Curry baked chicken with vegetable curry & green pea rice

Just recently, I've made several chicken & salad meals by coating chicken pieces in some kind of sauce or rub, then baking it in the oven.  I think, so far as I can remember, I've done a BBQ version, a Cajun version, a garlic and herb version - you get the idea.  So when I was considering a curry for one of the week's meals, it occurred to me that I could do the same sort of arrangement - but with a vegetable curry instead of salad.

If I were to marinate the chicken in something, then bake it - and make a vegetable curry earlier on in the day, then that would result in a really quite simple dinner preparation.  All I'd have to do is put the chicken in the oven, warm up the vegetable curry and cook the rice and peas.  Lovely!

Now sometimes, this sort of plan goes awry at the last minute as I haven't anticipated how long it would take me to chop the vegetables, or I'd run out of pans and make horrid amounts of washing up.  This time, however, it all went beautifully according to plan and was indeed the most satisfying dinner not just from an eating perspective, but from the preparation and clearing up perspective too.

I started off the processes by marinating the chicken in a mixture of curry paste, mango chutney and Greek yoghurt (doesn't have to be Greek - it's just that Greek yoghurt is my plain yoghurt of choice) for the day.

Next - and during the morning - I sat down and peeled, cut and chopped all the vegetables for the curry and set about making it.  I do so enjoy cooking without time constraints.  It was lovely to just sail along, cooking without having to keep an eye on the time.  We try to have our meals on the table for 6pm, you see.  Sometimes I have a lot of trouble hitting that 6pm deadline!

As ever, when cooking a curry, I had an end result in mind but no real idea how I was going to get there.  So, I knew I wanted to emulate the British Takeaway vegetable curry flavour and texture of the thing - without over cooking any of the veggies and without it winding up too watery, too stew-like or too greasy.  Shouldn't be a problem!

I went through the fridge and pulled out everything that didn't have a home to go to as well as the few veggies that I'd bought with this particular dish in mind.  So we wound up with onion, garlic, red chilli, carrot, potato, mushroom, baby red peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, fresh quartered tomato, fresh coriander and red lentils.  That should take care of our five a day!

Whenever I do the chopping-and-a-peeling, I always put the cut veggies onto plates or in dishes in the order I'll be needing them.  So the onion, garlic and chilli went onto one plate, the carrots were in a dish on their own.  The potato, mushroom and baby red peppers went into the colander and the tomato, cauliflower and broccoli were on another plate.  That way, I don't have to waste any time separating one from the other - and they're all ready to go when I start cooking.  I can't cook and chop - just doesn't work.

I was tempted to spice the curry myself, but in the end decided to use our pre-prepared Sharwoods Korma curry paste - the same one I'd used on the chicken.  I was going for simplicity and the Sharwoods is a very good middle of the road curry paste that you can pep up with additional chilli if you want.  The ingredients list reads very well, too.  With tomato puree, coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger, chilli, paprika, cardamom, mustard seeds, fenugreek and fennel and the only additive being acetic acid, it is a very acceptable quick curry fix.

So, it went like this.  First of all I chose my biggest saucepan in which to cook so that I had enough room for everything as I wasn't entirely sure how much it would come to.  I put 2-3 tbsp of sunflower oil in and got that heating, then added the onion - and a small pinch of salt - which cooked until golden brown, but not burned.  The garlic then went in for a minute, before I added the chilli and carrot.  Next in was the curry paste and tomato puree which I cooked until the oil was released - just a few minutes.  The next things into the pot were the potato/mushroom/red pepper combo which got mixed all around and coated in the aromatic loveliness.

I wanted to include some coconut milk at this point, but didn't want to use a whole 400g tin of the stuff.  Amazingly, I found a small carton of Blue Dragon coconut cream which did the job perfectly - and was just about to go out of date - so that went in next.  I added a teaspoonful of Essential Cuisine chicken stock powder and approximately 200-300ml of water and gave everything a good stir.  I was tying my hands behind my back to prevent myself from adding more salt at this stage.  The temptation was enormous, but I resisted - and jolly good job too.  I satisfied the urge by adding some black pepper instead.  *chuckle*  In went the red lentils and I let everything simmer gently together for around 20-30 minutes until almost cooked.  Finally, I added the cauliflower and turned off the heat - leaving it to cool.

