Shopping-Day Curry

Growing up, my mother used to make a dish known in our family as shopping-day soup. Contrary to what the name implies, it wasn't a soup made with all of the newly purchased vegetables. Instead, to make room for the new supplies, shopping-day soup was how she used up all of the veggies left at the bottom of the crisper.

Since Wednesday is the day that I pick up my weekly Gemüse Tüte, Wednesday has also become my de facto shopping day. And since my fridge is smaller then the average American dishwasher, I have to empty out the micro-crisper in order to make room for the fresh produce. Yesterday, that meant that dinner had to include a head of broccoli, a green pepper, half a package of mushrooms, two carrots, a couple stalks of celery, a handful of spinach, and an inch-long piece of ginger.

I started out making a veggie stir fry, adding half an onion and two cloves of minced garlic to the mix. The stir-fry turned into a vegetable curry when, to spice things up, I added a couple of teaspoons of Thai red curry paste and coconut milk. I used rest of the can of coconut milk to make coconut rice, to which I added a handful of chopped almonds. The meal was topped by crispy fried basil-tofu. And it was good enough that, when Kevin said a co-worker was going to drop him off, I was happy to invite him to join us for dinner.