Roasted Sweet potato and Butternut Squash Curry with Pea and Mushroom Rice.

I love Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash. I cannot think of two more warming, comforting and delicious vegetables. Their qualities when both turned into soups are truly wondrous ! Butternut Squash as a soup almost needs nothing adding to it. Roast then cover in vegetable stock. Allow the stock and squash to infuse together for about 10 minutes and then blitz to a puree. If you tasted it blind you would swear that someone had added some cream to it because of its velvety texture on the tongue. If you must add anything ...well maybe a little drizzle of chilli oil and a few Parmesan shavings and their you have it winter warmth in a bowl.
Sweet Potato is another Winter warmer. A little bit of Thai Curry paste sweated of in a little oil is a good base to add the flesh of the Sweet potato. Cover with Vegetable stock and simmer for 20 minutes. Blitz then let it sit overnight or for 24 hours for the flavours to fully infuse then slowly eat savouring every warming moment. Dip some heartily ripped rustic bread and snog tenderly (tongues allowed ..ha ha !) until your bowl is empty.
OK I have gone off on one their and really this is a recipe for another curry. This is a more basic curry and does not evolve sweating onions until golden brown this is really just a 20 minute job once the Butternut squash and Sweet potato are roasted and was designed for my tea !

This recipe is for 1 with a bit left over !

First roast 1 sweet potato, The top half of a Butternut squash and 3 Shallots. Half an onion is fine its just I have shallots to use up.

Next place the Roasted shallots into a pan with a little bit of Olive oil. Add 2 TBSP of Curry powder, half a teaspoon of chilli powder, some garlic powder and a TBSP of tomato puree. Sweat for 3 minutes.

Next add 1 400g tin of tomatoes and the flesh of the sweet potato. Add 200 mls of hot water with a knorr vegetable jelly pot dissolved into it and then stir.

When well mixed put a lid on the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

The Mushroom and Pea rice is simple. Saute some mushrooms in a pan, then add the peas to warm through. I then just heated a bag of microwave basmati rice according to the instructions on the packet. Yes I know I am supposed to be a "PROFESSIONAL' and I know I should be telling you about how to make beautiful fragrant braised rice using cardamon pods (thank you Lynn !) and a beautiful vegetable stock but this is a good quick short cut and saves on washing too ! And did I mention I am still on VACATION !! Rome was not built in a day but it might have been if they had taken a few short cuts !

Add the rice to the mushrooms and peas and gently toss. Ready.

The sauce should be ready after 20 minutes. Just taste it. You should get a nice curry taste, then the smooth sweet potato should slowly come through and then a little pinch on your tongue of heat from the chilli powder. It might need a bit of seasoning if so...season it.
I then placed everything into my blender and turned it into a smooth sauce. If you want a more rustic sauce then don't blend. I did as I knew I would only need half the mix and I was going to use the left over sauce to accompany my chips which in turn was going to accompany my kebab or pizza or jumbo battered sausage after a few beers with mate Bruce on Saturday night !! ha ha !

The sauce was done. I added half of it to another pan. The Butternut squash I had roasted with the Sweet Potato and shallots was diced and then added to the pan of sauce to warm through. I finished it with some fresh roughly chopped coriander and then ladled it on to the mushroom and pea rice.

Now this tasted great and you would think I would have been happy just eating this fair Vegetarian treat. Well I would have been but you see there was this bit of turkey defrosting in the fridge and I tried to fight my meat eating demons but I am just too weak..! So I coloured it in a pan, finished it off in the oven and served on top of the curry and you know what I felt totally guilty while eating every succulent mouth full ! ha ha !