When I came back to start the dinner properly, first thing was to put the chicken into the oven, then start the vegetable curry warming up and boil the water for the rice.

Once the curry had heated through enough to start bubbling, I removed the lid and let it reduce slightly - just to thicken the sauce a little.  In went the broccoli and the tomato quarters, plus three quarters of the chopped fresh coriander.  Once the broccoli was cooked and the sauce reduced to my liking, it was done.

The chicken came out of the oven still beautifully coated in the curried yoghurty mix, which had slightly caramelised on top, thanks to the mango chutney - which was exactly what I was hoping for.

The plain basmati rice was brightened up by the addition of a few green peas.  A tip for adding frozen peas to cooking rice is to run the peas under the hot tap to defrost them and warm them up before adding them to the rice with around 2 minutes to go.  That way, you don't stop the cooking process by adding freezing peas and they will stay a vibrant green.

The whole meal was absolutely delicious, comforting, satisfying and got a huge thumbs up from everyone.  So long as you make the veggie curry earlier in the day, it was ultimately all finished in around 30 minutes and was a perfect arrangement for anyone who loves curry but wants healthy along with it - and who can't spend too long in the kitchen making it.

Son and heir was practically begging for this curry to be made again and soon - so I'm sure it won't be long!

CURRY BAKED CHICKEN, VEGETABLE CURRY WITH RICE AND PEAS   (Serves 3 with leftover vegetable curry)

Ingredients :

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 tbsp plain (Greek) yoghurt
1 tbsp mango chutney
1.5 tbsp curry paste.

3 tbsp sunflower oil
2 onions, sliced finely
2 fat garlic cloves, chopped finely
1 hot red chilli (seeds are optional)
1 donkey carrot, peeled and diced
3 tbsp curry paste
2 tbsp tomato puree
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
6-10 mushrooms, washed and quartered
6 baby red peppers (or one red pepper, cut into pieces), top & tailed
250ml coconut cream
1 tsp chicken stock powder or a low salt chicken stock cube
enough water to just cover the contents
3 heaped tbsp red lentils
3-4 cauliflower florets, broken into small pieces
3-4 broccoli florets, broken into small pieces
1 large ripe tomato, quartered (or smaller) into wedges
a large handful of fresh coriander, chopped.

1 cup of uncooked basmati rice
sea salt
half a cup of frozen peas.

Method :

1.  In the morning, mix together the yoghurt, chutney and curry paste in a large bowl.

2.  Trim the chicken breasts of fat and gristle, then score lightly across the top to allow the marinade to more easily penetrate the meat.

3.  Add the chicken to the marinade and mix gently to ensure every little bit of chicken is covered in marinade.  Cover with cling film and refrigerate until 30 minutes prior to cooking.

4.  To make the vegetable curry (which I recommend should also be done in the morning), heat the oil in a large, deep saucepan.  Add the oil.

5.  Add the onion - and a small pinch of salt - and cook for around 10-15 minutes until golden brown, but not burned.  Add the garlic and stir quickly, then add the chilli and stir.

6.  Next, add the carrot pieces, which will help to cool the pan and so avoid burning the garlic.

7.  Next add the curry paste and tomato puree and stir well to combine with the rest of the ingredients.  Cooked until the oil is released - just a few minutes.

8.  Add the potato/mushroom/red peppers and stir well to ensure they are coated with the curry mixture.  

9.  Add the coconut cream, stock powder and water and stir gently to combine.  Do not add any salt at this stage, but if you're yearning to - add a little black pepper instead!

10. Stir in the red lentils and let everything simmer gently together for around 20-30 minutes until almost cooked.

11.  Finally - for this stage - add the cauliflower, turn off the heat, cover and leave to cool.

12.  Several hours later and when you're ready to prepare the dinner proper, begin by turning on the heat under the vegetable curry and pre-heating the oven to 200degC/400degF/Gas 6.  Line a shallow baking tray with silver foil (optional - but it helps with the washing up!) and place the chicken onto the foil.  Spoon any additional marinade over the top of each chicken breast.  Place into the oven for 25-35 minutes or until the juices run clear if pricked with a knife.

