Beetroot, Black Grape & Black Bean Curry, Served with Kamut - An Original Recipe (Vegetarian)

I adore curries - there's so many flavour, texture and colour options, and you can use all kinds of vegetables/fruit that you don't know what else to do with!  I had a huge bunch of black grapes I wasn't sure how to use before they past their best, so I put on my thinking cap.  After a while I realised that grapes aren't so different to tomatoes really, and so I wondered could I make a curry with them?  And the answer is a resounding YES!  Grapes are good for curries y'all - I can now confirm this!  Obviously grapes are pretty high in natural sugars so you wouldn't want to be eating grape curries all the time, but as an occasional meal there's no problems at all.

Curries are also a fantastic way to get vegetables into children, well, as long as they enjoy spicy food that is!  Luckily my 22-month-old likes nothing more than a mouthful of something spicy, so he is in no way lacking good vegetable nutrition.  You can use things your children wouldn't normally eat, such as sprouts, kale, turnip, whatever, and they would never even know.  I had a broccoli stalk and a couple of halves of peppers I wanted to use up, and so I just minced them up along with the other veg.  No need to waste valuable veggies!

Ingredients:

200g red lentils

200g beetroot

200g carrots

1/2 red pepper

1/2 yellow pepper

Broccoli stalk

2 red onions

1 bulb garlic

400g black grapes

200ml water

400ml coconut milk

Handful fresh cilantro or 1 tblsp dried cilantro leaf

2 tsp salt

1 tblsp black pepper

1 tblsp cumin

1 tblsp cayenne pepper

1 tblsp paprika

1 tsp garam masala

1 tblsp curry powder

400g can of black beans

Method:

In a saucepan cover the lentils with cold water, bring to the boil, and let simmer for 15 minutes until softened.  Drain and set aside.

Peel and roughly dice the beetroot, carrots, peppers, broccoli stalk, onions and garlic, then mince them all in a food processor.

Heat 1 tblsp of coconut oil in a large frying pan and add the minced vegetables.  Saute for 10 minutes until the veg has softened.

Remove the pits from the larger grapes (unless they have already been pitted), and put into a blender with 200ml water.

Add the grapes and lentils to the frying pan and mix in.  I love watching the red colour become more intense with every stir!

Add the herbs & spices and the coconut milk, and let simmer for 20-30 minutes until reduced to a nice thickness.

Rinse the black beans and add to the curry, and continue to heat for a further 10 minutes.  (Ensure the beans are piping hot before serving)

Serve with the grain of your choice... I used kamut and it worked beautifully alongside the curry.  

Another evening I served it with brown basmati rice cooked with turmeric, and so made the meal really striking!

You can also portion the left-overs into jars and pop in the freezer for future meals.

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Many thanks.
 

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All photos in this post are my own original, taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S8200.