Curry in a Hurry

The weather here in Tampa has been GORGEOUS for the last few weeks:  daytime temperatures in the 70's, no humidity, beautiful sunny skies!  A girl can't ask for much more than that!

The other afternoon, Brian got home around 5 and it was still light out (thank goodness).  He asked me if I wanted to go for a run with him, since it was so beautiful outside and all.  I agreed and we went out to Bayshore for a nice jog.  We got back to the house around 6:30 (already dark outside by that time - boo!) and I immediately went into dinner-mode!

Fortunately, I had marinated some butterflied chicken breasts in my rosemary-thyme buttermilk marinade earlier (I added some chopped fresh sage to the marinade since I had it on hand - yum!) and that only takes about 12 minutes to cook up under the broiler - sweet!  For a side dish, I made Chickpea & Spinach Curry using cooked chickpeas I had made on Sunday (using this method here) and a package of frozen, chopped spinach that I quickly thawed in a strainer under running tap water.  I also served a salad of romaine and red leaf lettuce with roasted beets and a tiny helping of brown rice I had made over the weekend.

I'd had this recipe from the October 2011 issue of Real Simple magazine bookmarked for a while and finally got around to making it, and I'm glad I did!  I upped the seasonings and changed the ratio of chickpeas to spinach - reversing it so there was more spinach and less chickpeas.  Brian and I both loved it and it was really yummy the next afternoon with some leftover chicken for lunch.  Real Simple recommends serving the curry with a cucumber-yogurt sauce but I skipped that and although it sounds good, I didn't feel like the curry was missing anything.  You can find the recipe for the cucumber-yogurt sauce in the link to the original recipe below.

Dinner is served!

Chickpea Spinach Curry     

serves 4 as a side-dish

adapted from Real Simple magazine, original recipe available here

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder (or increase to 2 tablespoons and omit the ground cumin, coriander and turmeric)

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1 3/4 cup cooked chickpeas (I used homemade, but you can use one 15.5 oz can)

1 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed

kosher salt and black pepper

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring often until softened, about 5 minutes.  Reduce heat to medium, add the garlic and ginger and cook another 2 minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the curry powder, cumin, coriander and turmeric and cook, stirring for 1 minute.  

Add the chickpeas, spinach, 1 cup of water, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper (you may need to increase the salt depending on your taste) to the saucepan.  Bring to a simmer and cook on medium to medium-low heat, stirring occasionally for 12-15 minutes, until chickpeas are slightly softened and the mixture and most of the water is gone.  Add additional salt and/or curry seasoning if needed.

Leftovers for lunch!