Sweet Potato and Acorn Squash Curry

I like to cook. I happen to think I am pretty good at it. It comes rather naturally to me - something I inherited from my mom. She has an amazing ability to create a gourmet meal out of whatever is laying around. I have had a couple sweet potatoes and an acorn squash languishing on my counter for weeks. While they were far from being "old", they were taking up precious real estate on my already over flowing counter. I was sick of looking at them. I couldn't even remember what I had originally intended them for when I bought them. So I put my thinking cap on and started dreaming up some uses. We love Indian food around these parts. Hmmm, how about a curry? I did a quick Google search and glanced through a few recipes but didn't find anything that fit the ingredients I had on hand. "Oh well," I thought to myself. "I'll just make it up as I go along." And so I did. And OH!MY!WORD! Success! Here's what I did:

Ingredients:
3 sweet potatoes
1 acorn squash
1 medium to large onion
1 TBSP vegetable oil (or whatever you have - canola, olive, ghee)
1 heaping tablespoon curry paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cumin
1 TBSP turmeric (did you know turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties?)
1 - 2 TBSP curry powder
1 can light coconut milk
1 large can chickpeas

Method:
Peel and chop sweet potatoes and squash. Chop onion and saute in oil until translucent. Add sweet potatoes and squash. You will want to add a little bit of water, just enough so the potato and squash are covered and start to cook. Simmer until they are starting to get tender, about 20 minutes or so. They don't have to be done, just starting to soften up. Add spices and curry paste. Let cook for another 10 minutes or so. Rinse and drain the chickpeas and add them to the party. Stir in coconut milk. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are fork tender. Serve over Basmati rice.

You may notice that I say "about" a bit. I just kinda cook. I am not sure on the exact times. And I am just guessing about the amounts for the spices, as I didn't really measure. You could certainly up the ingredients a bit to suit your taste. This came out flavorful but not spicy. If you like spicy, by all means, add some heat. Since I have a two year old to feed (in theory anyway - she wouldn't eat dinner tonight!) I scale back a bit on the spicy. You could also add some frozen peas or green beans in towards the end.

Enjoy!

Baking

For some reason I feel compelled to post about my cooking endeavors. I have always cooked, but never really baked. Well, I can make a mean chocolate chip cookie, and somewhat decent brownie from a mix, and a pretty poor representation of a cake, but I have never baked anything that required yeast. But I love french bread. This may sound weird to anyone from my past, when I hated, yes hated, all bread. Anyway, I decided to look up a recipe for french bread and found one that seemed pretty easy. Click here http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/French-Bread/Detail.aspx. I made it this evening to go with a home made lasagna (another rather ambitious dish!) It turned out awesome! It made two loaves, which is very convenient since I need a loaf for tomorrow's dinner (butternut squash and leek soup). I am excited to try some more baking now that I know yeast isn't that scary!
As you can see, the one loaf is nibbled. Of course I had to try it before serving it to Matt. Unfortunately it was so yummy I had a hard time restraining myself and probably would have eaten the whole loaf if I had not been on the phone with my sister who kept me in check by constantly telling me to save it for dinner. Thanks Steph!

Indian Feast

Recently I have been making a lot of meals out of Weight Watchers cook books and Cooking Light magazine. They always seem to call for amounts of meat that don't match up with what my grocery store sells. For example, a recipe may call for 3/4 lb of chicken thighs, but the store only has 1 1/4 lb packages, so I am left with 1/2 lb of chicken thighs. I was going through my freezer and noticed I had 10 oz of ground turkey breast, 1/2 lb of chicken thighs and 1/2 lb of ground buffalo. I had been craving Indian lately, so I decided to tweak some of my tried and true recipes with the ingredients I had on hand. Oh what a feast! I made chicken khorma with the chicken thighs. I usually use breasts and my recipe calls for a pound. I made some dhal because I have some lentils that I have had forever that needed to be used. The turkey and buffalo went into my Kheema Aloo, which is usually beef and potatoes. I also had some potatoes that had reached their prime, a couple of tomatoes that needed to be used, some cilantro that was on its way out, and peppers out the wazoo because I harvested my garden before the frost the other night (just in time I might add...all my plants were dead when I checked them today!) We were out of curry paste, so I just used a little more of my dried spices in the kheema. And I had some remaining canned crushed tomatoes from yesterday's dinner that I added to the dhal. I searched the freezer and even came up with some frozen naan and we always have basmati rice on hand. I love to make Indian food but it can be time consuming...usually about two hours of cooking. But, I had a bad day, so it was nice to get all my anger out on the onions! And as usually, Chickie fussed in her high chair for a couple minutes and then fell sound asleep, leaving me to cook in peace. And since I used the ground buffalo and ground turkey breast, and didn't have use any curry paste, the kheema was healthier than normal. Everything turned out really well, and we have tons of left overs, which is always nice. Everytime my hubby takes left over Indian food to work, he always has a couple people as where he got take out from! Of course, my house will smell like curry for a couple days, but it is totally worth it!

The Feast
Ready to Eat
Leftovers for Hubby's Lunch