Another prawn stirfry

I seem to have prawn stirfrys a lot, but they're always so nice I don't think it matters. It has to be the quickest hot meal possible. Well, I can't think of any freshly-made meal that might steal that crown at the moment. If you can, let me know.

Anyway, last night I broke a New Year's resolution (the main one in fact). It started off as 'let's not drink in January', an idea we felt was good for our wallets, our sanity and our health. Then a planned evening with friends last Friday meant it morphed into 'let's not drink in the week in January and only once at the weekend'. But last night a friend came over to sort out some stuff on my computer and suggested we meet in the pub first as he was in the mood for celebrating. I put up a big of a struggle, but I confess, not enough. A glass or two of red wine or two later, I realised I'd promised to cook a meal so we could eat by 7.15 and go out. There was nothing for it but to rush home and make a prawn stirfry with whatever was in the fridge.

I used a pack of Sainsbury's crunchy salad, a couple of onions, a red pepper, an aubergine, Sainsbury's king prawns, two blocks of Sharwood's egg noodles and a Blue Dragon Oyster and spring onion sauce. It was ready in ten minutes and easily enough for the three of us - perfect.

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.

Christmas Eve super-salad supper

Ok, so this isn't our usual Christmas Eve supper, but as we had a big lunch my Dad made one of his warm super-salads in the evening. As it's Christmas, we followed it with cheese, of course. There's barely a meal around Christmas without cheese in this house, execpt maybe breakfast. This warm salad had toulouse sausage and chorizo (cooked with onions, peppers, mushrooms, courgettes and cherry tomatoes) marinated garlics, sundried tomatoes, and probably lots of other things from the fridge and larder. The only thing is, I'm not used to waking up feeling hungry on Christmas morning after our traditional gammon feast the night before... maybe that's why I can't sleep.

Warming chorizo pasta

This was my late lunch on Friday. Hungover again (damn this Christmas party season), we had had Christmas champagne at work about 11 o'clock, and by the time I reached my parents' house at about 3.00pm I was starving and needed something big. I made myself a pasta dish - penne pasta, chunky chorizo sausage, onion, red pepper and my mum's homemade tomato sauce from the freezer. It was just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. My mum asked me what I thought of the tomato sauce - I was honest and said it was delicious but very lemony (surprising as it only had a dash of lemon juice in it, I suppose to add a bit of a fresh tang) so I don't think chorizo was the best match for it. With prawns it would be fab. Great!

Warm chorizo salad, full of my favourite flavours

And this was today's lunch, lovingly constructed by my dad while I made tomato and apple chutney in my parents' kitchen and my boyfriend did some work. He fried chorizo, onions, peppers and a tomato in a non-stick pan and served it warm over mixed dark green leaves and herbs, with delcious extras like marinated garlic cloves, sundried tomatoes and finely sliced cornichons. We had it with brown bread and butter - a flavourful Monday lunch to celebrate my last day off work before Christmas.