I did a bad thing yesterday. I was busy, very busy all day and still working right up to nine o’clock when it was time to go and collect daughter from work, and then still working for a bit after I got home. Anyway, I finally finished and by that time I was so tired that I had a banana for dinner and fell into bed. Bad nutrition practice, bad health practice, bad everything practice really.
I usually have some tubs of frozen soup for this exact purpose, for those days when I am swamped with orders and can’t stop cooking for long enough to cook something for myself. I didn’t, I ate them all. So, time to restock and I thought I would share with you these little hot pots I make for the freezer. You can just make the whole lot as a curry and serve it with rice if you want to, just leave out the mashed potato and serve it straight from the pan instead of portioning it into the little ramekins. Anyway, these are for my dinners, so I have made a heap of them and that way I can avoid the shame of a banana for dinner.
Curry Hot Pots
Six large potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup coconut cream
1 additional tablespoon olive oil
6 sausages, sliced into rounds while raw
1/2 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small red capsicum, seeded and diced
2 cups diced butternut pumpkin
10 button mushrooms, quartered
1 big tablespoon curry powder
1 big tablespoon ground cumin
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tin diced tomato
3/4 cup additional coconut cream
2 spring onions, sliced
2 handfuls baby spinach
Okay, to begin, peel , quarter and boil your potatoes until soft, drain off the water, mash with 1 tbs olive oil and 1/4 cup coconut cream. Set aside.
Heat your other tbs olive oil in a large frypan, add the sliced up sausages and cook at a medium hot heat until all nice and golden, don’t be shy here, this is going to be our flavour base.
Now toss in all of your onion, garlic, capsicum and pumpkin and fry, moving around until it is all nicely homogenised and starting to cook together, like this -
Now add your curry powder and additional cumin (my favourite spice of all), stir it around until it is fragrant, trust your nose, the spices will tell you when they are ready, then add the chick peas, the tinned tomatoes, additional coconut cream and a cup of water, boil steadily, stirring often until the curry is quite thick, don’t be in a rush here, the more we reduce this, the more flavoursome it will be. When very thick, stir in your green vegetables.
Mmmmm! Now, at this point you could serve this with some rice, or with your mashed potato, because I am making this for freezer dinners I will two thirds fill all of my motley collection of ramekins, do you see my two brown ones? Those are my very favourite, they remind me of my Mum. Hi Mum!
Or you could do this in one big casserole dish if you want to serve it as a family dinner.
Top each one with some mashed potato and smooth it out, then drag your fork around the top so that it will brown when in the oven.
Pop them in the fridge or the freezer, when you are ready to eat them, bake in a moderate oven until golden, if they are coming out of the freezer straight into the oven start them off at about 120 degrees C for about ten or fifteen minutes, give the ramekins a chance to warm up, they are less likely to shatter in the hot oven then.
That’s mine ready, I will just wait three hours for it to cool enough to eat and it will be delicious!
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