Veggie Thai Red Curry

This is a recipe I originally made over Christmas as a way of using up leftover sprouts, parsnips and other veg. I love a Thai curry, but sometimes the traditional Green one can be a bit too fiery for my taste buds. With the Red curry I find it a lot milder, but still with that delicious sweet and slightly spicy edge to it!

I find curries or any dish that is heavily spiced an easy way for me to sub out meat for extra veggies and don't feel like I miss the meat at all. For me cutting down on meat was a habit change and in order to make that an easier transition I needed to replace the pleasure of having some meat (that sounds wrong) with something equally as pleasing to my mouth (again that sounds wrong). So for me curries and dishes with lots of sauce have been a great way to distract my palette from the lack of animal. I'm also lucky my friend Steve is a top curry cook making things a little easier! But I would say if you're looking to cut down on meat a bit, curries are a good starting place as the flavours are amazing, especially a good home made curry.

This curry works even better with some pre-roasted Brussels, to add another dimension.

So for this curry you'll need:

• 300g Brussel sprouts, shredded (or roughly chopped if using left over roasted ones)

• 1 carrot, roughly chopped

• 1 parsnip, roughly chopped

• 1/2 a butternut squash, peeled and cubed

• 1 red pepper, de-seeded & roughly chopped

• 1 tbsp soy sauce

• 400g chopped tomatoes

• 400g coconut milk

• 3 tbsp Thai Red Curry paste

• 3 dried chillis

• 4 Keffir lime leaves

• 3 Thai basil leaves

1. Start by sautéing your carrot, parsnip, butternut squash and red pepper for about 10 mins, or until just soft.

2. Add in your Thai Red Curry paste and cook out for 2 mins.

3. Add in your chopped tomatoes, coconut milk, Keffir lime leaves, soy sauce, and dried chillis.

4. Bring to the boil and then simmer for around 10 mins.

5. Add in your Brussel sprouts and Thai basil leaves and cook for another 2 mins.

6. Serve straight away with a big bowl of rice!