Sorry, I can't eat that

This curry is an essential you will need if, like me, you are a bit strapped for cash at the moment. I make it vegetarian but feel free to add whatever else you want to spice things up!

For this recipe I have laid it out in a simple way so that hopefully even if you don’t have great cooking skills, you can still make this easily. For a basic kitchen cupboard on a budget, the best thing you can have are spices. They can turn even the most boring food into something really nice, they save my cooking so often!

Feeds 3/4 people, just add more of veg, meat or vegan meatballs to bulk it out. Cooking time approx. 45 mins (most of that is waiting for it to cook itself.)

Ingredients

• 1 brown onion
• a splash of cooking oil (any kind will do)
• 1 teaspoon of gara masala (or mild curry powder)
• 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin (optional but yummy)
• splash of soy sauce (or a teaspoon of salt)
• teaspoon of brown sugar
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1/4 cup of lentils
• 2-3 carrots (peeled and chopped small)
• 4-5 sprigs of cauliflower
• 4-5 springs broccoli
• 1 cup of peas
• about a quarter of a courgette peeled
• Vegan meatballs (optional, I liked this a lot)

Method

1. To begin, peel and cut up your onion into small bits, put it in a large saucepan or wok with oil and all the spices, salt and sugar.
2. If you are using meatballs, put them in the oven now and set a timer so that they are ready to go in whenever you need them.
3. Fry this on a high heat (on my electric cooker i put the heat to 5) for about 3 mins or until the onions start to go a little bit translucent and less white.
4. Add in the veg and fry for 3 mins or until they are mixed with the spices.
5. Add the lentils and turn the heat on low/medium (On my cooker the heat was 3) add a small glass of water becuase the lentils soak up a lot of water, and leave for about 15 mins, stirring occasionally so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
6. Add the meatballs and anything else you want, heat it for a further 5 mins.
7. serve it!

Hopefully, you have something yummy and cheap that will fill you up and possibly give you some leftovers to work with. You can even put some in tubs to freeze and it’ll last for ages! you can easily heat it up by popping it in a saucepan and gently heating on a low heat, stirring it until it thaws.