Ideally, I like to take one of my two days off each week and cook up a big meal of something, whether it’s a hearty soup, a casserole, a big pasta salad — something that will yield 3-4 meals worth of food, that I can bring to work all week as lunches or dinners so I don’t have to think too hard about how to feed myself that day as I’m inevitably rushing to get ready to go to work each morning.
One of my favorite versions of this is the big curry, with a huge pot of brown rice on the side. It’s hearty, it’s healthy, it uses up lots of veggies, it takes like five minutes of prep work, only gets two dishes dirty, packs easily into Tupperwares and can be reheated in my makeshift double-boiler system at work (i.e. putting the meal into a big mug and putting it in my electric tea kettle after I’ve boiled a batch of water and then unplugged it. It works remarkably well).
So that’s what happened this week. For the brown rice, I usually make a big batch (1.5 cups dry brown basmati — this yields a ton of rice). This gets thrown into a pot with double the amount of water, a few spoonfuls of coconut oil, and some salt. Once this combination begins to boil, reduce the heat and simmer it with the lid on for about 40 minutes or until it’s done.
And the curry? Super simple. I started by chopping a whole white onion and a brick of tofu, and sauteeing these together in a bit of canola oil.
Then, the base veggies. Tonight, some carrots and celery, and though fresh mushrooms would have been better, I have this stash of dried shitake mushrooms from my big stock-up trips to Fubonn so I went with those as a substitute, breaking them up with my fingers as I threw them in.
All I added here besides the veggies was a few inches of water, a can of coconut milk, and my favorite curry paste — tonight was yellow, but I have a whole stash of these on hand, ranging from green to red to panang. These massive tubs are like $3 each at Fubonn, and all you need is a few spoonfuls!
I kept this at a low boil for about 45 minutes, and then added the more delicate veggies at the end: spinach, a couple fresh tomatoes, and parsley.
Salt to taste, stir in some Sriracha if you like the spice, and spoon it over the rice and you have a healthy, hearty meal that I seriously can’t get sick of, even after day 4 of this week.
