While our family quite often has vegetarian meals, these probably don’t occur on a weekly basis, and certainly not on a fixed day of the week. So, this evening we had our first-ever Meat-free Monday.

I made a curry, with chickpeas and roast butternut, and it really was a hassle-free experience. The first step was to make the curry base (if you’re not in the mood for all this, simply buy one ready-made here).

Making the Curry Base
I fried two chopped onions, and then added two cloves of chopped garlic with about two inches of ginger (grated). Once the onions were translucent I added the spices:
2 heaped teaspoons of NoMU Indian Rub
5 heaped teaspoons of NoMU Masala Rub
I also put in about 100g of flaked almonds, which added flavour and gave a nice texture to the finished result.
After a minute, or so, of roasting in the pot I added the liquid:
1 small tin (400g) of chopped tomato
1 small tin (same size) of coconut milk
This whole lot was left to simmer covered for an hour, after which I added NoMU Vegetable Fond (concentrated liquid stock) to taste, as well as salt and about a cup of water.

Assembly
A couple of minutes before service I added two 400g tins of chickpeas (drained), as well as the pre-roasted chunks of butternut, to warm through.

The curry was served with Basmati rice and steamed broccoli. I washed it down with Cloof’s The Very Vivacious Viognier, which was a very happy companion to the spicy (but not ‘hot’) food.

Curry is one of those meals that often features as a takeaway meal, largely – I suspect – because we’re too intimidated to make it ourselves. Our curry this evening was every bit as successful as anything we’ve bought it. And, four of us ate ourselves into a stupor for a fraction of the cost of a lamb roast.

Thank God, though, Meat-free Monday only comes around once a week. As delicious as this evening’s meal was, a perfectly grilled pork chop is so much more satisfying.

(Disclosure: my sister, Tracy, and her husband, Paul, founded, own and manage NoMU. The name arose from Tracy’s interest years ago in opening a vegetarian deli, which would sell no meat, or No Moo, hence the name. NoMU’s online shop is one of my web projects.)