Turkey tamarind

Last night we ate turkey stirfry with brown rice and tamarind sauce. I marinated the turkey in a jar of Bart's tamarind paste, the juice of a lime and lots of finely chopped garlic and ginger while I cooked the brown rice. Then I started some tenderstem broccoli off in a wok (just the thick, hard ends of it) before adding the meat and its marinade, then later on the stirfry veg, the tops of the tenderstem broccoli and some extra baby spinach leaves. It was delicious, and we each had a pot of leftovers for lunch today - even cold it tasted good. I normally have prawns when I cook tamarind, but turkey was tasty too.

And another veg stirfry - yawn...

Hmmm, I've had a lot of stirfries recently. This was another one, a quick veg one on Wednesday night before I went out. I also dipped some mini wholemeal pittas in fresh tomato salsa while I decided what to eat. I constructed a stirfry sauce with a dash of sherry vinegar, grated fresh ginger and soy sauce. I would have put garlic in it too but I was too lazy and rushed to get the chopping board out. Nutritious - look at all that spinachy stuff.

Another turkey stirfry

This was good - we'd eaten a load of crap like crisps and pistachio nuts when we'd come in, so we thought we'd have a proper load of veg and the rest of the turkey for our main meal, without rice or noodles as we couldn't be bothered to cook them. We used an M&S stirfry pack - it was pretty luxurious, if that could ever be an appropriate adjective for a stirfry pack, with spring onions, strange oriental green leaves, baby corn, mangetout, courgette, red pepper, and much, much more. No beansprouts meant it seemed posh, as there was no apparent filler, but it did all shrink down to not very much.

Turkey and green veg stirfry

This was a turkey and green veg stirfry that my boyfriend made for us last Saturday for lunch. It was really good - I hadn't had
any dinner the night before and I needed something big and nutritious. I don't think you can really see them, but we had egg noodles too, and it had a sort of oyster sauce. Very nice and filling. The veg included leeks, broccoli, a green pepper, an onion and a couple of turkey breasts.

This pile of puke... isn't, thankfully, a pile of puke

It's a veg stirfry with thai green curry sauce. Well, Sainsbury's cheap equivalent. It was fine, but nothing to write home about - or blog about, really. I had the leftovers for lunch today. They were fine. I should have bothered heating them up, but I didn't.

Beef stirfry with hoisin sauce

Ooh, this was good. We usually have prawns or pork, or something beginning with 'p' in a stirfry, but last night we had beef. Beef is goooood in a stirfry. We should have it more often. It feels a bit luxurious - which is funny, as it's cheaper than the big prawns we have so often. Hoisin and beef go well together too. We had leftover brown rice too, which only took a few minutes in the microwave. Very satisfying.

Posher than usual stirfry with pork

I ate this tonight at supper and it was cooked for me as I sat around - bliss. Him indoors cooked us pork stirfry with Blue Dragon hoisin and garlic sauce and some Sharwood's egg noodles. He used a Chinese stirfry pack from Sainsbury's - more expensive than the bog-standard packs we usually get with a bit of shredded cabbage and carrot, but it had spring onions and mangetouts in it for added crunch and extra taste. Well worth the extra fifty pence, I'd say.

Update on the week's eating - Thurs to Sat lunch

I can't believe I haven't blogged for an entire week. It's gone so fast. And I'm finding it difficult to remember everything I've eaten, which is most unusual for me. Lets think:

I had this prawn and noodle stirfry one day last week - I think it was probably Thursday as we'd been out till quite late and wanted some fast food. It was nice - I used a Blue Dragon oyster and spring onion sauce, some big prawns, chopped up veg including carrots, onions, courgettes, peppers and a lone leek, and we shared a block of sharwood's thin noodles and sprinkled it with fresh coriander. It was tasty.

On Friday lunchtime I was starving and wanted some energy food, so I made a pasta with pesto, an onion, a large courgette and cubed mozzarella (the 'light' version from Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself - which was fine in this). Hmmm, I might have pasta and pesto today, I do fancy that.

For friday supper we had salmon, poached in the microwave in my fish steamer with semi-mashed, garlicky new potatoes, leeks in white sauce and broccoli. Sadly I don't have a photo of this meal - I must have been tired and hungry.

At the weekend my aunt came round for lunch and we gave her chicken fajitas. They were good and I realised how long it had been since I'd had fajitas. When I was a student I used to make myself veggie fajitas regularly for lunch - it was a quick, nutritious meal and tastes so good. Expect to see more tortilla-based platefuls on this blog soon!

