What's for dinner this week?

Yesterday was hubby's birthday and I made him a birthday curry.  Rather belatedly, as we were tucking into it, I remembered that I should have taken a photograph for the blog.  Hey ho, it'll have to wait until the next time.  It was a shame, as that curry really was rather spectacular (chicken, tomato, red lentil - it came up not unlike a Dansak).  I did some mushroom rice to go with it, which was extremely yummy too.

I am especially proud of last night's curry, as it hadn't been adapted from anyone's recipe - it was all my own work.  Mind you, I have had a little bit of coaching from the book "The Curry Secret", which the lovely Ian from Appliances Online sent to me.  (You can find Appliances Online on Twitter, too, so if you're thinking about getting a new appliance, why not have a word with Yossi).  Getting back to "The Curry Secret" by Kris Dillon, it is all about making curries like your local curry house does.  The "curry secret" as referred to, is in the making of a basic curry sauce which all the recipes are then adapted from by the introduction of various additional spices.  I will admit that I've not made the curry sauce yet, but the basic recipe for last night's curry was very close to Kris Dillon's (purely by accident) which I found quite interesting that I'd arrived there by trial and error, over the months.

So, that aside, what are we having for dinner for the rest of this week?

Hope mine looks as nice!

Well, tonight will be my first attempt at making a Mulligatawny Soup.  It is utilising the other half of the pot roasted chicken from Sunday, so will be a chicken version rather than the more traditional beef.  Mulligatawny is one of the original "fusion" foods, I think, but I'll have to try hard to make sure it doesn't turn into a curried stew!


Wednesday will be good old pie, mash & veg.  I've bought a steak & kidney pie, as a little break from the in-depth culinary creating!

Picture c/o BBC Good Food

Thursday is Creamy Chicken & Penne pasta.  We had this during the busy period after Christmas when I didn't have time to post about it, but it really is a cracker.  The recipe is so easy to do - and the results are lovely.  Just right for a dinner following on from a busy day at work.

Friday's meal will be something of an adventure, as I'm venturing into Ham Hock land.  I have a lovely-sounding recipe for Ham Hock with beans & vegetables, which we'll be eating with a lovely crusty farmhouse loaf.  I'm hoping it will turn out to be something akin to peasant food!

Saturday is another (albeit rather smaller) venture into the unknown, as I'm making home-made coleslaw to go with some barbecue sausages in pitta pockets.  Now, in years gone by, I used to make my own coleslaw which was very well received.  However, with these two chaps I'm now catering for, raw cabbage is not so well received.   The coleslaw recipe contains interesting things like apple and sultanas, which should go very nicely with lovely juicy sausages in a barbecue glaze - so keep your fingers firmly crossed!

Sunday and I'm pushing the boundaries of pot-roasting.  Instead of the usual chicken, this week I'm going for a piece of beef Brisket.

In view of the recent t.v. programme "Great British Food Revival" and my love of the humble cauliflower, I'll be serving the brisket with some spiced roasted cauliflower along with the more usual roasties.  The cauliflower is another "keep your fingers crossed for me" job and I'll be using the other half of it in a curry which will feature on the menu list for next week.  Curried cauliflower always goes down well.

Which brings us to Monday.  After all that exciting cooking over the weekend, I'm taking a breather with something everybody knows and loves - Pasta Bolognese with garlic bread.

So, looking back across the week, it seems as though we're having four different types of bread product, two different types of pasta product and seven different preparations of meat and two different preparations of potato!  You can't say I don't try to make the menu varied.

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