Curry - #Whattodowithpotatoesmushroomsandtofu

Today we had some dish in mind that would use up the soaked beans we had in the fridge. But the beans had other plans - they must have spoiled some time this week.

We were left with potatoes, mushrooms, tofu and onions. A quick google search revealed a bunch of great recipes with those ingredients, and we settled on a recipe for a curry with coconut milk

Ingredients
Oil
2 onions, chopped in half rings
3 potatoes, chopped into cubes
6 big mushrooms, sliced
1 package of firm tofu
100ml vegetable stock
100ml cream
400ml coconut milk
Curry powder, cumin, salt, pepper to taste

In a dutch oven, heat some oil, then add onions and potatoes. Cook for 5 mins until the potatoes start to soften. Add tofu and mushrooms, and cook for a few more mins, adding stock to avoid burning on the bottom. Add spices, cream and coconut milk, and simmer for 10 mins.

The potatoes came out very creamy, and the tofu was flavorful! We served it over brown rice and it was delicious!

Pelmeni

This Russian national dish is easy to make, albeit I suspect no one would call it quick, but everyone likes it.

For the dough I used this recipe from a German website. Then I made a beef filling and a vegetarian filling.

Dough
400 g flour
2 eggs
150 ml warm water
1/2 tsp salt
Add the salt to the flour then add warm water to the flour and begin mixing. Then add the eggs and knead until all ingredients are well combined. Cover with a wet cloth and let the dough sit for 20-30 min.

Beef filling
1 lb ground beef
1.5-2 onions, blended
2 tbsp soft butter
salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, parsley
Combine all ingredients. Done.

Potato filling
boiled potatoes
milk
butter
1/2 onion
salt, pepper
Cut the onion in little pieces and fry until golden/translucent. Mash potatoes with a bit of the water they were boiled in, add milk, butter, onion, salt and pepper.

To form the Pelmeni separate the dough in half and make about 1.5-2 inch thick rolls. Then cut 1.5-2 inch pieces off, roll them into balls, use flour to dust the table and roll the dough balls out into very flat circles.
Then place filling onto a circle, fold it in half making sure to pinch the outer line of the half circle together. Then fold the edges together. (See picture)
Cook for about 10 minutes. Serve with butter and or sour cream.

Vegetabel stock from scraps

I stumbled upon this brilliant idea a couple of weeks ago. It is quite simple:
1. Collect your veggie scraps in a container in the freezer.
2. Cook the veggie scraps with herbs in water for about an hour.
3. Drain. Use the stock.

This site has a useful picture to show which vegetables make good stock and what should be avoided.

Whenever the containers containing veggie scraps begin to take up too much space in my freezer I make a pot of stock (or rather I assume this is what I will continue doing, thus far it has only happened once) and make a soup with the stock.

So easy!