This week, I made curry, one of the easiest and cheapest vegan dishes to make. I had already bought two cans of coconut milk on sale along with a bag of yellow curry powder (cheaper than curry pastes). All I needed to add was vegetables! Here's the recipe I used this week:
Yellow Curry good enough for a week and a half
2 cans of coconut milk ($2/can at Kroger)
2 sweet potatoes
3 russet potatoes ($2/5 lb bag)
4 carrots (still from the same bag as the spaghetti)
1 onion
3 tablespoons yellow curry powder
1 tablespoon sugar
Salt for seasoning
Peel and cut vegetables. I actually hate prepping sweet potatoes because their irregular shape make them really hard to peel, and they're really hard to cut/slice, but the flavors are worth it in the end. Because my sweet potatoes were huge, I had to add an extra potato to balance out the sweet and savory.
Heat coconut milk in pot. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar (taken directly from the instructions of Thai Kitchen's Red Curry Paste lol) and 3 tablespoons of yellow curry powder (taken from an old bottle of yellow curry powder I had). Mix well. Add sweet potatoes, potatoes, and carrots. Cover and cook until tender (15-20 minutes). Add onion and season with salt, msg, or whatever. Serve with rice or vermicelli noodles.
I've also been eating a lot of free food at various events hosted by the University and its constituents. Last Friday, I went to the 7th Annual Gazpacho In the Garden hosted by the Morven Kitchen Garden. There was such much vegan friendly food! This wasn't the case at the UVA Arts Grounds Day on Saturday. There was a veggie falafel, but I don't think the BBQ chipotle sauce was vegan (I should have gotten ketchup instead). The patty was dry, and I ate a hush puppy knowing it wasn't vegan. The veggie baked beans were meh too, so I basically ate junk in terms of taste and health. I did eat some delicious vegan BBQ with avocado slaw at the Curry Picnic though.
In addition to my curry and the free food on grounds, my sister also contributed since my last post by making pesto with the leftover herbs from our mom and the avocados our grandma gave us, flatbread pizza with the leftover pesto, and quinoa with the leftover pizza ingredients. She put mushroom, kale, and onion on the pizza and added canned beets and carrots to the leftover mushroom and kale for the quinoa bowl flavored with lime and tahini from Mezeh. She kind of went overboard with the lime though, but it tastes fine to me. I ate the pesto with my leftover penne (there was definitely a lack of tomatoes), spaghetti, and a new box of cherry tomatoes. 10/10 would recommend the pizza recipe.
Last but not least, my sister and I went out to dinner on Thursday night to celebrate my new jobs and me being done with two weeks of grad school, but really we just had a $10 coupon to Maharaja that was expiring. From left to right: 1) Vegetable Kholapuri 2) Mushroom & Pea Malai 3) Baigan (Eggplant) Burtha 4) Bhindi Masala. I don't think the top two dishes aka my sister's are vegan because they were rather creamy/buttery. You can see Maharaja's menu here: http://www.maharaja-indian-restaurant.com/wine-list/ The food was on point as always.
Tata for now! I'm off to DC Vegfest, which you can read all about in my next post.
