The Weatherman blew it again—promising highs in the upper 40’s. Right. The temps are dropping, down to 38, damp, drizzly. Absolutely miserable.

Team Czar will need something to warm up tomorrow night at the Foxcatcher ride site so I figured why not kill two birds with one spatula and make a nice big “mess” of chicken and veggie curry over rice. [“Mess” is a Pa-German term meaning a hardy, enough to feed an army dish—like a mess of nice beans with bacon dressing. “Nice” also a required term, for obvious reasons.]

I make no pretense of being an expert in making curry dishes. Since we have a substantial Indian population in the Valley, our grocery stores carry a great variety of imported Curry simmer sauces. That relieves me of having to keep a boat-load of spices on hand, and it’s quick and easy to throw together a tasty one-dish meal.

Today I selected Patak’s Dopiaza Curry simmer sauce. It’s tomato-based with a relatively mild flavor. As usual I began with an uber-large green pepper, half of a very large white onion, two stalks of celery and a dozen or so large white button mushrooms. I also had a package of chicken tenders that I chopped into a 1″ dice.

Using EVOO with a pat of butter, I heated it until it smoked and then added the chicken, salt and pepper, stirring until browned nicely on all sides.

After removing the chicken to a plate, I added all the veggies and did a fast stir fry. I added pretzel salt, coarse ground black pepper and a few grinds of dried garlic bits.

When the onion became translucent, I added the chicken back to the pan, then a half jar of the Dopiza sauce, heated and voila!

I also prepared Basmati rice as the base (1 3/4 cups water to 1 cup rice, steam for 15 minutes until all water is absorbed.

I like to prep this dish early in the day, then refrigerate to allow for the flavors to blend. It makes killer leftovers and is just the thing to satisfy you on a dreary day.

Bon appetit!