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.

Venison casserole...

Made with lots of red wine, vension from the local farmers' market, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes, served with green beans and delicious jacket potatoes. I've kept mine off the plate as I like the skin to stay as crispy as possible so I prefer it if it doesn't sit on the plate getting soggy in the sauce. I did mash a bit of the fluffy potato into the sauce while I was eating it - lovely.

Weekend food

This picture sums up our weekend's food - local, Kentish produce.

We had a delicious venison casserole last night with jacket potatoes and green beans. The venison and potatoes were from my parents' local farmers' market, the tomatoes used in the casserole were from their garden - I doubt the beans or red wine were local though. It was delicious - a lovely November meal - warming, filling, rich-tasting, and with beautifully tender meat. I'm afraid I haven't got a photo of the plate - I was too hungry to find my camera.


For pudding we had a quick version of tiramisu in individual pots. Sadly, again, I gobbled mine up before taking a photo, but it looked delicious, covered in freshly grated chocolate shavings.

And today is Sunday - so it's a big roast lunch for us, upping the red meat stakes in our diet a little further. I should really confess that the meal you see next to this was not actually my meal... I usually avoid gravy (it depends on what it's made of - red wine = good, bisto or boring flour and potato water = bad. Actually, it's mainly because I can't abide soggy potatoes, and if the meat's good and tender enough it's beautiful without gravy, which can often mask rather than enhance the flavour). I put up a photo of one of my family's meals because I know that with gravy it looks like a better meal - even I can see my plate looks like there's something missing.

We had wonderfully succulent roast beef from the village butcher with all the trimmings (crispy roasted potatoes and parsnips with carrots and cabbage), followed by pudding which, if we discount the sugar in the crumble, had virtually no food miles involved in its transport from plant to table.

The same can't be said for the wine, which was once kept on a boat and probably travelled most of the way around the world several times before reaching our table - I won't go into the story of why we were able to drink it, but safe to say we were privileged today to drink one of the best clarets in the world - a Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1970 Bordeaux - probably a rarer find in homes like ours than the pears we had for dessert.

They were from a tree planted against a wall in my mum and dad's garden. They estimate it was planted in about 1890 - the area was once an enormous fruit garden - and despite how the plant has been ignored for the past hundred years or so, it still produces the most amazing fruit. They are actually cooking pears - very unusual these days. We had the pears poached with quinces from a garden down the road (see photo of the fruits looking pretty in a basket at the top of this post) and quince and apple (from down the road too) crumble, with a bit of vanilla ice-cream. See my half-eaten pudding on the left too.

And now, in my usual Sunday afternoon fashion, I think I'm going to go for a nap - weekend naps cannot be beaten, especially after such a filling meal.

Last night's supper...

Was a triumph for a cook with no time, if I say so myself. I was knackered when I came in, but had to go and play netball, so I put the oven on to just under 200 degrees centigrade, stabbed a skewer through two big baking potatoes, shoved them on the middle shelf of the oven, then went out.

An hour and a half later I came home to a delicious smell wafting through the hall outside my flat (sorry, neighbours if you came in hungry too). I went to the freezer and took out a tub labelled 'Beef and Ale casserole 24/09/06'. Ooohh, nice - please excuse the way I'm bigging up my own domestic goddess prowess, but I'm more used to peering at frozen meals I've cooked weeks before, wondering whether they're meatballs in a tomato sauce, chicken curry or some veg concoction, and worrying how long they've been stuck at the bottom of my freezer, then nuking them in the microwave and hoping I'm cooking the right accompaniments. But anyway, I love having home-cooked meals ready and waiting in the freezer. It took about 12 minutes in the microwave (2 stirs in the middle) for me to be sure it was piping hot throughout, then I left it to stand and shoved some leftover sweetcorn in the microwave too for a couple of minutes. I took the crispy (yet fluffy inside) potatoes out of the oven and, lo and behold, we had a warm, home-cooked, nutritious and tasty meal all ready in 15 minutes. Plus the potato cooking time, of course. Very satisfying.

Last night I dreamt of meat...

09/10/06

To be more specific, it was this morning. As the cruel torture of my alarm woke me at 6.35am, in my parallel dream world I was reaching for a plate of freshly carved roasted loin of pork. I have no memory of the context of the fantasy meal, but I have never been more desperate to sink back to sleep. I can still see it and savour the rich smell of the sizzling fat; the balsamic-dressed, roasted root veg in steaming bowls on the table and a warm and comforting mound of jacket potatoes. I could even taste it as I woke. I was surprised - I don't believe dreaming of food is usual for me, but why a full wintery roast? It may be approaching the middle of October, but summer is still clinging on and it was a warm night. It's not as if I expect to be dreaming of salad in more clement climates, but a full on meat and fat prepare-for-hibernation feast certainly came out of the blue. And why pork? I crave sausages, I love a bacon butty on a hungover morning, but as a roast I've always seen pork as the more pikey brother of lamb or beef - it's definitely cheaper. Red meat is where it's at, as far as I'm concerned. You want it bloody. You want to know it has run around. You want to be able to savour the muscley full flavour. And I've been ravenous all day.