A Year In Redwood

While Alfie was in hospital for 2 weeks it was weird having to adjust to cooking for one again!  I wasn’t totally succesful with it!  And I have to admit that some nights I was totally lazy and just used leftovers that had been frozen. 🙂

Now that he’s back at home, and we’re both on a ‘healthy’ diet (well kind of!) I’m back in cooking mode.

Alfie is not a fan of vegetarian – surprise, surprise!  I am still trying desperately to have at least one dinner a week a meatless one.  I’ve been told not to tell him there’s no meat in it, and then he’ll be OK with it!!!!!

So this week we had a couple of very large overgrown courgettes…. now transformed into marrows, and my sister, had mentioned that she used to do a marrow casserole with a curry twist to it.  We are also still harvesting the last of our peas and beans, some of the runner beans had got a bit large, so they went into the pot as well.  You could obviously substitute whatever green vegetables you have to hand. Here’s what developed with my selection.

It’s a variation on the Beef Malay dish that we do so often.

Ingredients for Green Paste:

• 1 red onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• large piece of ginger
• 1 lemongrass stalk – trimmed and chopped
• 1 green chilli
• large bunch of parsley or coriander
• 1 teasp turmeric
• 2 tablesps water

To make the paste blitz all of the above together.
Ingredients for Curry

• Large marrow, peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
• Handful (about 12) overgrown runner beans, chopped into 2 cm pieces
• Handful of peas and beans
• 2 onions
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 or 3 Lime leaves
• 3 star anise
• 400 ml coconut milk
• 100 ml chicken stock
• 2 tablesp light soy
• 2 tablesp fish sauce
• Salt & Pepper
• Parsley

Heat oil in a large pan and gently fry the paste for about 2 mins.

Now start adding the main ingredients – start with the onions and fry gently for 4 – 5 minutes.  Add in the your prepared marrow, peas and beans with all the rest of the ingredients.

Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for about half an hour until the marrow is cooked.

Serve with some basmati rice.

I have to admit it was ‘fingers crossed’ before I served this…. but it got a huge thumbs up…. from someone who doesn’t like vegetarian and especially doesn’t like courgettes! Score!

Hope you try it and enjoy!

Let me know how you develop your ‘green’ curry!