For example, you can get a basic rice and coconut curry done in under an hour (minus the time to go to the store and buy ingredients). All in all, the actual cooking part should take no more than half an hour, the rest just depends how skilled you are at cleaning and cutting vegetables. Here’s my recipe:

• 1a. Go out and buy some rice, a can of coconut milk, some garlic, a couple of onions (shallots work too) and a few vegetables of your choice (two bell peppers and two or three carrots work well, but you can also go with broccoli or zucchini, green beans or cauliflower, mushrooms or baby corn, or really pretty much anything).

• 1b. If you don’t have spices at home also buy either a blend of curry spices (something with ginger and cardamom is nice and gives a pretty intense taste) or pre-made curry paste if you can find it in your local store.

• 2. Peel and finely dice a few cloves of garlic and one onion, cut the remaining onion and the other veggies into bite sized pieces (if you went with bell pepper take out the seeds and stem, and for the carrot wash thoroughly or peel it)
• 3. Put your desired quantity of rice and double that amount of hot water (for instance 250g of rice and 500ml of water) in a pot, salt it and once it starts to boil set a timer for ten minutes. Once the time is up take the pot off the heat and put a lid on it to keep the steam in.
• 4. In the meantime heat a few spoonfuls of oil in a large pan and roast the diced garlic and onion in it for a couple of minutes.
• 5. Add the rest of the veggies and stir fry for another five or so minutes (until they are no longer raw but not so long that the veggies get completely soft).
• 6. Add in the coconut milk and spices (and optionally a couple spoonfuls of tomato paste/puree if you have some), mix everything together and let simmer for another few minutes until the sauce and veggies have the desired consistency (if you don’t have enough liquid from just the coconut milk add a bit of water as needed).
• 7. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and bonus points if you have some fresh green/spring onions (“scallion” for the Americans) that you can quickly chop up and garnish the whole thing with, and maybe even some sesame seeds.

If you are eating it right away serve it with the rice on the side, else if you are planning on storing it in the fridge to eat over the next day or two (the quantities i recommended here probably make about three to four portions so you will have leftovers to reheat) then just dump the entire contents of the pan into the pot with the rice (but obviously don’t do this if you use a rice cooker!).

If you need it to have some more protein and are ok with eating meat you can roast some diced chicken breast in the pan in step 4. Otherwise i guess tofu or chickpeas work too as a vegan option (i strongly recommend chickpeas here, because no offense to tofu lovers but tofu is just kinda boring to me).

I’m moving in with some of my comrades so basic stuff like stove, pans and all this stuff is decently there.