Good cooking but bad news

On Monday night, my mum and I cooked an amazing selection of Indian dishes. We made a dhal, sag aloo, chilli paneer and baby corn korma, with pilau rice, naan and poppadoms. It was really lovely, and it was nice to have a meal with the family that wasn't eaten quickly before going to prayers.

However, in a break during the cooking process, I went upstairs and discovered my laptop had switched itself off and wont turn back on again. I'm going to have one more attempt to repair it, but I've already taken the hard drive out, as a computer man told me it's doomed :(

So no photos, as I don't have a computer. I'm also definitely interested if you have any views on what I should buy to replace it. I'm heading to the US (New York, Washington DC and Austin Texas) in two weeks time so I will probably being taking advantage of the exchange rate and buying it there.

My sag aloo recipe comes from Mamta's Kitchen which is great for Indian recipes:
Mum made a chilli/garlic/onion paste, and I fried tablespoon of that with a tablespoon of cumin seeds and a pinch of asteofoetida, and then added cubed potato.
I added ground corriander, turmeric and chilli powder and some water to cook the potatoes.
I then added most of a bag of spinach, and some garam masala, sugar and salt, and left it all to cook.

I definitely added a little more spice then Mamta as I like my curries hot and I wasn't measuring the quantities of veg I was using!

Looking back, looking forward

I don't seem to have much time for cooking at the moment. It's because I'm busy having fun, but it's a shame, becuase I love cooking. At the weekend, Friday night was a quick bowl of pasta before the pub, and Saturday and Sunday nights both involved dinner at the pub. I did get to have another bowl of my pea and broad bean soup for lunch on Sunday, which was very good cold.

This week looks like it's going to be much of the same. Tomorrow I'm planning a girly dinner out with one of my best Oxford friends. Wednesday night is meant to be a pot luck dinner with the girls on my course, and I'll probably make my cheesecake, as I have some custard powder. Wednesday night is dinner for the whole course, out.

So a post about my fish pie from last week:


It's something that I've been experimentign with throughout the year, and this was a good one.

The base is leeks sautee'd with some garlic in a pan, then mixed with defrosted frozen spinach, and creme fraiche.

The middle section is smoked haddock, poached in mackerel.

The top is mashed sweet potato, mixed with horseradish sauce, for a good kick.

Snacks and Lunches

I'm doing a play this week - you can see photos and things here if you have facebook - but that always means I don't really have time to eat. And I have been skipping dinner all week, relying on eating a little more during the day, and then usually having some crisps in the pub after the play, or eating chocolate (it's a prop!) during the play. Not so healthy really. As long as I don't eat too much junk or drink too much after each night, I'm hoping to drop a few pounds in time to get into a dress next week...

Anyway, I've had a couple of good snacks this week. At the weekend I made some lovely wedges of white sweet potato. White sweet potatoes look weird but taste good! I had some left over sour cream in my fridge, so I made a yummy sour cream & chive dip to go with them.

Yesterday's lunch was a fabulous salt beef and red cabbage sandwich. The salt beef and red cabbage both came from home via my freezer. It's such a good combination, almost as good as the ultimate: salt beef and chopped liver. On rye bread of course.

And today, I had some rtc salmon, so I made a wrap with avocado, salad and cubes of raw salmon. I put the whole thing on the George Foreman for a minute, so the salmon was lightly cooked, but I love raw salmon.