Spice Up Uninspiring Leftovers!

My son came home from work, hot, tired and hungry. He had a chicken dinner awaiting him, he took the chicken slices and made a sandwich, but was still hungry. So, while he had a shower I applied some culinary magic ... and poof! it was all gone! Read on for my secret magic spell!

Well, I had the left-over vegetables, the gravy (stock) and some meat sauce (which I was intending to make into another lasagne)... I also had a whole store cupboard full of spices, and some veggies in the fridge... and ...

...Yes, I have my proper spicy curry powder - without chilli !!! - please see here ... and creamed coconut.

Roughly chop one red onion ...or one brown onion - whatever you have (...or both if you like - hey - its your recipe as much as mine!)

Chop some brightly coloured sweet peppers.

Put about 2 table spoons of cooking oil into your saucepan then set your hob to warp factor 12 (or a high flame etc...) to get the pan nice and hot then cautiously tip in the onions. Let them fry for a few minutes stirring occasionally to stop them burning. When they are starting to go translucent add in the peppers and stir well. Turn down the heat to Warp Factor 6/medium and saute until the peppers start to soften and caramelise.

While they are cooking roughly chop up those uninspiring vegetables, as you can see we had fresh carrots, baby potatoes and fresh runner beans (a.k.a. stick beans/french beans - but these are broader).

When the peppers have softened add in the chopped vegetables and heat them up, stirring occasionally until the potatoes just start to brown off. Turn the heat right down to warp factor 1, low - or if your hob has a radiant element which retains the heat take the pan off the element.

Then add the magic pixie dust - sorry the proper spicy curry powder - or Garam Marsala or whatever curry powder you have to hand. I used 4 teaspoons of proper spicy curry powder; stir it well in to thoroughly coat everything.

Then cook over a very low heat for 3-4 minutes to roast the spices, stirring from time to time.

If necessary thin out the left over gravy/stock then stir it into the vegetable/spice mix. I then transferred all the dish into the saucepan that had the gravy in because that was the bigger of the two pans and gave me more room to stir.

I then broke off some knobs of creamed coconut and added to the pan, if you are using tinned coconut milk you may not need to thin the gravy so much. As it was I then added more water to make the curry sauce thinner to allow for some to steam off in the stewing.

Add in the left-over meat sauce (or left-over chicken - which is what I would have done if it hadn't already been eaten!)

Then stir well, and allow to simmer over a low heat (I use warp factor 3) for as long as you can... or until your Diners are ready to eat...

Well, this should have been a photo of the curry neatly server onto the plate ... possibly with a sprig of parsley to dress it - but as you can see it was eaten within minutes, all of it... yes, those uninspiring vegetables all magically disappeared!

I hope this will inspire you to take leftovers and turn them into something really tasty.