Recipe: $2.50
Per Serving: $0.83
It's a little spicy, a little creamy, and a lotta delicious. It's like a curry, but also a stew? Maybe not. It tastes good.
Sometimes I hate food descriptions. I don't need 500 adjectives for my meal. Is it good? Is it cheap? Is it real food? Those are my only serious questions. But, then, when you're writing posts, you get caught up in trying to transfer the taste from your keyboard to your readers. It doesn't really work, and then we're all just a bunch of novice foodies with too many adjectives.
Anyhoo, that's why you're not getting a lot of descriptions of this freakin' awesome stew-curry. It's so so so good. It's relatively cheap. It's definitely food. There ya go.
I'm a super big fan of this Thai Kitchen red curry paste. Sure, it is processed and comes in a jar, but it took us an entire year to get through the little jar...and there aren't even any additives or preservatives or things I can't pronounce. Making it from scratch would be perfect, but I'm not quite that ambitious.
This recipe came about as I realized I had exactly 2 weeks to cook everything in our fridge before moving to Japan. We returned home from our 2-week holiday vacation in St. Louis and Virginia, (aka frozen tundra land) with minimal stuff in our fridge, but kind of a lot of things in the pantry. One of which was a bag of red lentils from several months ago, and another was a bag of shredded coconut (hello perfectly creamy homemade coconut milk). I also found a little bit of thai red curry paste. The makings of the most fantastic Red Lentil Thai Stew-Curry.
Also, the number one thing I miss...besides people...is the food of San Diego. It is all cheaper, and everything I love is way more readily available than here in Japan. I like the challenge though. I'm pretty bummed about the lack of beans at the regular grocery store here though. I DID locate a semi-International store called Kaldi Coffee, which had beans! Red and green lentils and garbanzo beans and white northern beans! Sure reminds me that I'm not in Peru anymore when Lentils cost about $2.80 a pound here instead of about $1.50 a KILO there!
Anyway, EAT THIS.
Red Lentil Thai Stew With Greens
Ingredients
- 1 cup red lentils
- ½ onion chopped
- 1 carrot shredded
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoon fresh ginger minced
- 1 bell pepper sliced into strips
- 1 tablespoon thai curry paste
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 ½-2 cups coconut milk
- 4 cups vegetable broth I actually used 2 cups broth and 2 cups water
- 4 cups greens kale, swiss chard, roughly chopped
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Rinse the red lentils well, then set aside.
- In a large stock pot, sauté the onions and carrots in coconut oil until soft, then add the garlic, ginger, red bell pepper, thai curry paste, tomato paste, red pepper flakes, and garlic powder. Cook until soft and fragrant.
- Add the vegetable broth, coconut milk, and lentils. Bring to a boil, and simmer, covered, for about 25-30 minutes or until the lentils are very tender. Stir in the greens.
- Season with salt, pepper, and the lemon or lime juice. Serve as is or with rice, farro, soba, or rice noodles!
- Note: For a soupier kind of stew-curry, just add up to 1 cup of water during the simmering process. Also, I highly recommend doubling this recipe!
Nutrition
Holly - FMITK
I love the addition of curry paste! I have a bag of lentils sitting around with no idea what to do with them. This is perf.