What? No soup post? How can that be??? Because it’s April first and I tend to make less soup and stew meals as the weather warms up. And I am celebrating by keeping those white rimmed soup bowls in the cupboard for a while.
Yes, I know that we regularly have early-April snowfalls, but they are usually light and do not last long. Soon the toads in the pond will be singing, and the crickets chirping. I cannot wait!
That being said, today was mostly a cool and rainy one. March came in like a lion, then went out like a lamb (it was 74 degrees yesterday); but April is being… April.
I wanted to make something spicy and warming for dinner, and pulled a recipe which I had printed from A Spiced Life a few weeks ago. I happened to have a lot of spinach to use up, and this spinach and peanut curry sounded good (and we know how much Jack loves anything with peanuts!). When I started to pull it together, though, I began to doubt my choice. It just didn’t seem like something Jack would like, being mostly spinach and peanuts with spices, but time was running out. As the curry cooked, I turned on the oven and heated a tray of Trader Joe’s vegetable samosas, and also a couple pieces of TJ’s naan. I figured that Jack could fill up on carbs if he didn’t like the spinach.
It was with great trepidation that I told him when dinner was ready. I spooned the spinach curry over rice, arranged 4 (mashed potato & peas-filled) samosas beside, and also plunked down a plate of naan. He looked up and asked if it were Carb Night. :) No, I replied, just some extra food in case you don’t like the spinach.
Well, I was stunned at his reaction—he loved it! In fact, he kept commenting on how “wonderful” it tasted. And, yes, I thought it did too. Who would have thought—spinach, peanuts, spices… it really was delicious! Very flavorful, and I must say that spinach has never tasted so good!
Here is the recipe as Laura posted it, her adaption of a recipe found in the wonderful book "660 Curries". It seems as though it serves 4. I halved the ingredients for us, and used less peanuts. Also, instead of boiling the spinach (a huge loss of nutrients, I think), I used a steamer basket. When I removed the spinach from the steamer, I placed it in a colander over a bowl, and used the water which drained off instead of the water from boiling the spinach, which was called for later in the recipe.
I also used plain yogurt (nonfat, European-style).
Now this is not a curry as I think of when I say “curry”, but this recipe will absolutely go into my binder to try, try again. Yum (and a quite surprised yum, at that!)