13.  Three quarters fill a good sized saucepan with water, add a pinch of sea salt and place it on a high heat, to boil.

14.  Put the dry rice into a seive and run it under a hot tap until the water runs clear.  Once the water in the pan boils, add the rice and cook - simmering - for 7-9 minutes.  2 minutes before the rice is due to be ready, add the defrosted peas.

15.  As the rice is cooking, the vegetable curry should have come up to temperature.  Remove the lid and allow the sauce to reduce a little as you add the broccoli, tomato and three quarters of the fresh coriander.  Stir from time to time, to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

16.  Once the rice is ready, drain and return to the warm pan.  You can add a little of the chopped coriander for some extra flavour, if you like.

17.  Once the chicken is done, serve with the vegetable curry and green pea rice - with an added flourish of a sprinkle of chopped coriander for garnish.

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Egg & Vegetable Curry

It has been a long time since I made a curry.  Well, a curry from scratch that is - you know, without the "benefit" of a shop bought curry paste or suchlike.  One where you devise the spicing yourself and pray it comes out okay.

Now I have made a couple of meals that involved curry in the recent past and all have been pretty darned poor.  Take the Kedgeree that I made only a couple of weeks ago.  It really was horrid.  For some reason I overcooked the rice and also used a pre-made curry paste that was really bad.  I've no idea why I didn't spice it myself and have no clue as to why we seemed to go back to buying curry paste - as the marked decline in my curried fortunes seemed to coincide with that.

I have been having a dalliance with "authentic" type curries recently, which has meant that hubby hasn't been too pleased with them.  You see, generally, "authentic" i.e. not British Indian Restaurant style curries are a lot wetter than the BIR style ones.  I've talked in the past about hubby's hatred for "pond water" (i.e. broth) rather than a more robust sauce and these "authentic" style curries (such as Malay and Thai) just aren't his "thing".  It's a shame, because I was quite keen to investigate these more "brothy" types of curry and explore the flavours involved.  Hey ho - another single person lunch project, maybe!

Looking like magma with a couple of eggs inside it!

Hence, I had made a mental note that my next curry was to be a BIR style one - and I suspect that the curry paste came along because I'd lost confidence in my ability to cook a curry from scratch.

However, the meal on this night wasn't supposed to be curry at all.  It was supposed to be cornish pasties!  Not a lot of difference there, is there?

I served mine with curried flatbreads

Well the cornish pasty thing got scotched (or cornished) when I realised that I'd left the beef in the freezer and it wouldn't be defrosted by lunchtime, when I was going to be making the pasties.  This demanded a bit of a side-step and an audit of the contents of said freezer and the fridge, for alternative ideas.

I'd accumulated a fair amount of little bits of vegetables that had been left over from previous meals and which set me to thinking about a vegetable curry.  At this point, a lightbulb went on and I remembered that I'd been vaguely hankering after an egg curry, after seeing a photograph of one on the excellent Facebook page "The Food Court".  Obviously, I couldn't make simply an egg curry, as hubby's sensitivity to eggs would rule him out of one of those - but a veggie curry with a couple of additional hard boiled eggs for son & heir and myself was sounding increasingly good.

A quick rummage in the tin cupboard turned up a tin of coconut milk and a small tin of chick peas and a rummage in the larder cupboard turned up a carton of tomato passata.  Along with a bit of leftover single cream in the fridge and a well stocked spice cupboard, I had just about all I needed.

The curry was delicious.  Hubby really enjoyed his vegetable version and son & heir loved his egg along with the curry.  My vague lusting after an egg curry was assuaged and we all went away smiling.  Can't ask for more than that - especially from a last-minute decision of a curry that was made out of leftover and forgotten ingredients!


