Egg Masala and Tuna Curry

It's the day after Easter and I have this in my fridge:

We could have spent the next week or so having crazy-faced, hard-boiled eggs in our lunches... but I'm not that much of a hard-boiled egg fan to begin with. So instead of prolonging their life, I went about making a list of recipes where I could get rid of all the eggs in one go. My very uninspiring list consisted of egg salad. Not exactly what I was hoping for. Then I recalled that years ago, I came across an Indian curry calling for hard-boiled eggs. I have to admit my first reaction to seeing that was "why in the world would I waste a perfectly good curry sauce with eggs?" But over the years, the recipe has caught my attention more than once. That curiosity combined with the dozen plus eggs smiling at me from the fridge finally caused me to take action and give it a try. Fearing a big thumbs down from everyone in the family, I made a backup dish to accompany it: our favorite tuna curry, which I usually serve over a cabbage salad.

The results? Pretty amazing. Not only did the girls gobble it down and beg for more, I surprised myself by going back for seconds! And... it was divine with the tuna! I will be adding this to my list of school night "quick fixes", for sure!

Serves 4

Egg Masala Ingredients:

• 2 T coconut oil
• 1 cup onion, finely chopped
• 2-inch piece ginger, finely chopped
• 3 cups tomato sauce
• 4 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp hot curry powder
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 T cilantro, finely chopped
• 8 hard boiled eggs, peeled and sliced in half

Egg Masala Directions:

1. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. 
2. Add onion and ginger and fry until onion begins to carmelize. 
3. Stir in tomato sauce, spices, and lemon juice and simmer for 10 minutes. Add a little water if the sauce becomes too thick.
4. Stir in cilantro. 
5. Gently place eggs in the pan and spoon sauce over top. Heat until eggs are warmed through.

Tuna Curry Ingredients:

• 2 T coconut oil
• 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1-inch piece ginger, finely chopped
• 1/2 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
• 3 small cans tuna, drained
• 2 T curry powder
• 1 T cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Tuna Curry Directions:

1. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. 
2. Add onion, garlic, ginger, and jalapeno pepper and fry until onion begins to carmelize.
3. Stir in tuna, curry powder, and cilantro and cook until tuna is hot. 
4. Squirt with lemon juice and serve immediately.

*Both these gorgeous dishes are inspired by recipes in cookbooks from Madhur Jaffrey.

Pork and Cabbage Fryup

The kiddos and I started a strict Whole30 challenge for the month of April to round out our first entire year of eating primal/paleo! The last couple months have been difficult due to extremely busy school and work schedules (perhaps apparent by my lack of posting here). However, I'm proud to say that even though we've treated ourselves with lots of dinners out and quick-fix meals at home, we've remained at least 90-95% paleo. We're now seven days into the challenge and feeling great. Even better, I've heard very little whining about/begging for "illegal" food items (although I did hear from a third party about someone eating a popcorn treat at school...). My oldest, Sunshine, is a real trooper. She is being exactly adherent to the rules of the game and has taken a pretty interactive role in helping me to plan meals. She also updates me daily on our progress: "21 meals down and 69 more to go".

I previously posted our recipe for Naked Momos. This is one of my family's absolute favorite meals and a quick-fix for me when prepared "lazy mom" style. Earlier this week, I really wanted momos. We didn't have all the ingredients AND I wasn't sure if coconut aminos are ok for Whole30 anyway, so I switched up the spice mixture a bit and ended up with this goregous 20-minute stir-fry. (So delicious... even the spouse suffering from simultaneous kidney+gall stones ate some...)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 T coconut oil
• 1 pound ground pork
• 3-inch piece ginger, grated
• 1-2 T Asian spice blend of choice (I used Penzy's Bangkok Blend)
• 1 bag cabbage and carrot "coleslaw mix"

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat.
2. Fry pork for 1-2 minutes, then stir in ginger and spice mix.
3. Continue cooking until pork is cooked through.
4. Stir in cabbage and cook until it reaches a desired tenderness.
5. Serve.