Order in some fakeaway
Sales of ingredients for making Indian and Chinese food are rocketing. Morrisons says chilli and curry powder sales are up 150% year on year. That’s a pretty steep climb, which the Telegraph (I swear it’s not my paper of choice – just it’s been doing some good frugal stuff lately) is putting it down to belt tightening. Just as we’ve stopped fine dining, it seems we’re dumping the takeaway menu, too.
I find this surprising. I thought Indian and Chinese food was a bit of a no-brainer – particularly as you can so often do your whole meal in a single pan by building up your flavours in turn.
But apparently it’s taken until now for the world at large to cotton on to that.
So anyhow, the Telegraph has talked to food writer Nell Nelson, who had three quick and easy recipes for easy takeaway-at-home cooking:
First, a red or green Thai-style curry using ready-made paste, tinned coconut milk, with vegetables (frozen are nutritionally just as good, explains Nelson) and meat of your choice. Second, Indian-style: sauté onion, garlic, coriander and cumin seed – the base of a curry sauce – and simply add lentils and tomatoes, and serve with rice. Third, a Chinese stir-fry, which requires only a large pan, soya sauce, plum sauce, cashew nuts and meat and vegetables.
They’re pretty slim on the advice, aren’t they. But that’s the point. This kind of cooking is easy, easy, easy, and if you’re using your own home-grown peppers, chillis and tomatoes, too, so much the better.
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The strawberries have been our big success story this summer. Surprising, really, as they have been a dead loss in years gone by.
May saw a slight fall in the number of eggs laid by our three hens. That was unexpected, but there are some possible explanations.
A flapjack in essence, this is very quick and easy to bake and uses store cupboard ingredients, so you can keep stocked up on everything you need and make a new batch whenever you want some.
The apricot tree is looking distinctly sorry for itself and now, with a gust of wind, it’s lost two of its only four fruits.
We had a very good demonstration of why it’s worth growing your own this week, even when vegetables are so cheap in the shops at the moment. Here it is.
