Sunday - Curry with Roast Chicken and Spicy Vegetables

 I am a glutton for a take away, and if it wasn't for a Jo I am sure I would be obese! - I must ask Jo if we can have take away treats 2-3 times a week and she very rarely agrees! But the food she makes is 99% of the time better so I can't really complain (in fact I know I am spoilt!)

So after a grim drive back from Edinburgh on Sunday afternoon, we popped into Sainsburys to pick up some bits including a chicken that was roasted for dinner to go with some curry sauce from the freezer which was livened up with some lentils along with spiced vegetables.

It was really good and much better than a take away! Well done Jo! 

Chicken

Curry sauce that won't rotate!

Spiced vegetables

Sunday Curry (by Jo Girl)

Despite some of my apprehensions, on Sunday morning Joe did drag himself to Stockport to do the 10 mile run.  Fuelled on my best porridge and battling the elements, Joe managed the run in a very respectable 1 hour and 17 minutes - under 8 minutes per mile!  I still struggle comprehending how he runs that fast, it would take me about 2 hours, but ho hum...  He returned home a little tired, very damp, but pleased. 

And what better way to warm up than a yummy Southern Indian fish curry with tamarind and chick peas.  It might have taken a few hours to make, but it was all good - hot, slightly sweet and sour, with brown rice and chapattis.  Given we had supported Judd Trump through his semi final at the Crucible last Spring, it was an awesome Sunday night dinner followed by Judd triumphing in the Snooker finals - what could be better?!

Haddock, chick pea and tamarind curry

The finished product

A Lazy Friday Night

So Joe is out on the town with his old school friends...photos already appearing on instagram and I'm expecting him to do an update post tomorrow!

I got back from another day in Manchester in good time today - off the train at 6.40 and home by 7.20.  Not so shabby!  On route I stopped off at Marks and Spencer for a lazy Friday night dinner.  I opted for a curry and some onion and sweet potato bhajis, not the most inspired choice but I wasn't in the frame of mind for deliberation!  I did at least spruce up the curry a bit with some spiced veg and rice.  And to round of my rock and roll Friday night in on my own, I think I'm going to grab a glass of wine and watch a rom com.  Rock on......

Sweet potato and onion bhajis

The spruced up chicken jalfrezi

Monday - Vegetable Curry

As is becoming the norm, it was a late one for both of us but Jo still managed to knock a great meal together in precisely 26 minutes from start to finish......VEGETABLE CURRY!! (with naan - no pictures)

Friday - Making a Star of Carrots with Chicken Curry & Naan

The arrival of the veg box, has led to a slight change in our eating habits - there is no way that I would have bought cauliflower let alone put it with pasta (see yesterdays dinner here) but I did and it worked! And previously when we would have thought 'boring old carrots', now they take a more premier part of dinner - yesterday is a good example of this; we had spiced carrot fritters that had carrots, shallots, ginger, cumin, chilli, egg and flour which was mixed together, made into patties and shallow fried - yum! Carrots also got added to Jo's curry for the first time.

Spiced carrot fritters

Chicken curry (with added carrot)

For once we had no biscuits for dessert, so Jo made sweet popcorn, which satisfied our craving (by this time we had got through two bottles of wine!)

Popcorn

Friday Night Takeaway from Rice

Earlier this week, Joe received the following text from his mum (who has obviously been reading the blog!)

"Hi darlin, have just put £20 in ur acc. Plz get nice 

btl vino an flowers. Happy anniversary! Lv 2 u both xx"

That was very lovely of her, but in true FoodandBiscuits style we spent the money on a takeaway from Rice in Roundhay instead!  It is interesting timing given the new study being discussed on the breakfast news this morning, which apparently shows that Indian and Chinese takeaways are super bad for you.  The story seems to be pretty inflammatory, given they surveyed only 200 restaurants out of about 12,000 and only looked at chicken tikka masalla, which isn't very nice anyway!  Sorry, rant over...back to the food...

We have been going to Rice for a couple of years now, and it doesn't let us down.  We decided not to be too glutinous and swapped starters for poppadoms and dips which were pretty good (although I think it is difficult to get a poppadom wrong).

We then had Chicken Achari which is from northern Bangladesh and made with a pickle masalla, green chillis and coriander and was pretty yummy. Joe's choice was Bengali Lamb which is made with cloves, green chillis, cumin, black pepper and coriander.  Although the menu describes it as fairly hot, we asked them to make it spicy.  It was nice, but it definitely could have been hotter!

All in it was a pretty good Friday night treat!

Poppadoms and dips

A close up of the dips

Achari Chicken

Bengali Lamb