Perfect Friday {+ Indian-inspired dish}

Last night was the perfect start to the weekend. A night in with a great dinner, red wine, and a movie.

Let’s start with dinner, shall we?

I cracked open my new rice cooker (thanks Mom and Dad!) and made my first successful batch of brown rice. Seriously, I don’t know why brown rice and I haven’t been friends in the past (too much water, not enough time). But now that’s all changed.

I added 2 C. brown rice + water + sea salt + coconut oil to the rice cooker. Closed the lid, chose the brown rice option, and I was free to go figure out the rest of our meal. Amazing! Can’t wait to try out the steamer option.

I knew I wanted an Indian-inspired dish, which basically means I wanted to use Madras Curry. <—I’m obsessed.

Curried Rice with Curry Peanut Sauce

(curried rice, chickpeas and veggies, curry peanut sauce)

For the chickpeas and veggies: warm up a large sauce pan and add 1 T. coconut oil.

Once the pan is nice and warm, add one can of rinsed chickpeas and 2 T. madras curry powder. Sauté over medium heat.

For veggies, I added a bag of frozen Asian Medley mix—a mixture of baby corn, carrots, green beans, and broccoli. Next time I might add some red pepper for more color.

At this point, I took a small break to open a bottle of wine.

Three-buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s. I was able to use my cute new wine stopper that was given to me for my birthday. In October!

Let’s get to my favorite part of the meal: the sauce.

Curry Peanut Sauce

This sauce was made on a whim, but turned out creamy and delicious!

Ingredients

• 1 C. unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 C. peanut flour
• 1/2 t. garam masala
• 1/2 t. cinnamon
• 1 T. madras curry
• 1/2 t. cayenne <—omit this if you prefer milder flavor
• 1 mini scoop stevia
• 1 T. natural peanut butter

Directions are simple: add all the ingredients to a pot, whisk, and cook over low heat.

As the sauce cooks, it thickens up very nicely (because of the peanut flour). So throughout cooking I ended up adding about 1/4 C. more almond milk to thin it out a bit.

It’s not the prettiest sauce, but it’s definitely tasty!

After all that, the brown rice was finally done.

Perfect!

My version of curry rice: mix cooked brown rice with a little olive oil, 1 T. curry, and 1/2 t. garam masala.

Layer it up and enjoy!

And the last ingredient to my perfect Friday: a movie. Adam had his cousin spend the night, so they watched a kids show and Sam and I rented The Town. We both fell asleep about 30 minutes in. <—ya, just call us Gramps n' Gram.

Daily dose of Georgie:

Well I’m off to two of my favorite places: Trader Joes and Whole Foods!!

Have a fabulous Saturday friends!

<3 Stefanie

One more day to enter my Oskri Giveaway!

Something to think about: Researchers found that those who place the highest expectations on themselves (self-described perfectionists) had an increased risk of premature death. Why? People who are motivated by perfectionism carry around more anxiety as a result of being too hard on themselves. –Glamour

Something to do: Today, instead of trying to do everything exactly right, prioritize the areas of your life where your really want to excel. And of course, kicking your feet up and relaxing never hurts.

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