Butternut, Chickpea Curry with Eggplant and another award!

We are picking plenty of butternut now and I know I am supposed to be storing them in the basement for the winter but they are just so tasty.  Eggplants or aubergine seem to have been our best fruiting plant this year and we still have some hanging, just waiting for the kitchen. In fact we seem to have been feasting on different kinds of eggplants for months and I am still not tired of  them. So here is the curry I made with a lovely mild and pretty butternut and the thai eggplant.

Curry is one of my favourites in my kitchen because I can start it and leave it to cook while I go and work outside.  Our winters (in the midwest) when they come,  get very very cold (well very very cold for me anyway compared to my upbringing on a New Zealand beach) so I have to be very very prepared. We heat the house with a cast iron wood burning firebox in the big room and I will literally put a curry or a stew on top and it will cook quietly on the fire for the afternoon. Though not yet. We have to clean the summer birds nests out of the chimney first!!

And did I tell you that I only have one faucet (tap)  for the whole wee farm. So there is plenty of exercise dragging the hose from one water barrel to the next and one garden to the next all summer. But in winter the hoses are useless, everything freezes solid. Solid! So guess how I get water out to the barn? To the three cows and five sheep and all those chooks and guineas and cats and dogs and maybe soon a pig.. yes, with buckets!  I know, I hear you gasp. You can’t get more old-fashioned than that. You know some people pay to go to a gym to carry the weights I do!!

But winter is not here yet, it is still late late summer so we are still warm and active and happily dragging hoses. Below is the curry recipe and then I am giving out FIVE more awards. Exciting.

• 1teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspooon ground fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon red curry
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon coconut threads

Place in pan with a little hot oil, stir together well and lightly toast just enough to excite the flavours.  Then add-

• 1 jar chunky summer tomato sauce (or can of diced tomatoes)
• 1 can vegetable broth
• 1 can chickpeas (drained and washed)
• 1 pepper from your garden, (or two if you are cindy) to add a little more heat
• 1 peeled and diced small butternut
• 2 unpeeled diced thai eggplant (aubergine)

Cook until cooked, serve over jasmine rice. We had a side dish of thin pork strips pan fried with sesame seeds, red chilli, honey (of course) and freshly picked coriander.

And yes – more AWARDS.  I am so lucky today. Another blogging friend of mine and a very clever woman who has a very entertaining way of looking at the world – sent me another prize.  chris nominated me for the Liebster Blog award.  Which is just fantastic. Thank you Chris. Pop over and visit her when you have a moment. She is lovely.

And now the best and worst part, I also get to nominate 5 new recipients of this award. But only five.   Though awesome to get a chance. The recipients should have less than 200 subscribers,  I have no idea how to know this as not many people publish that. So I am going to take a stab within my own little blog world and hope for the best.

The blog world is such a positive and informative place to wander through each morning. Once more I am so sorry to all the wonderful pages I visit and who visit me that I do not have enough awards to go around.

I will love you and leave with these 5 really good food blogs out of so many really really good food blogs that I follow.  Now, if any of you have so many subscribers that I have made an error, just say oops,  then gently pass it on to five of the other little people like me on your lists, who would love the recommendation  from you I am sure.  And thank you again for all your neat comments. I love them.   c

Drum roll please!

• foodie in berlin
• rufus’ food and spirits guide
• chica anduluza
• cooking in sens
• from the bartolini kitchens