Menu Madness: The Vegan Table: Curry in a Hurry

I love making menus from books, and I love alliteration! The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is a book full of menu plans.

I made the Curry in a Hurry menu last year for Father's Day, because my dad loves all things Indian. To be honest, sometimes the menus in this book seem a little disjointed, but this is relatively simple and goes together very nicely. This menu is from the 'Formal Dining for Six to Ten' chapter and is the 'Summer' section (I did not actually make this in summer, which is pretty shocking for me).

Pumpkin Curry: I only made a half batch of this (as I was cooking for three). This uses lentils, onions, pumpkin purees, shredded coconut and spices. Because I am a chili wimp, I used one dried chili instead of five. I needed to increase the heat and cover for the last 10 minutes of cooking to get the lentils to cook all the way through. I also changed the water to vegetable stock for some more flavour.
Rating: :)



Yellow Split Pea Dal: I made the whole recipe of this, which made an okay amount, but if I broke this into the 6 servings it said it makes they would be pretty small. I love dal, and this was nice and satisfying, though not the best dal I've made.
Rating: :)



Looking nice and tasty together!



This menu doesn't have anything green or really many vegetables at all, so I roasted a bunch of Brussels Sprouts to go on the side.



Curried Puff Pastry Nibbles from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: This is a ring-in. I wanted something a little extra as the menu itself was fairly simple, so I picked these cute curried puff pastry twists. Ready-made puff pastry is pressed with a mixture of ground cashews and spices, then baked. I found they turned out a little dry, but nothing some mango chutney couldn't fix.
Rating: :)



I served all of this with some brown basmati rice for a very tasty plate.



Frozen Mango Lassi: Of course we had to end with dessert. This menu ends with a frozen mango lassi, made mango, yoghurt, agave and cardamom. The mango and the yoghurt need to be frozen first, and because it was not mango season I just used a bag of frozen mango I always have on-hand for smoothies. This made quite a large amount. On the night I served it with some strawberry cupcakes (from Colleen's other book The Joy of Vegan Baking).
Rating: :)





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Remember Honey from my last post? Here she is helping me out at work by lying on the keyboard.