Some days you just want your lips to tingle and to feel the heat of a spicy curry in your belly. Unfortunately there are no Thai or Indian restaurants where I live so I am left to experiment with coconut milk curry pastes and vegetables.

Curry always seems like a simple dish, however, the flavor profile is complex and achieving the right amount of heat is important. Of course you can always just use some curry paste and coconut milk and call it a day but I figured a little more flavor was needed and added a dash of soy sauce, a squeeze of lime juice and a drop of apple cider vinegar.

I did not have wild rice in the house and wanted to try a little something different with the base. Rice is awesome because it soaks up the flavors of the curry and offsets the heat but I had grand visions of raw carrot noodles; crunchy and sweet. The carrot noodles were a complete fail, how does one make a carrot noodle? I tried my fancy Kitchenaid spiralizer but the carrots were too small and I wound up with slivers of carrots and my handheld couldn't grip the carrot well enough to get a noodle either so I used the carrot slivers which I call rice even though it technically wasn't. Next time I will just go ahead and rice the carrots and skip all that crazy mess.

As you can tell, the entire meal was an experiment and a work in progress - the result was a delicious curry and with a few tweaks to the base would be an awesome week night meal.

Red pepper and Chickpea Coconut Curry with Carrot Rice

Serves 2

1 Onion, sliced

1 Red pepper, Sliced

1 cup Sprouted Chickpeas

3 cloves of Garlic, chopped

1 in of ginger, minced

4 Collard Green Leaves, chiffonade

2 tbs Olive Oil

2 tbs Curry Paste (Red or Green)

1 cup Coconut Milk

1/2 cup Water

Juice from 1/2 of a Lime

1 tbs Apple Cider Vinegar

1 tsp Soy Sauce/Tamari

4 Carrots, shredded

Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. Add the sliced Onion and Red Pepper, cooking until they begin to soften. Add the garlic, ginger and chickpeas to the pan, cooking for another minute before adding the curry paste. Saute the curry paste and vegetables for 1-2 minutes before adding the coconut milk, water, lime juice, soy sauce, and vinegar. Add the collard greens, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, shred the carrots in your food processor until a rice like consistence is created, you could use cauliflower of broccoli for this as well. Divide the carrot between 2 plates and top with the curry.

Enjoy and healthy eating!