.  Both were made with plans for the leftovers for future meals.
The lentil stew was just 2 lbs lentils, a chopped bell pepper, a chopped giant carrot, a heaping spoonful of pre-minced garlic, a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes and a 28 oz can of tomato sauce, the last of my dried minced onion, and water.  It went in the crock pot and water was again added later in the day as well as some salt and pepper to taste.

All 5 of the acorn squash went in the oven.  I just cut them in half and scooped out the seeds and cooked them face down in 9x13" baking dishes with an inch of water for about 40 min until the fork  would easily pierce the skin.  I then cut the 2 halves in half and sprinkled those with cinnamon and drizzled with a bit of honey for each of us for our dinner.  The rest of the squash was pureed and made into muffins and bread (5.5 cups of puree made 18 muffins and 2 loaves of bread, but the husband thinks he might have done better to have stretched it to more cause they are very moist).  Think pumpkin walnut muffin, with acorn squash puree instead.  These will be breakfast and desserts for days, maybe even weeks to come.  I think the loaves will be frozen.   

The lentils will be used tomorrow as an ingredient in another dish.  You will be seeing them again.

All Baked Veggie Dinner

Once again it was Krav Maga night, so the usual routine of me prepping dinner and the husband finishing it up was in order.

We found a couple of carrots in the back of the fridge from last week's rainbow carrot selection from the co-op to add to this week's giant orange carrots and last week's yellow potatoes for rosemary roasted root veggies, which I have shared my usual method of cooking here.  The only difference is no onion this time, because I didn't have any.  I have learned to be very flexible with my cooking that way because of relying on the co-op for my produce.

The asparagus was a garlic roast variety.  3 big bunches filled a 9x13 baking dish and was barely enough for our family of 4.  I bent the asparagus until it broke and tossed the end part and kept the spear part.  These were laid neatly in the baking dish, drizzled with olive oil and then I spread some pre-minced garlic over it and the husband baked it when he baked the root veggies.  The asparagus was done much sooner than the rest.

The girl did supplement her dinner with a cup of potato leek soup.

Lunch earlier had been potato leek soup and chips and hummus.  Not exactly the healthiest selection.  I don't really consider it a healthy meal unless I have lots of color involved.  Probably from years of packing bento style lunches.  And breakfast was just a blood orange since I had to run out the door to take the car into the shop.

Keeping the meals fairly simple has been making it easier to make sure dinner makes it on the table without the temptation to eat out.  It also seems to reduce the risk of messing up something more complicated.

Stir Fry

Tonight was a simple stir fry over brown rice.  It consisted of lots of cabbage, carrots, some onion, bell pepper and pineapple with coconut aminos for the sauce. 
I am so happy to have found the coconut aminos for my stir frys.  I have missed soy sauce.  While this isn't exactly a soy sauce, I seem to be able to use it like it is.  It has a much milder flavor.

I really should have done a double batch of rice, for the girl child finished off all the born rice and now there isn't any for breakfast in the morning or lunch.  But we still have veggies left.

Lentil Stew for a crazy day

Today was a lentil stew cooked up in the crock pot.  I am so glad that I had a crock pot dish planned too.  It wasn't supposed to have been such a busy day, car troubles threw a wrench in everything.  I ended up having to give the husband a ride to work at the last moment and then take his car in for repairs, that took up most of the day, before hurrying on to my scheduled doctor's appointment.  Fortunately the crockpot was already started before everything went kapoot.
 We had lentil stew over brown rice with a side of fruit.  I had a pear.

Lentil Stew

1 lb bag of lentils
1 can diced tomatoes
2 carrots sliced
2 stalks of celery sliced
1 onion chopped
1 heaping spoonful of minced garlic
half a bell pepper chopped
enough water
salt and pepper
1 vegan Italian sausage sliced (added one hour before serving)
All ingredients except sausage was dumped in crock pot and cooked on low for the day.  Water was added as needed.

Served it over some brown rice I had leftover, because I could and it was one less thing to cook on busy day.  And the side was whatever each person grabbed to go with it.  I had a pear. 

Kale, Potatoes and Carrots

 Back to using Salad plates, since I didn't mind this food touching each other.  We had a very simple meal, as usual.  Steamed purple kale, rosemary roasted potatoes and carrots and bread.

I did not make home made bread this time, because I was feeling rather lazy and I treated myself to a day at the Dallas Museum of Art.  It was a wheat bread from the co-op that has been in the freezer for awhile and really needed to be eaten anyway.  The girl child was happy to have it unfrozen for a sandwich for lunch to go with the leftover potatoes and carrots, which she packed in a thermos.

So the Kale was steamed in the steam basket of my rice cooker.  I included a photo of it just before it was steamed.  To be honest, it is prettier before cooking.  I just washed it, cut it up and put it in the basket and then cut up a half onion on top of that and a stalk of celery and a heaping spoonful of minced garlic and some sea salt and steamed until it looked wilted.

The potatoes and carrots were peeled and cut, as well as the other half of the onion and another stalk of celery and drizzled with olive oil and I added salt and pepper and tossed until nicely coated and put in a baking dish and then layered 4 long stems of fresh rosemary.   I really don't like the rosemary leaves in my food, but I like the flavor, which is why I layer the whole stems and then remove after cooking.

I didn't make as much of the potato and carrot mix as I had of the roasted carrots last week and I was concerned that there would not be enough  for everyone.  But the husband's office is now putting out fruit baskets in order to encourage folks to eat healthier, probably in hopes of reducing their insurance costs and the husband partook of the bounty just before coming home.  So we actually had leftovers.  The girl getting the potatoes and carrots for her lunch and the husband getting the last of the kale.  I of course will get the last of the chard.    I will never make so much chard at one time again, I don't care if it is filling all of my vegetable drawer. 

More Carrots, More Bread, and Some help from the Husband

Tonight's meal was rosemary roasted rainbow carrots, garlic roasted Brussels sprouts and homemade bread.
The carrots were a mix of carrots I had.  The purple, white and yellow were part of this week's co-op share, the baby carrots and orange carrots were some I had purchased from the store while the co-op was on vacation that I had leftover.  I added a half an onion cut up, salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil and tossed until it was all nicely coated and put in my 9x13 glass baking dish and laid 4 long sprigs of rosemary on top.  While I was gone with the girl child husband put in in the oven on 400 degrees and baked until tender.

The bread was made from the same batch of dough as the pizza crust and baked just before I headed out the door to take the girl child to her Krav Maga lesson.

And the Brussels sprouts the husband made, but I understand was just minced garlic and olive oil baked at the same time as the carrots until tender.

I will confess that I don't normally like Brussel sprouts and didn't really expect to like these, but I had 2nds.  I think we finally found a recipe for them that is really good.  My husband has always been fond of this vegetable, and it is the one that I didn't like.  My daughter, who we had to make eat 2, ended up going for a full serving for her 2nd and 3rd helping of them.

My husband confessed that he had not been looking forward to this particular meal, because it didn't sound interesting to him, but in the end he found it very yummy and satisfying.  I think I over ate on carrots and sprouts.  Despite the massive amount of carrots I cooked, we barely had enough leftovers for my husband to have something to pack for lunch the next day, because we all enjoyed it more than we had expected.

BTW, most of our meals are being served on salad plates.  I am not having a giant hunk of bread.  It is actually a fairly small piece of bread.