EGG & VEGETABLE CURRY    (serves 3)

Ingredients :



1 tbsp vegetable or groundnut oil
15g butter
2 onions, one chopped fine and one sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
2 heaped tsp ground coriander
1 heaped tsp ground black pepper
1 flat tsp ground turmeric
a hefty pinch of red chilli flakes
1 heaped tsp Madras curry powder
3 green cardamom, crushed
250ml tomato passata
2 carrots, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 medium potato, peeled and cut into small chunks
a quarter of a swede, peeled and cut into small chunks
400ml can of coconut milk
1 heaped tsp (or 1 crumbled cube) vegetable stock powder
220g tin of chick peas
2 big pinches of dried Methi (Fenugreek) leaves
1 courgette, sliced thickly on the diagonal, then halved
sea salt
200ml single cream
a knob of Jaggery (or 1 tsp brown sugar)
another (smaller) knob of butter
3 eggs, just hard boiled (around 7 minutes).

Method :

1.   In a deep saucepan, heat the oil and butter until the butter has melted.  Add the onion and fry on a medium heat until soft and deep golden brown.  Add the garlic and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes.

2.  Add the cumin, coriander, black pepper, turmeric, chilli flakes, curry powder and cardamom and stir to combine.  Cook for another 3-4 minutes, stirring all the time to prevent the spices burning.

3.  Add the tomato passata and stir to combine.  Continue to cook until the mixture has lost a good deal of its water and the fat is being released.

4.  Add the carrots, potato and swede and stir well until the vegetables are all coated in the spice mixture.

5.  Add the coconut milk and vegetable stock powder and gently stir to combine.

6.  Add the chick peas and the methi leaves and bring to a simmer.  Cook, simmering, until the vegetables are softened, but not quite tender.

7.  Add the courgette, stir to combine and continue to cook until the vegetables are tender.  You may need to add a little water from time to time, if the curry begins to get too thick.

8.  Once the curry has thickened, add the cream, jaggery (or sugar) and salt to taste.  Once you are happy with the flavour and the cream is well combined, add the knob of butter and the three shelled hard boiled eggs.

9.  Allow the eggs time to heat through and serve on white rice, with the eggs halved and placed on top.

Serve with naan bread, chapatis or flatbreads.

Printable version

Meal planning for eventualities of the sniffling kind

It seemed highly likely that as son & heir currently has a bit of an upper respiratory infection (I hesitate to label it a cold and cough - but that's basically what's going on), the rest of us are liable to go down with it.

Hubby is already showing signs of wilting and I've felt generally a bit low, so I thought it wise to make this week's meal plan one that concentrates on the simple and the easy.  It's not a good thing to have to knuckle down to cooking a dish that requires several tricky processes, when you'd really rather just go back to bed.  All that results in, is our reaching for the nearest takeaway menu - and considering home cooked is so much better for us, it's a bit self-defeating.

However, I didn't intend for this week to be quite as dominated by bacon as it has turned out to be!

Both hubby and I seem to be going through a serious bacon fancy and the large part of our ideas for this week turned out to be centred around the lovely stuff.  I suppose there's no real harm in it, as I can't see us going off bacon any time soon!

Here's what's on the list for this week :

Tues : shop-bought frozen Pizza

Weds : vegetable curry and rice

Thurs : Carbonara and garlic bread

Fri : Bacon & sausage pilaff

Sat : Bacon & onion pie with baked beans and peas

Sun : Roast of some denomination (probably a bacon joint!)

Mon : Chicken Kiev and savoury rice.

Shop bought frozen pizza is our usual "get out of jail free" card.  Son & heir loves it, hubby approves and I get fed, so it'll do.  Hubby is our pizza chef, so I don't even have to venture into the kitchen in order to get fed.  Can't argue with that!

Something like this - except with more veggies!

Wednesday's vegetable curry began life as Cornish Pasties.  I know!  Talented shapeshifting going on there!  No, I'm afraid I forgot to take the meat out of the freezer, which negated the Cornish Pasties as I was going to make them early on in the day.  You see, son & heir is back involved in his Rock Choir practice which means a late pickup from school, so it would have fitted perfectly.

I realised that I had rather a lot of leftover vegetables in the fridge and initially considered some kind of soup for dinner.  That was, until I pondered on currying the soup - whereupon I thought I may as well just go for a vegetable curry and be done with it.  I know that son & heir isn't hugely struck on vegetable curry as a concept (no meat, you see), so I figure if I boil a couple of eggs, I can include a hard boiled egg in son & heir's.  That should cheer him up, as he loves his eggs.

