easy dinners

I don't know about you, but I like to make meals as painless as possible. That means not too much fuss or steps to follow...

Last night's dinner was a keema-like curry. I couldn't find a recipe that I liked, so I took the type of spices that were in several recipes and came up with this.

150g ground beef
1/2 onion, diced
celery leaves, diced
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. ginger, ground
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. cumin
4 grinds pepper
1/2 tsp. tumeric
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1/8 tsp. clove
1 tsp. garam masala
1 can of diced tomatoes

Brown onions, celery leaves and beef. Add spices and then can of diced tomatoes. When everything is heated through, serve on rice or with naan.

NOTES: No matter what curry I make, I always put in a can of diced tomatoes, I saw this technique on a television show here and it has stuck with me ever since. I served this with my rice mixture of genmai (brown rice), haigamai (half-polished rice) and multi-grains. I also thinly sliced carrots, zucchini and potato and baked them in the oven with olive oil, pepper and salt to make my own chips. It doesn't start off too spicy, but has a kick towards the middle.

The other night's dinner was a simple stir-fry. Since I had all these veggies and some roast pork, I cut everything up, and while it was sweating, I added some pepper and added 2 teaspoons of hoisin sauce at the end.

Serve with rice.

NOTES: the hoisin flavor can be strong so don't use too much, the sauce kind of thinned out with the water that came out of the veggies while cooking, which balanced everything out.