Tamarind king prawns

I love this meal. I know it's not very food-sluttish of me, but I'm making a concerted effort to eat more healthily this month after the gluttony of Christmas. And this meal feels and looks healthy.

While I was cooking some brown rice, I marinated a pack of king prawns in a big bowl with lots of freshly grated ginger, 3 cloves of finely chopped garlic, the juice of a lemon (lime's even better), a jar of Bart's tamarind paste (sometimes I just use half but today I thought 'sod it, I'll put it all in'), a pinch of crushed chilies and some black pepper. This meal is good with a mixture of veg, but today I added finely chopped red pepper, carrot and red onion to the bowl. Then I fished the prawns out of the marinade/veg mix. I simmered the veg and most of its marinade in the sauce, adding the prawns to warm through at the end. It's great served on top of some brown rice (for the nutty flavour and texture - white rice would be rubbish) with a wedge of lime.

Friday Sunday Tea - a Tandoori Hut curry special

You'd think I'd be too full to eat a proper supper after my Friday Sunday lunch of roast beef and afters, but no! It was still the Christmas season - any excuse for overindulgence. My boyfriend and I went away to the seaside for a short New Year holiday on Friday afternoon and as there was no internet connection there, I'm having to update all my meals now. We arrived when it was dark and ordered a curry from the excellent curry house there. Here's my plate. I was stuffed and didn't manage to eat much of the garlic naan but manfully finished the rest. On my plate you can see, clockwise from the top, a scarily coloured chicken tikka masala, pilau rice (also scarily coloured in places), king prawn jalfrezi (nice and spicy with lots of green chillis), sag aloo (spinach and potatoes), garlic naan and in the centre brinjal bhaji (fried aubergine) and a bit of the end of the onion salad we'd had with poppadoms. Did you think we didn't have poppadoms with mint sauce and all the trimmings to start? Would a takeaway curry be acceptable without them? Of course not. Oohh, and the garlic naan was great dipped in a bit of cold curry in the morning - a fab breakfast.

Patchwork pâté

Patchwork Handmade Chilli and Lemongrass Chicken Liver pâté. Wow. Rustic yet elegant; rich yet light; traditional yet suffused with a modern, pan-asian twist; I like it a lot. It's even got parsley and mustard seeds sprinkled on the top to make it look pretty. Spread on bread - absolutely delicious.

Oh, and it's got nice-looking ingredients (chicken livers (57%), fresh onions, fat spread - only dodgy bit - fresh garlic, fresh ginger, red chilli (4%), lemongrass (2%), kaffir lime leaves, freshly ground black pepper, sea salt). Find it in a deli/butcher's/farmer's market near you... it's not sold in supermarkets.