Photo c/o BBC Good Food

Thursday's Carbonara is the first of a rush on bacon dishes and I'm really looking forward to this.  Rather than use spaghetti, I thought (to ring the changes) I'd try some of the Mafalda Corta pasta instead.  Its ruffles should grab the sauce beautifully and it is just so easy to make, plus it has the benefit of being one of those enigmatic processes that shouldn't work, but does - and beautifully.

The Bacon & Sausage Pilaff is actually an adaptation of a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe which you can find here.  I'm going to take it a little bit further and add a few more ingredients to the mix (mushrooms & peas, for instance) along with the bacon, sausage and black pudding.  I'll also turn the sausages into little sausage meatballs, as I think they'll suit the Pilaff structure more elegantly than rough-cut sausages.

Photo c/o Jeff's Great British Eats

Saturday's Bacon & Onion Pie is a James Martin recipe which you can find here and which I expect I'll follow pretty much to the letter.  It's a recipe which involves bacon, fried onions, mashed potato and cheese - what could go wrong?  He recommends serving it with baked beans or peas - well both works for me!  I might even throw in a tin of carrots, just for fun.  Oh, for those who don't realise what I'm going on about here, my hubby is a man who considers both peas and carrots should never appear on the same plate as baked beans.  I consider them to be perfect bedfellows - so bring it on!

Hubby has promised us a roast for Sunday, although what we're going to be roasting is a matter of conjecture at the moment.  It will all depend on what Spring Fields Butchers has that looks nice, I suspect!  We haven't had a true roast dinner for quite some time, so I'm really looking forward to this one.

Another property from a similar road in Oxshott - I'd have lived behind the tree on the right.  lol

Monday's Chicken Kiev is a) a step back in time for me and b) something of a misnomer.  To begin with, when I lived in Oxshott in Surrey, I had a small granny annexe by the side of a huge Victorian country house.  My little flat consisted of two rooms, a bathroom and share of the utility room where there was a sink.  My two rooms I divided into living & bed, plus cooking & storage.

Cooking was something of a challenge, as the sink was away down the corridor and I had a two-ring Belling oven and a microwave.  I wasn't in to cook a great deal anyway, as I would leave to walk the dogs at 6.30 a.m., then go to the stables to feed, turn out into the field and muck out my horse & donkey, returning home to shower and change for work at 9.30am.  Then I'd leave work at around 6pm, collect the dogs and go to the stables to bring in the horse & donkey, feed them and settle them down for bed - maybe even cramming in a ride, in the summer months.  Lastly, I'd walk the dogs (in the pitch black, through the woods!), getting home at around 9pm-10pm when cooking was the last thing on my mind.  The slow cooker came into its own during the winter months!

Me, with my No.1 Highland Pony, Kellie of Whitefield

However, one of my favourite meals was a Chicken Kiev with savoury rice.  The Kiev would go into the oven while the savoury rice (or "slavering mice" as it came to be known) would be twirling in the microwave.  They'd both co-incide in time to sit down and eat before I fell asleep.  Perfect.  Eating was all about fuel, in those days.

Slavering Mice - mmmmn! lol

Now the misnomer comes in, because the Kiev isn't a Kiev at all.  It's a Chicken Cordon Bleu after-a-fashion.  For all that it's sold as a "kiev", it is in fact, chicken (although that's arguable - probably more "chicken bits, stuck together with carbohydrate glue") filled with cream cheese and ham, cooked in breadcrumbs.

Either way, it will be a super-simple meal of disgustingly processed food that is full of everything that's bad for us.  Yes, I know I could make the same thing from chicken breasts and it would be much nicer, more trustworthy and better for us.  However, it won't be done with the minimum of effort.  Well, you have to kick over the traces from time to time, haven't you?

Hopefully, a normal, healthy menu plan will return next week.  *wink*

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Fish, beef, lamb, chicken, pork - is there anything we've left out?

Looking at this week's menu plan, purely by accident, I think we've about covered all the main meat groups one way and another!

Last week's meal plan went out of the window at regular intervals and we managed to have, instead, a takeaway curry, pie & chips and chicken & chips (with a kebab for hubby).  I'm not really sure how that happened, but it can't be allowed to continue!  For one thing, we wouldn't be able to afford it!

