I travel a lot… this means that I am emptying my fridge and cupboards all the time. This last trip had me in limbo for about two weeks enroute from Canada to the US, so I took some needed items with me to my temporary location. I didn’t want to be without my favorite items of organic miso and nutritional yeast which is easy to find in most Vancouver stores but not so easy to find in Scottsdale stores, so I packed them as well as a few other items.  I arrived on Dec 23rd late in the evening and was hungry.  The ingredients I had were few and far between:

Butter, miso, curry, garlic, nutritional yeast, almonds, cashews, white wine & rice pasta. I love a challenge and figured I could make something tasty with what I had. Here is what I threw together and it was delicious!  This isn’t the healthiest or lowest fat meal but you could sub the butter for veggie broth and omit the wine.

7-9 cloves of garlic
1TBSP curry powder
2 TBSP butter
3-4 TBSP nutritional yeast
1/2-1 TBSP miso
Splash of wine
2 TSBP crushed cashews

Sautee garlic in butter, whisk in the miso, add curry and some water to make it still thick but not too thick, a splash of white wine.  Blend in nutritional yeast.  Add cooked pasta and mix.  Top with crushed cashews.  This was amazingly good.  If I had planned this meal I would have added onions and fresh steamed veggies like broccoli.

Normally I would have a salad and a protein with something like this and as as such we were still hungry.  I looked around at the remaining ingredients and figured that Spiced Nuts were next on the menu.

1- 1 1/2 cup of mixed nuts, I used cashews and almonds but you could also add pecans or filberts.
In pan heat the nuts until toasted about 4 mins.
In a saucepan mix 1-2 TBSP butter, add something sweet, I had maple syrup on hand but you could use brown sugar and water or agave syrup.  I used about 2 TBSP of syrup.
1 TBSP curry powder
2 TBSP nutritional yeast
salt as needed

Add nuts to the liquid and mix.  Put on a plate to cool and enjoy.

Nuts like this don’t have to be just a holiday treat.  Keep in mind though that nuts have more nutrition when they are eaten raw, rather than cooked.