easy vegan dahl and curry.

Today was my turn to cook. I live in a house with 4 friends, and just next door is another house where another 5 of my friends live. We all take it in turns to cook for each other, and today was my turn. About 3/4 of us are vegans, so we all cook vegan, which is a lot easier and tastier than it sounds. I myself am not a vegan or a vegetarian but I don't really eat meat unless it's offered to me. I've never cooked it, and 95% of the time the thought of eating it repulses me. Anyway, this is what I cooked tonight and it went down a treat.

Dahl:
Blend up a tin of tomatoes/ 6 fresh tomatoes with a generous chunk of ginger. Heat some oil in a pan and add a teaspoon each of fennel and cumin seeds. When they start to crack, add the tomato paste and then a couple of tins of lentils (or chickpeas, whichever you prefer). Leave it to simmer for at least 10 minutes (I had this simmering while I prepared the rest of the meal, as follows...). If spinach is in season, add it just before serving and stir it in nicely. I also used a dash of tumeric.

Mixed veg curry:
Heat some oil in a pan and, again, add a teaspoon each of fennel and cumin seeds. Chop up/ crush 2 cloves of garlic and other chunk of garlic and add this to the pan when the seeds crack (if you like, a chilli pepper would go nicely here too, but my housemates aren't too keen on spicy food). Then add a white and a red onion (chopped relatively finely), and fry for a few minutes until soft. I add a few spices here: tumeric, garam masala and chilli powder.  Then add your veggies. I used two carrots, half a broccoli, and half a cauliflower, but you could really use any veg,  whatever is in season. I also added in a few spoons of concentrated tomato paste at this stage. Then add watered coconut milk with the veggies (about enough to half cover them all) and simmer away until all the water is gone.

Serve both with rice!

I also attempted vegan onion bhajis last week but it didn't work too well. They were gorgeous but just didn't really stay together very well...I think it would work best with eggs, but I'll keep experimenting with other bits.