Vegetable Curry

This is a great dish to chuck any vegetables you have lying around into. I make it in two stages, first making a curry sauce and then adding the veg. You can make up a big batch of this sauce and then add different veggies as and when you want to use it. I tend to grab whatever seasonal veg we have to hand and I usually use a few favourites of mine - butternut squash, pepper and cauliflower. But you can literally use any vegetables that you have or particularly like.

This is not a massively spicy recipe as I use it for my 12 month old - I just add a chopped fresh chilli to the top of my portion before serving to give it an extra kick.

Ingredients
100g red lentils
2 diced onions
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3cm piece ginger
3 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tsp garam masala
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp coconut cream
A selection of vegetables cut into bite sized chunks

Bring the lentils to the boil in a saucepan with 500ml of water, cover and simmer for 20-25 mins until the lentils are soft.

Blitz the ginger, garlic and one of the onions with a little water to make a paste.

Heat your chosen fat in a pan (I use coconut oil but you could use olive oil/butter/whatever), add the other onion stirring until lightly browned. Then add the paste and spices and fry gently for a couple of minutes.

Next, add the tomatoes, tomato puree, coconut cream and lentils along with 400ml of water. This is your curry sauce. (If you have opened a carton of coconut cream, you can freeze the rest, it freezes well)

Add your veg to the curry sauce - tonight I used half a butternut squash, a courgette, a red pepper, some cauliflower broken into florets and some green beans.

Simmer your veg gently for 25-30 mins. Enjoy with some brown rice, a chapatti or a handful of tortillas.

This also freezes really well. Either the sauce on it's own or the whole curry - and the flavours seem to intensify on freezing.