Monday salad and stirfry

It's been a healthy day today but god I could do with an unhealthy snack RIGHT NOW. After I'd been to the gym (yes, for the first time in 2007 - it was horrible) I had a slice of toast with wholenut peanut butter, then for lunch I made a salad with the rest of the spinach, watercress and rocket and some Sainsbury's mixed salad (I like the cabbage crunch), cherry tomatoes and carrots, a raw mushroom (haven't had one of those for ages), some of the obligatory pumpkin seeds (they'll be obligatory until I finish the packet and it's a big one) and a John West tuna with a twist, (the lime and black pepper version). It was nice.

But at about 5.00 I had to have two slices of toast with peanut butter - I was starving and cold, and I fancied comfort food, but a cup of tea hadn't helped.

I had quite a late supper of tuna steak, marinated with soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger on stirfried veg with a dash of soy sauce and a dash of sherry vinegar in it to give it some flavour. It was tasty and I tried to make it more rare than I have before but to be honest I didn't really notice much difference apart from what it looked like. I think I prefer the lime and chilli marinade I've used on previous occasions, but it was worth trying. Bloody hell I'm starving. Can somebody find me a big chocolate cake please?

Tuna steak - mmmmmmmm

I've just realised I never blogged about this. I ate it on Monday night. I marinated the tuna steak in a garlic/ginger/chilli/lemon/ coriander mixture then griddled it over a high heat and served it with stirfry veg (again), pak choi with soy sauce and brown rice. Quick and oh so tender and tasty.

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.

Hangover tuna etc...

Today I had a mammoth hangover. It was our work Christmas party last night and we made the most of the free booze. Fortunately I made it into work - I might not have been particularly productive, but I guess those who managed to make it in were able to show a bit of willing! At lunchtime we needed carbs - carbs and cheese. And somewhere cheapish with a free table for 6 in central London 10 days before Christmas. The obvious choice? Well, Pizza Express, of course as they don't take table reservations. I decided to have an American with extra sundried tomatoes - I guess they didn't have any sundried as when my pizza turned up I saw they'd replaced them with the marinated, oven-cooked tomatoes they've recently added to their menu as an appetiser. Much better - I love those tomatoes. It was wonderful - a perfect pizza in my view - but my plate was dirty with bits of old spinach which I could have done without. I wasn't sure afterwards if I felt better or worse, but by about 5.00pm I was ok, I think.

Anyway, tonight I needed something healthy and we had a pack of stirfry veg in the fridge so I thought I may as well use that. I went past a Tesco Express on my way home and saw they had tuna steaks on offer - I got two for £2 something - I thought that was pretty good. We put some brown rice on to boil and I smeared the tuna in a mixture of finely grated ginger and garlic, a couple of dessert spoons of olive oil, a spoon of lemon vinegar, some dried coriander leaves, a crushed, dried chilli and a bit of black pepper. We did the stirfry veg in a wok and added a dash or two of soy sauce and sherry vinegar, then griddled the tuna steaks on a high heat for a couple of minutes each side, or maybe even less time than that. With nutty brown rice, simple veg and deliciously tender tuna this felt like a healthy end to a decidedly unhealthy day.

Another prawn stirfry

It was about 9.00pm and we'd just got in and were starving. We needed fast, tasty, hot food - and within about 6 minutes we were eating this steaming hot, healthy prawn stirfry. We shared a block of sharwood's fine egg noodles, bubbled in boiling water for 3 minutes, cooked up a sainsbury's stirfry pack with extra broccoli, the end of a yellow pepper and some old and slightly squidgy cherry tomatoes, a pack of wonderful Taste the Difference king prawns, and a sachet of blue dragon chow mein sauce. My boyfriend cooked it all too - just lovely.

Pork and brocolli stirfry - last night's supper

Fast. Warm. Healthy. Tasty. Satisfying.

Jumbo king prawn stirfry

Tonight we had a prawn stirfry, using Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Jumbo King Prawns (half price at £2.99). They were so nice we had to make a concerted effort to stop nibbling on them before I put them in the pan to heat through - it was one of those 'just one more each' moments, but we finally managed to resist after about six between the two of us.

Sharing the wealth between the supermarkets, I added one block of Sharwood's fine egg noodles (bought through Ocado, from Waitrose) to a pan of simmering water, put a Tesco mushroom stirfry pack into my wok with half a pack of Budgens' baby spinach and once it was cooked, a sachet of Blue Dragon chow mein sauce to warm through. (It's not like I'm proud of shopping at supermarkets so often - I wish other shops near us were open after normal working hours but sadly they're not, and if I want to do any independent/market shopping it has to be done at weekends, and that's not always possible.) So, anyway, back to the food... I drained the noodles, tossed it all together in a pan, tipped it into a couple of bowls and we ate it in front of the telly. Healthy, warming (see the steam rising from the bowl), filling, and taking just ten minutes from fridge to mouth, it's ideal fast food.