Beetrrot Curry and Baked Paprika Fries

I don't know if you noticed but since we cut down on eating out my blogging has increased it's because since eating out is not a regular option I think we try a little harder when we prepare meals. Also when eating out it's really not worthwhile to blog about east brunswick club, plush pizza or some other veg restaurant for the 1000th time. Anyway, now that I've patted myself on the back I will continue. I now find that I have too much food to blog about and just not enough time. So will shut up and continue blogging.

First up the healthy dish, I made Limes & Lycopene's beetroot curry. I subsuited white beans with mushrooms because mushrooms suck. It is so full of flavour that I could eat it with plain brown rice which I normally don't care for. Although part of the credit has to go to massels chicken style stock, the best stock ever, it's so addictive that I sometimes sprinkle it on top of food.

I'm copying the recipe here in case she suddenly stopps cooking, like a few of my old recipes that I can no longer retrieve.

Beetroot & tomato curry

Oh yes, while it’s even better the next day, this time I discovered the leftovers are exceptionally good over a baked potato! Serves 4.

• 900g raw beetroot
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 1 whole dried chilli
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 800g tin of tomatoes
• 200g button mushrooms, cut in half (or white beans )
  

Cut the leaves and stalks off the beetroot, peel and cut into roughly 2cm cubes.

Heat the oil in a medium sized pan, with a lid. Once it’s hot, add the cumin seeds and chilli, stir once and add the garlic. Stir for about 10 seconds and then add the turmeric. Stir once and add the tomatoes (with juice) straight away. At this point the mixture will hiss and spit. Just put the lid on and wait for it to calm down.

Add the beetroot and mushrooms and then season with salt. Bring to a simmer. Then turn the heat to low, cover and simmer gently for about 45 mins – 1 hour, or until the beetroot is tender.

And on to the slightly less healthy. Tofu for Two's baked paprika fries. I made them wide, but will next time make them like regular fries. These were delish although I do admit to adding even more paprika, because I can't get of enough of it. You should go look at their blog for a much better pic.


And again the recipe just in case.

Baked Paprika Fries

• 4 large potatoes
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

I set the oven to 225 degrees Celsius. Then I scrubbed the potatoes and used our mandolin (aka v-slicer) to chop them into 1 cm thick strips. This could be done without a mandolin but the tool really makes the whole process much quicker and easier.

Now I spread the fries on a kitchen towel on a single layer and then folded the other half of the towel over the fries, patted them lightly, and let them dry until the oven was ready. Meanwhile, I mixed the paprika, cayenne, thyme and oil in a bowl, and when the oven had reached the right temperature I just tossed the fries in the oil until they were all evenly coated.

I spread the fries on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper in such a way that none of them were overlapping - important for crispy results. Then I baked them for 15 minutes in the upper third of the oven, tossed them up a bit, and baked for another 10 minutes until they were nicely fried and crispy. After baking I sprinkled them with sea salt and they were ready to serve.

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Ok and as promised here is a pic of the pandan chicken that I blogged and raved about a little while ago.