The first recipe to be jettisoned was the Couscous stuffed peppers, which I just lost all enthusiasm for.  Anyway, my prize voucher from The Heart of India was burning a hole in my psyche and I just SO wanted to use it - so we did.  I had a gorgeously tender and non-fatty Lamb Biryani which comes with a lovely vegetable curry.  Hubby had a Chicken Pathia and son & heir had a Chicken Korma.  We all shared a Sag Bhajee and a Keema Naan and it was absolutely glorious.  I'm not sure when we'll be able to have another, but I can't wait!  With the prize voucher for £25 to use, it only cost us around £4 which was brilliant.

The next recipe that got the heave-ho was the Sherried Chicken Casserole.  This was part of a swap with the Smoky Pork & Bean Wraps because we were trying to fit the best meal to match up with an extra guest as son & heir had invited a friend for a sleepover.  I was intending on giving him the chicken dish and so swapped the two dishes around - only for us to forget to buy the Smoked Paprika when we'd gone to the shop specifically for it!  We got rather distracted by other things and the old grey cells aren't what they used to be, you know.  By the time we realised the lack of paprika, it was too late to do anything about anything, so we had a quick trip to the chippie instead.  What a shower!

The poor old Five Spice Beef noodles was the next one to go, as son & heir decided to stay at a friend's house for tea that night and it was just easier to go out and get something, rather than cook.  Hubby is always in the market for a kebab, so I got some chicken & chips.

So - you can see - all this has got to stop or we'll be completely spherical and skint!

This week's meals - which we WILL stick to (there, I've said it so it's got to happen now) are : 

 Tues : Fish pasta

Weds : Minced Beef Curry, vegetable curry and rice

Thurs : Sandwiches

Fri : Moussaka with tomato salad

Sat : Sherried chicken with broccoli & crusty bread

Sun : Beef Olives, roast potatoes & parsnips, Yorkshire puddings, carrots & savoy cabbage

Mon : Barbecue Sausage & Red Pepper with mashed potatoes, peas & sweetcorn.

  

A number of those meals require explanation, so I'll do my best.

Yesterday's Fish Pasta was something of a disaster for poor hubby.  Before I go any further, I will say that I liked the dish.  However, I was in the minority.

It all stems back to when I had a yearning to use papardelle pasta with the Pork Ragu that I make.  Don't ask me why papardelle - I just had a fancy for it.  Somehow (and I'm not too sure how), this got translated into hubby volunteering to make a fish pasta dish with the papardelle (which we'd sourced in Sainsbury's and bought by then).  He had planned to make a dish using a lesser-known type of fish (and we sourced and visited a Fishmonger, but they were closed, unfortunately - which was the start of the dish going wrong) in a Buerre Noisette sauce with lemon, capers and dill.  Sounded flipping lovely, to me.  With no fishmonger available, we were stuck with whatever Asda could supply - which wasn't much.  Hubby had got sidetracked a little by smoked fish - smoked trout in particular.  However, he couldn't get acceptable trout (never mind smoked) and opted for smoked salmon pieces.  Can you see how the expectation for the dish is being scuppered at every turn?  Well, unfortunately, we were too caught up in trying to make it happen to notice.

As he was cooking the meal, he began to lose faith in his vision of the Beurre Noisette and how it would marry up with the smoked salmon - and I think he has a point.  I suspect we should have swapped out to something totally different at the point that the fishmonger was shut - but then hindsight is a wonderful thing.  What he landed up with was nothing like his original vision, which was such a shame - but something of a learning experience, I think!

Keema Mutter - a lot to live up to!

So, tonight's curry will be something of a return to more pedestrian dishes - but hopefully, dishes that will soothe the savage breast and comfort the thwarted creativity with delicious and exotic curry spices.  I'm basing the Minced Beef Curry on the Keema Mutter (which is lamb) recipe and hopefully it will be just as nice.  I absolutely love a vegetable curry and it will be nice to have one as a side dish, along with the plain rice.  It also gives the sugar snap peas something to do, now they're not being used for the noodle dish!

