Healthy, Cheap and Tasty Rainbow Curry

HEALTHY, CHEAP, TASTY RAINBOW CURRY

As you can probably tell from the above photo, I'm not very good at that whole tumlr-esque, absolutely perfect not a pea out of place kind of photography that features on most blogs, hence why there is sauce on the knife and a nice splodge on the side of the plate. This is real life photography mostly taken on my iPod Touch, so that my flatmates wouldn't be sat there wondering why I was conducting an extravagant photo shoot with my freshly cooked curry, instead of sitting down and eating it. It's a bit of a pants photo but I edited it with some rainbow colours to make it pretty, and anyway, the whole point of this post is not my photography, but the food, of the fooooood. 

You see, now that I am a fully fledged university student, I have to cook for myself every single day which gets very mentally taxing after a while, as there's only so many things you can make on a rather limited budget. Therefore I am frequently forced to be creative with the ingredients I do have, so every week I've been coming up with some surprisingly delicious cheap, healthy and creative meals that I photograph in the hopes of one day sharing with my fellow hungry students. The other week I finally made a curry after living next to the infamous Curry Mile for three months, and because I had no meat in, but I definitely had a ton of vegetables (I am the child of a veggie enthusiast mother), I opted to go for a veggie curry instead. The end result was absolutely divine, much to my complete and utter surprise, and it was healthy and cheap to make too, which made it even better! So obviously I thought it had to go up here on the blog, and voilà, here we are. 

I've listed the ingredients and their current prices at Lidl (my spiritual home) and the recipe is super easy to follow. Lastly, if you do make this dish and you like it, or have some tips you'd like to share with me, I'd love to hear from you so please do comment!

And now into zee kitchen we go...

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YOU WILL NEED:

1/2 aubergine
-(45p for one)-

1 carrot 

-(57p for seven)-

1 +half - 2 peppers
-(95p for three)-
1 handful of peas
-(£1 per pack)-

2-3 handfuls of kale or spinach
-(79p per pack)-

1/2 jar of Sainsburys Basics curry sauce
-(30p per jar)-
Herbs, spices and oil to flavour
-(prices vary)-

1/2 cup of rice

-(40p per pack)-

This recipe makes two generous portions of curry or three to four smaller portions, and meat 

can be added to the dish, as can other vegetables.

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METHOD

1

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees. Chop up the aubergine, carrots and peppers into chunks and place in baking tray. If you're including any other vegetables at this stage (eg. broccoli, tomatoes, courgettes) also chop up and include.

2

Pour olive oil over the vegetables, followed by sprinkling Oregano, Mixed Herbs, Chilli powder and any other desired seasoning, and use your hands to distribute evenly across all vegetables. Then place the tray in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes until aubergine in particular are tinged with golden brown.

3

Place the kale/ spinach and peas in a pan and fill with boiling water. Leave to boil for 3-5 minutes and when done place the vegetables in a big pan. 

4

Fill half a cup full of rice and pour into a separate saucepan, followed by one full cup of boiling water (double this is if cooking for two) and leave to boil until the rice has absorbed all the water.

5

Meanwhile after 20-25 minutes take the vegetables out the oven and added to the kale/ spinach and peas. Pour in half a jar of the curry sauce, stir thoroughly and leave to simmer for ten minutes.

6

Place rice on plate and serve the curry sauce. Naan breads and other Indian accompaniments are optional but incredibly delicious with this dish, should you want to treat yourself!

7

Enjoy!

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