Green Bean Cashew Curry

One thing I love about living in Austin: twenty-four hour grocery stores.  This is especially important since my work schedule shifted from the typical 7:30AM - 4:30PM with teaching, to after school programming hours, noon - 8PM.  The naughty habit that I'm trying to break is sleeping in till 11AM, and then doing all of my "living" after 8:30, sometimes staying up till 3AM, or... during a Lord of The Rings marathon, like last night... 4AM.  HEB feeds my poor sleeping patterns by affording me the capability of buying important things like cupcake liners at two o'clock in the morning.  Arkansas is yet to realize that some people don't run on a diurnal schedule.  If you're not quick enough to be at Kroger buying groceries before 10PM, you need to set your alarm earlier to make it there the next morning. 

Today I came home determined to cook a healthy dinner, since eating out tends to make me gain weight rapidly (duh), and my money disappear (unless I eat at Maria's).  So while I went to the store for a few supplies, I set Lennon to the important task of toasting nuts.  He burned them a bit, but it was ok in the final dish:

Green Bean Cashew Curry

2 tablespoons curry powder
1-2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon chili spice
1/2 large red onion, chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/3 cup water
4 ounces firm tofu, cut into small cubes
1 cup snap green beans, snapped in half 
1 1/2 cups cauliflower, cut into florets
1/3 cup cashews, toasted
a handful of cilantro, chopped
2 cups rice



 

1) Begin cooking the rice.  I combined two cups of mixed brown and white rice with four cups of water, and cooked in a covered pot for twenty minutes.

2) Toast the cashews: lay them out on cookie tray and bake at 400 degrees for 7 minutes.  Give them a shake after a few minutes, and check to prevent burning!

3) Bring the coconut milk to a simmer in a large skillet.

4) Wisk in the curry powder and salt.

5) Add water, onion, and garlic.  Stir and simmer.

6) Add the green beans and cauliflower and cook until tender.

7) Add the tofu and stir.

8) Add the rice and the cashews and mix together.

Serve sprinkled with cilantro. I also like my meals salty, so I put a little soy sauce on the final product.

Now if I could just work on waking up in the morning and enjoying my tea and blog reader before noon, I'd be on the road to good health. 

Of course, if one were to ask Bukowski, he'd say this assumption was silly.