We're visiting my parents on Thursday and if we're out for either lunch or dinner (not sure which, at the moment), sandwiches will do for whichever meal we'll need to provide at home.

My Moussaka - along different lines, but still nice!

Hubby is back in the kitchen on Friday, making a Moussaka

Hooray!  The Sherried Chicken makes its come-back on Saturday.  I was quite determined not to lose this recipe altogether as I've been really looking forward to it and so back onto the menu list it went.  The crusty bread we bought for it last week is still good as we bought home-bake petit pain rolls that keep for ever.  I suspect that the broccoli will meet its Waterloo in the vegetable curry, so that's probably the only ingredient that will require buying again for the recipe, so it's all good (as they say).

Hubby is back in the kitchen again on Sunday, making a dish that he's been craving for - quite literally - years.  Way back in the seventies, Beef Olives were all the rage at dinner parties around the country.  It is one of those dishes that has taken a back seat along with the prawn cocktail and sole veronique, but hubby has every intention of it making a delicious reprise on our Sunday dinner table.  Fingers crossed that the butcher has the right kind of Braising Steak, or we might end up with sausages instead!  

Speaking of sausages, if we can find some that might meet my exacting sausage requirements (a sausage with flavour and some fat content - hubby tells me that Sainsbury's should be able to answer this brief), I'll be using up the remainder of the Levi Roots Reggae Reggae sauce on the sausages and red pepper (left over from the abortive stuffed pepper recipe).  I really like the idea of baking the sausages in the barbecue sauce, then pairing them up with mashed potato, peas and sweetcorn.  In fact, the mental picture is making my mouth water!  It will be a simple dish that's exactly right for a Monday evening.

So there you have it.

Now, as for extra cooking ventures, well my first go at Watercress Soup went down the drain regrettably.  I hate waste - but that really was horrid.  Something happened in the blitzing that caused the mascarpone to suddenly split and I wound up with great globs of cheesy fat with bits of smashed watercress sticking to them, floating on the surface of the soup.  Not nice at all.  Even with those bits sieved off, it was poor.  Very poor.  So that's that one tried and rejected.

The next one is an intriguing mix of crab and watercress in a warm soup, for which we will need to get ourselves back down to the Fishmunglers.  Fingers crossed, he'll be open this time!

Apart from that, I have an ever-growing desire to bake a cake of some sort.  Watch this space!

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A little bit of a lamby week, this week! Meal plan w/b 4.10.11

As ever, before I get onto this week (which has turned out to be a little bit lamby), let me just tell you about last Sunday's dinner.  Well, it was very exciting, you see!

I had bought a piece of roasting bacon (as opposed to a rasher of bacon, which wouldn't roast at all well) which I put into the slow cooker with some lovely stock vegetables and a covering of water.  Some 4-5 hours later, it was beautifully tender, sweet and juicy.  Now you may remember that I was hedging my bets where the accompanying vegetables were concerned, owing to the weather.  Ultimately, we went with a seasonal compromise.  We had some new potatoes in the cupboard and so had these steamed with ... drum roll ... green beans and brussels sprouts ... from the garden!  Ta daaaa!  (Oh, and some carrots and swede from the supermarket).  Match that lot up with a lovely parsley sauce made with fresh parsley and you've got a very successful Sunday dinner.

I was so excited to be eating our first brussels sprouts!  They were gorgeous, because they're so new - just babies really - they hadn't grown into those big old hoary sprouts that you sometimes find in the supermarket.  They were crisp from being just picked, mild and crunchy.  Now that sort of excitement is why so many people grow their own veg., I'm sure of it.

We're hoping that the Romanescu cauliflowers come to something too - but they're looking a bit random at the moment.  Not sure what they're supposed to look like at this stage - does anybody know?

I won't worry if all we get are these little fellows - I'm sure they still taste nice, even if they're not quite what they're supposed to be!


So, that excitement over, let's turn our attention to what you might find appearing in Rhubarb & Ginger this week.

Tues : Pizza all round

Weds : Keema Mutter, Vegetable Curry & white rice

Thurs : Shop-bought steak & kidney pie with home grown veg.

