13th December 2017
Hold on to whatever keeps you warm inside.
I don’t think that quote means my red wine does it? Anyhow at the moment the thing I’m holding
onto is Night Nurse, it’s got me through the last two nights making sure I
slept really well and that’s the main thing.
My meetings may have been light on numbers yesterday thanks
to the snow but it wasn’t low of laughter and weight loss, handed out a few
certificates, celebrated with quite a few who’d had nights out and Christmas parties
and still managed to lose weight, awesome.
I spent my afternoon in the kitchen because we’re having the
hall, stairs and landing decorated so I wanted to be out of the way. I decided to finally have a go at the curry
lentil soup, I didn’t want to go and buy loads of ingredients so opened the fridge
to find 3 peppers (1 red, 1 yellow, 1 orange), I diced them and 4 onions, fried
the onions in a tablespoon of oil (4sp), I added a few crushed cloves of garlic
too, then added 7sp of Pataks balti paste (about 85g) added red lentils (what was
left in the packet which I think was about 150g), then I added some brown
lentils, sorry I didn’t weigh them but about 80g or so I’d guess. Next I poured on some boiling water with 3 vegetable
stock cubes and simmered it until it was cooked, then I used my hand blender
and whizzed it and I have to say it was lush.
I know it used 11sp to make but there’s a big pan full.
Next I decided to make Yellow split pea dhal using the
recipe on the packet. I had most of the ingredients
and I decided to double up the recipe and take for my members to try. The recipe for that was
Yellow
Pea Dal
Serves 2
225g Natco yellow split peas
3 tbsp Natco butter ghee (I used 1 tbsp veg oil 4sp)
1 tsp Natco cumin seeds
1 small onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped (I didn’t have fresh so used
tinned)
1 tsp salt
700ml water
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 tsp Natco turmeric powder
1/2 tsp Natco chilli powder
Method Heat the ghee in a saucepan, add the cumin
seeds and fry for 1 min. Add the onion
and fry until lightly browned. Stir in the garlic, turmeric, chilli, tomato and
salt and cook for 2 mins. Add the water and split peas, bring to the boil,
cover and simmer for 20 mins, until the split peas are tender. Garnish with
fresh coriander and serve with Natco Basmati rice.
Whilst this was cooking I made another batch of lentil soup
but didn’t have any peppers or red lentils so this time I used
Green lentils
7 onions (diced)
1 tbsp oil
2 carrots (diced)
10sp of balti paste
Hot water
The other half tin of tomatoes
Fried onions in oil, added carrots, then tomatoes and paste,
topped up with water and simmered.
When both had cooked, I wasn’t overly impressed by either to
be honest (the first one was far superior), I personally could taste the tomato
over everything, I’m just not a fan of that flavour being the predominant
taste. I decided to mix the two pans
together and whizz them all up and made a huge amount of yellow split pea and
lentil curry soup and I have to say it went down very well in my meetings. They didn’t get to taste the first one as I’ve
kept it for myself, I plan to drink it throughout today to try and ward off
this proper good dose of lurgy I have, I don’t feel poorly in myself, it’s just
attacking me good and taking my voice now, tonight’s meetings will be fun! It won’t be the first time I’ve managed to
get through a meeting with barely any voice.
I need to use up my eggs now, got over a dozen with use by
18th on them, I can’t believe I haven’t had eggs since last week
sometime. That’s so not like me! Omelette for breakfast I think, could make
some scotch eggs like I’ve been seeing on Facebook, or egg fried rice, it won’t
be hard to use them up will it. I’m
saving some pennies not shopping that’s for sure. I’m going to do my next main food shop a week
today, until then we’ll live on what we have.
I love the idea of empty food cupboards ready for Christmas week, then
buying just enough for the week, then ready for a healthy start to the new year
with good healthy food.
Oh I have some leftover mash too, what to do with that today…
I could use a tin of stewed steak and top it with mash or potato
cakes, I’ll think of something, but for now I need to get a wriggle on the
painter man will be here in 20 minutes, I need to get the living room tidied as
he’s gonna be doing in there too, once the clutters cleared he can do where he
wants when he wants. My kitchen needs
painting again because cracks have appeared in the paint but I’m going to leave
that till end January and then hopefully all the cracks that will appear will
have done their thing by then.
Right here’s to an awesome day, hoping for lots of rain to
wash this snow away!
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