Go Ducks! Curry

This absolutely delicious and gorgeous looking recipe was inspired by Aarti the Next Food Network Star's recipe, Beatnick Spinach. We took her recipe as the building block and varied it to work with what was in our pantry. Really, the only differences were we didn't add ginger because we didn't have any, we used yellow split peas instead of moong dal, and added some madras curry powder. We added a lot more dal than her recipe calls for because we love it so much and it is loaded with protein.

Here is a link to Aarti's recipe, http://www.aartipaarti.com/2009/09/30/aarti-paarti-ep-26-beatnik-spinach/. By the way, she has lots of amazing recipes and so far, I have really enjoyed her new show. I was sooo excited when she won the Next Food Network Star. Someone who cooks the kind of food we eat normally!!! I've already gotten lots of great ideas from her.

I forgot to mention the reason behind making it! I want to share recipes that feature items that are on sale during the week at the grocery store. Well, at our Safeway, fresh spinach and tomatoes were on sale.

The college football season is just around the corner. While we were eating this, we realized our dinner had the same colors as the University of Oregon and their mascot is the duck. Show some school spirit with your food!

Aarti's version probably serves 4. We adjusted the portions for the 2 of us.

Go Ducks! Curry (Inspired and adapted from Aarti)

3/8 cup yellow split peas plus water to cook them in
oil
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 small onion
1 serrano chile, seeds removed and diced
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin powder (wish we had cumin seeds)
madras curry powder (we're bad about measuring spices, it was probably 3 tablespoons, we like our curry)
1/2 big tomato, diced
baby spinach, we probably used 1/2 of the 10oz bag

1. Start cooking yellow split peas before starting the spinach. If you want to cut down on cooking time, soak the yellow split peas in hot water for at least 30 minutes. To cook, first, look the split peas over, removing any debris if necessary. Place 1 part peas in a large pot with at least 4 parts of water. Bring to a roaring boil, reduce heat, and simmer. If the water evaporates, just add more. It may take 35 minutes, it may take longer, for the peas to be tender and mostly done. Keep in mind, you're going to finish cooking them with the spinach. If you cook them too long, they will get too soft for this recipe. If they do turn to mush, they would make a delightful dal curry.

2. Heat oil. Warm but not too hot that it will burn the garlic.

3. Add garlic. Let it cook for a moment before adding the onion and chile. Cook until onion is soft.

4. Add spices and saute 30 seconds to a minute.

5. Add diced tomatoes and cook until soft. I wanted to eat this just by itself on a piece of bread. It smelled amazing.

6. Add lentils and about 1/2 cup of water. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

7. Add spinach and cover so the leaves wilt. Stir and simmer for about 5 more minutes. If you would like it a little wetter, add another splash of water. We liked ours a little drier than is in the Aarti video, so we let it simmer until there was just a little liquid left in the pan.

We had our Go Ducks! Curry with rice and a piece of grilled flatbread. It was beautiful looking and tasted amazing.

Price Breakdown

Curry
.16 yellow split peas (.48/lb at Winco)
.12 garlic (.34/head of garlic)
.24 onion (.35 lb @ .68/lb)
.04 serrano (.03 lb @ 1.49/lb)
.15 spices (guess, depends on how much you pay for spices)
.24 tomato (1/2 of .47 lb @ .99/lb)
.49 baby spinach (1/2 of bag @ .99/bag)
.25 rice (.56/lb - Purchased in bulk at warehouse store)

Note: I enjoyed a piece of homemade grilled flatbread with my dinner and that was not included in the price, although a basket of very filling bread that lasted for several meals cost less than $0.75 to make.


Total for hearty diner for two, plus 1 leftover meal:

$1.69 or $0.563/meal