Day One Hundred Twelve: Pantry Curry

As happens all too often, I looked up as it was beginning to get dark outside and thought, "Oh dang! I've got to put something together for dinner." I rushed to the kitchen and frantically flung open the pantry and refrigerator doors searching for anything that would work for feeding a hungry crowd and that wouldn't require too much hands-on time, since I still needed to drop off and pick up kids from practice. In the pantry, I spied two containers of dehydrated vegetables that we took camping with us this  summer -- specifically one container of sweet potato pieces and one of butternut squash. I snatched them up and dumped them in a pan with water and started to boil them. I had no plan, and I'm definitely usually a recipe cook, but I didn't panic. I dumped in some chicken broth and made a little sachet of fresh thyme to throw in. Then, as the veggies began to soften, I started grabbing things out of the pantry -- curry powder, cloves, tummeric, salt, pepper, cayenne, coconut milk. On the spot, I decided I was going to make a curry. It turned out quite delicious, and even though the panicked dinner experience was nothing new, this particular dish was a new one for our family.

Sweet potato/butternut squash curry topped with bacon and cheese