Fri : Bacon & Leek Pasta

Sat : Nasi Goreng

Sun : Lamb & boulangere potatoes, home grown veg.

Mon : Tortellini in sauce, with garlic bread.

Hubby and I didn't get to have anything special on Tuesday, because I had an appointment right at the time I should have been cooking.  Hence we opted for the easy avenue and hubby took care of dinner, which was pizza-shaped.  Mind you, I was pleased to find a "sensibly sized" (i.e. smaller than an entire dinner plate) pizza in the supermarket.  I find these gigantic pizzas that overflow your plate just too much food.  Hubby always took care of the leftovers for breakfast the following day, but that's not recommended practice on a regular basis.

Now, Wednesday's dinner I was really looking forward to making.  I'd found a recipe for Keema Mutter (which translates as lamb mince with peas) which looked not only easy to make, but really tasty.  I intended to serve it just with white rice, but then had a bright idea.  Looking at the recipe, I thought that it sounded like it could be a bit lively in the chilli department - in which case, we'd probably (well, those of us who don't go by the nickname of ChilliBob, that is) be requiring something to balance that with.  So I decided to make a plain old vegetable curry, which I hoped would do that job, along with the white rice.

I won't witter on about it now, as I've promised it its own blog posting - it was that good.  If you like curries, make sure to come back and take a look!

Hubby's in charge of dinner on Thursday evening, when we're indulging in a shop-bought Steak & Kidney pie, for ease.  Fingers crossed, we'll be able to have some more of those home-grown veggies with the pie!

We had an unexpected visitor today (Thursday), in that my lovely friend and ex-colleague Jenny (yes, another Jenny!) was in the area and popped in for a cuppa and to say hello.  Well, I couldn't let her go away without a bite of something - so made Jack Knight's Mum's Library Book Marmalade Cake.

Again, this was such an unbridled success that I shall be blogging the results.  However, if you're curious about the recipe, why not go along to Jack's Blog and see!

We've an extra mouth to feed on Friday, as one of son & heir's friends from school will be in for dinner that day.  They are working on a homework project to build a mini moonbuggy (in my day, it was a papier mache volcano - how times have changed!) so will be consulting with hubby over the electronics for same.

It's just as well, therefore, that I was already planning a simple dish like Bacon & Leek Pasta.  The friend is notoriously difficult to feed (his Mum sent a message that "he only likes sausages"), but I'm hoping that the extreme yumminess of this pasta dish will win him over.  It's bacon - what could go wrong?  Everyone likes bacon!

I've had a sudden fancy for Nasi Goreng.  It's funny how it happens like that.  The last sudden fancy I had, was for "something in a cheese sauce" - and so the Cauliflower Cheese happened.

I've loved Nasi Goreng for as long as I've known about it, I think.  I suspect that my earliest memories of it are when my parents would buy it in huge tins from the NAAFI shop in Germany (when my Dad was stationed there with the Army).  We'd have it for tea - I suspect it was just a simple heating up job, probably in a frying pan, and I absolutely loved it.  I wonder if you can get it nowadays?  Considering that was around forty-mumble years ago, I doubt it!

Sunday's Lamb & boulangere potatoes is another new dish.  I love lamb, but it's just that bit too pricey to buy anything other than mince at the moment.  However, lamb mince is better than no lamb at all, so it's just a matter of working out different ways of cooking it.

I made a very successful dish of Boulangere potatoes in the recent past and considering that the potatoes that go on the top of a hot pot are along those lines, I figured that if I made some lovely savoury lamb mince and topped it with boulangere-style potatoes, it might work.  I'll let you know - but I can tell you that just the idea of it is making my tummy rumble, right now!

So that brings us to Monday, when hubby is back in charge in the kitchen and has decided to be brave and definitely try the ole filled pasta.  He's not had a very good time with filled pasta in the past, but on my recommendation (I sometimes have some for lunch) on the basis that as time has gone by the quality has improved, said he would give it a go.

This was on a menu plan previously, but he swerved it by enticing me with a Chinese Takeaway - always a good avoidance technique - so we'll see whether we make it this time!  I'm quite looking forward to it, even if it is shop bought.  Hey - it'll give me a night off - and after three nights of cooking, that will be very welcome.

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