Thursday 2 October 2008

Rolling Rolling Rolling!

There's a bandwagon in town and I've jumped right on!

Cooking. I'd forgotten I'd learned to love this thing! OK it's early days and by tomorrow I might be saying "toast for tea!" but right now I'm fired up and cooking!

I haven't made the 3 bean chilli yet because I got distracted by the Curry booklet that came with the SW magazine. So yesterday I went to Sainsbury's and loaded my trolley with every conceivable spice, went home and made Quorn curry. OK the recipe was for chicken curry but since I don't do red days and need a load of carbs before I feel like I've eaten it had to be Quorn. I was nervous. Very nervous. I wasn't at all sure how this wild combination of spices could end well. In fact I wondered if it might be better eaten at the end of a night out with a pint of lager! But you know what? It was bloody gorgeous! If I had any Quorn in I would have made it again tonight! I have never made any kind of curry from scratch before because long lists of ingredients scare me quite a lot! But this long list was just all the spices.

As I type there is a pan of carrot and lentil soup simmering on the stove. There's a bit of improvisation in this recipe since I didn't have all the ingredients, but I can't see why it wouldn't work out just fine.

Did anyone watch Jamie Oliver's new programme - Ministry of Food? I wish someone like him had come to Cheshire and taught me this stuff years ago. It's pretty shocking seeing how badly people eat, and feed their kids. It made me stop and wonder why I didn't really have great cooking skills, since my mum was actually a pretty fine cook in her day. The reason is this: she used to make it seem horribly hard work. She'd be hot, bothered, stressed. She'd be in the kitchen for hours, and dishes I now know are pretty simple would seem to require a bewildering array of pots and pans and complicated processes (she used to leave the shepherds pie outside for some reason!) Certainly she never wanted her kids under her feet trying to learn how to cook. So I grew up with the idea that being in a kitchen was a form of hell. Therefore I consider it my duty to make my daughter think cooking is fun, and to this end she has just peeled and chopped all the carrots for the soup, and she helped me with all the spices for the curry.

Yes, that's it, I'm facilitating her learning. Not using her as slave labour at all ;)

8 comments:

Kath said...

Right, this carrot and lentil soup....I'm asking because my mum gave me a recipe for carrot and lentil soup yesterday and it was a bit "garbled"...went like this:

Sheila's Carrot Soup

1/2 to 1 lb ons
2lbs carrots
1/4lb rd lents
stock cube
water as req 2 des consist

liquidise.


Although I have to be honest I think it could possibly do with some glc and maybe a bt of sandp

I pretty much know what she means, but I'd quite like to compare it to a real recipe!!!! Please?

Sara Seahorse said...

I am trying to do a new meal or revisit an old one at least once a a week now to avoid getting into a food rut.

Quorn curry is favourite of mine and I got brave too and ditched the canned sauce. Much tastier! Well done

Shauna said...

Arrrrgh I forgot about Jamie's show! will have to watch on 4oD. There were some recipes from the show in this month's Good Food mag - i made a lentil soup that had cherry tomatoes in it, very easy and very healthy :)

Your dinner sounds fab, o cooking goddess! is this recipe online anywhere? i am forever looking for new ways with quorn :)

Sara Seahorse said...

I was inspired and made soup today!

Wendy said...

Kath & Shauna I will do a recipe post at the weekend when I have time to type out the lists of ingredients! Shauna, I need your lentil soup recipe please!!

Sara I just saw you made your 6st - bloody well done woman!

Sara Seahorse said...

:)

why is it soup makes me so gassy

I had the soup at lunch time and by mid afternoon the bloat and gas set in

by the time I had my home made quorn curry tonight - gut spasm and pain. . .

LOL note to not make both same day again . . all I need now is a portion of red onion SW quiche and I could feed into transco

@Fat4Now said...

Good read
gl gl

@Fat4Now said...

ps let me know if you fancy swapping links :)