Tag: broccoli

A Great Coconut Curry recipe

Today I thought I would share a great curry recipe.

Since my last post, Scott and I have been eating primarily a plant-based diet.

This is intended to help our bodies eliminate any toxins and improve our digestive system. I am also hoping to shed a couple of ‘cruise kilos’. So far I am on track. We are both feeling better and interestingly our sleep has improved.

Recipes for Inspiration

There are many great recipes that I regularly use for meal inspiration and this is 1 of our favourites.

The original recipe is in a small booklet that I got from The Source Bulk Foods last year. I have made a couple of small additions.

This quick, easy and delicious meal has many health benefits.

  • Garlic contains antioxidants that protect against cell damage and ageing.
  • Onions have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.
  • Broccoli is high in many vitamins and minerals.
  • Cauliflower provides a significant amount of antioxidants
  • Capsicum is very high in vitamin C
  • Studies show that tomatoes and tomato products may reduce the risk of heart disease and several cancers.
  • Turmeric contains curcumin, a substance with powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

You can add or change out the vegetables to suit your tastes, or what you have in the fridge. Though it is a vegetarian curry, it can easily be changed to a meat curry by simply adding your choice of diced meat.

Coconut Curry

serves 4

Ingredients

½ onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

½ broccoli cut into small flowerets

½ cauliflower cur into small flowerets

4 small potatoes diced

½ capsicum roughly chopped

2 tbsp tamari sauce

2 heaped tbsp. curry powder

2 tsp turmeric powder

1 tin diced tomatoes

400ml coconut cream

bunch of fresh coriander roughly chopped

* Cooked rice, noodles or quinoa to serve

Method
  • In a large saucepan, cook the onion and garlic till the onion is translucent
  • add the spices and stir for a minute
  • add all the rest of the ingredients (except coriander and rice/noodles)
  • bring to the boil, then reduce and simmer until the vegetables are cooked
  • add ½ the coriander and stir through
  • serve on rice or noodles
  • sprinkle rest of coriander on top

When I first made this, I thought that the sauce would split. This is not the case.

It becomes a really creamy sauce.

 

Till the next post,

 

Live clean n prosper

Our Home Grown Vegetables

Today I decided to write about vegetables, to be specific, our home-grown vegetables.

A couple of years ago Scott created a vegetable garden in a neglected garden bed along our fence line. Once the plants got established, we have enjoyed lovely home-grown, chemical free, vegetables.

How successfully….

Scott has tried growing several different things, some with success, some not so successful.

We have had success with Heirloom Carrots. The first time we harvested some we were quite surprised at the variety or colours that we had. Apart from the common orange, we had yellow, red, white & purple carrots, they really add colour to the plate. We continue to plant these seeds so that we always have some carrots.

Sweet potatoes have been a challenge. We planted 2 varieties, the common ‘Gold’ and the less common ‘Hawaiian’ sweet potato. The plants were quite large and healthy, but the crop was small. Hopefully next time around the results will be better.

Scott has had some great success with growing zucchini. We have had some large enough to stuff and roast.

We have not had success with growing cauliflower. As we don’t use any chemicals on our garden, our cauliflower plants were attacked by bugs and died.

At the beginning of winter Scott planted Purple Sprouting Broccoli seedlings and this week we harvested the last head of broccoli. It was quite large and really purple. It is also quite good for us.

A bit about the Broccoli,

There are differences in the nutritional values of green and purple broccoli.

The purple broccoli has higher levels of vitamin C, folate, iron, calcium, isotonic, glucolin, and anthocyanins.

Purple sprouting broccoli also contains the phyto chemicals ulphoraphane (thought to help prevent cancer) and may provide resistance against heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes. Overall, purple sprouting broccoli was found to contain higher contents of antioxidant compounds than green broccoli.

After cooking, the purple sprouting broccoli retains higher levels of antioxidant. (Sources; https://academic.oup.com/biohorizons/article/ ; https://drizzleazure.wordpress.com)

We have also had a pumpkin vine growing in our garden. It is growing quite well, taking up lots of space, and we have been looking forward to harvesting some pumpkins. However, we are not having much success.

The pumpkins are forming but don’t mature.

Scott was ready to pull up the plant. He spoke to one of his Uni lecturers who advised that the little immature pumpkins were quite good steamed.

We have since tried steaming them and they taste like button squash. So, I guess the pumpkin vine isn’t a complete failure. We are continuing to harvest the tiny pumpkins and are also going to try roasting them.

All in all, our garden is providing us with some lovely, chemical free, whole foods. By trying to grow different varieties, we eat a more varied diet.

Till the next post,

 

Live Clean n Prosper