Quick Cauliflower and Potato Curry, Jasmine Rice, Apple and Fennel Salad

This is a quick and easy recipe for enter­tain­ing. The extra turmer­ic is good for you, and it gives the pota­toes and cau­li­flower an appeal­ing yel­low col­or, which looked good with the red toma­toes. I served it with white rice and some pars­ley for gar­nish. For the sal­ad,  I had some fen­nel left over from the day before. The feath­ery greens from the fen­nel bulb dressed up the sal­ad, and were tasty. I also had some car­rot cake left over from the day before for dessert.

Quick Cau­li­flower and Pota­to Cur­ry
2 onions, diced
3 cloves gar­lic, minced or pressed
About 3 medi­um pota­toes, diced
Near­ly half a head of cau­li­flower, cut into flo­rets
1 can diced toma­toes
1 tsp cur­ry pow­der
1 tsp turmer­ic
Pars­ley or kale for gar­nish

Stir-fry the diced onions in a dry skil­let (no oil) until they are very brown. You can add a lit­tle bit of water from time to time if they start to stick. Add the minced gar­lic and fry that for about 30 sec­onds. Then add about 3 cups of water and the pota­toes, cau­li­flower, and diced toma­toes. Add the spices. Cov­er and sim­mer until the pota­toes and cau­li­flower are ten­der. Serve with rice. Gar­nish with pars­ley or kale.

It’s hard to give an exact quan­ti­ty for the pota­toes and cau­li­flower, because their sizes vary, and some skil­lets are big­ger than oth­ers. If I fill my skil­let with veg­eta­bles, it yields about 6 serv­ings.

Rice
Because we had com­pa­ny, I want­ed to serve a par­tic­u­lar­ly tasty kind of rice, so I made white jas­mine rice accord­ing to the pack­age direc­tions. I made more than I need­ed, because I would be eat­ing the left­overs for lunch the fol­low­ing day. Jas­mine rice is a nat­u­ral­ly fra­grant rice vari­ety from Thai­land. I didn’t have any brown jas­mine rice, so I used white. Bas­mati rice, brown or white, would also have worked well.

Apple and Fen­nel Sal­ad
Fresh let­tuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces
1 sweet red apple, cored and diced
1 car­rot, peeled and shred­ded
1 stalk of fen­nel, diced
Fen­nel greens for gar­nish
Dress­ing made from rough­ly equal pro­por­tions of bal­sam­ic vine­gar, hon­ey, and pre­pared mus­tard, sprin­kled with thyme