I fell in love with Indian food
when I was living in England
during my junior year abroad.
Unfortunately, I have yet to find an Indian restaurant here in LA that fully
satisfies that love. A large part of it
could be that I really like spicy food.
Here, the owners of the Indian restaurants see me as this little blonde,
white girl walk. So they assume when I
say “spicy” that I mean “white girl American spicy.” No, I mean “I want my eyes to water and my
skin to sweat spicy.” I never had that
problem in England. For example, one night in Bristol, a bunch of us went out for curry
after a rehearsal for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (which I
was directing). Mid- conversation, I had
to excuse myself so I could retreat to the restroom and splash my face with
cold water. Turns out, I bit down on a
piece of chili pepper that was still whole in the curry sauce I was
eating. To this day, I have yet to eat
anything that spicy. It made my eyes
water instantly! As painful as it was,
that is what I am looking for when I go out to eat Indian food. Aaron and I have found one Indian restaurant
near(ish) our house that we sometimes will order from for delivery (they can’t
see the white girl over the phone, so they will actually make it spicy . . .
relatively speaking). However, we
reserve ordering from them for special occasions, because it costs about $50 for
a decent Indian meal for 2-3 people (from my experience that is the expensive
standard in LA).
One day at Trader Joe’s, I saw
jars of “Curry Sauce.”
I decided, “What the heck, I’ll give that a
try.” Boy, am I glad I did! This has been a favorite dinner in the Sherry
household ever since! Aaron’s not a huge
spicy food fan, so I don’t make it as spicy as I might otherwise like it. It’s also not a permanent substitute for the
real thing. However, the price
difference between this and restaurant Indian food definitely makes it worth
it.
The recipe is
super-difficult. You ready?
-
1 jar Trader Joe’s Indian Simmer Sauce
-
Whatever veggies or meat you want to add
-
Brown rice for a side dish
Ok, ok, so it’s not really that
difficult.
Here’s how I like to make it:
First, I take a can of chickpeas
(garbanzo beans), rinse and drain them.
Then I put them in a large frying pan with little to no oil. I then add various spices depending on my
mood – but usually including garlic salt, Lawry’s season salt, cumin, curry
powder, etc.
Once the chickpeas have warmed
all the way through, I add whatever other veggies I have decided to use. For this weekend, I added all the veggies
from my CSA box that still needed to be used, which included kale, bok choy,
greens of some sort (I am guessing collard?), beet greens and some red pepper.
Then add the simmer sauce and heat
until bubbly. Simmer until the rice is
done.
I like to serve with a glass of
chilled Chardonnay.
Variations: I will often cook up
some lentils and add them at the end to the simmer sauce (I didn’t this time
because there were enough other veggies).
You can also chop up chicken or sausage and add it to the simmer sauce –
though I tend to like it vegetarian-style.
Here’s the accounting:
Trader Joe's Simmer sauce
|
|
|
Simmer sauce
|
$2.99
|
|
Chickpeas
|
$0.99
|
|
Veggies
|
$5.00
|
(I am guessing that I used about $5 worth of the remaining
veggies from my CSA box)
|
Rice
|
$0.50
|
|
total:
|
$9.48
|
|
6 servings
|
$1.58
|
per person
|
As you can see, that is MUCH
better than what we would spend had we gone out to an Indian restaurant – and
we get leftovers to bring to work for lunch!
*Confession: I actually made this last night (Saturday)
because I knew today (Sunday) was going to be jam-packed full of family fun
adventures.