Sunday Sevens #18

This week has been a hectic one!

We finally finished working on the dining room floor! It took all of David’s seven days holiday! He’ll need another holiday to recover! We still have the hall and living room floors to do but I am thankful that I have my kitchen and dining room back!

I felt lost without my kitchen. I put a lot of effort into cooking the evenings’ meal. So when all I can cook is microwave, convenience meals, I feel rather short changed! Also this week was Meat Free Week, (mainly for Australia and the UK), another initiative to get more people to eat less meat. So once I got my kitchen back, I was able to make meals such as a vegetable taigne.

Ingredients and Method, feeds two people

• I fried an onion (chopped), 1 pepper (sliced) and a green chilli (chopped) in an oiled pan until softened.
• I then added to the pan 2 sliced cloves of garlic, 1 tsp of ground cumin, 1/2 tsp of ground coriander and 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes.
• After a minute I tipped in a tin of chopped tomatoes and threw in a handful of frozen peas. I covered the pan to simmer gently for 15 minutes.
• Lastly I added a tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed) and cooked for a final five minutes.
• I served on a bed of spinach, with two fillets of Quorn chicken (sliced) and crusty bread.

On Sunday we released Hoppy back into the wild. David had managed to get most of the thread from around her leg, it was a painstaking endeavour. However, everyday since, she has been heard pecking at the back door for her dinner, which we dutifully give! What have we begun?

Tuesday was David’s birthday! (‘Happy birthday!’) To celebrate we went to the cinema to see Star Trek Beyond, not the strongest of the three films but an action romp none the less. We were also invited to David’s brother’s house for a chickpea balti cooked by his wife Bilgen. I was touched by the thoughtful gesture that all of the meals were vegetarian! While we waited for the homemade bhajis to cook we were entertained but their 11th month old son.

Troy

Aura

Pet news, and Troy has a fellow patient joining him in the hospital cage. Poor Aura has had a relapse from his earlier condition which almost took his life last year. We found him on the floor of the cage squeaking, so we have administered anti-mite drops and are keeping him warm. Troy continues to be cursed by his inner ear infection, though seems much happier he has a bed fellow to snuggle up too.

The weekend dawned with the promise of warm, sunny weather (ha ha)! So David and I headed off for a walk, but where did we go? Post to follow. 🙂

Best wishes for the coming week!

Christine x

Sunday Sevens was devised by Natalie at Threads and bobbins.

The Beginning…

This new year has begun in much the same vein as the parting year ended. It sees me re-evaluating my life. (You don’t know how fed up I am of doing that!)

January 2014 saw me working in an ecstatic frenzy! While listening to Hans Zimmer’s Lasiurus, from the Batman Begins film soundtrack, my impassioned imagination took the idea of a historical romance and ran with it. I wrote until the summer. Then I took a job that saw me sitting inanely on a bus for three hours a day, commuting, which killed my soul and subsequently my characters.

Now, with all this wasted time on my hands, it makes me think that maybe 2016 is a year when I should publish a novel? Where I should stop being a lazy writer and work for my living?! Maybe I should not only re-evaluate on the job front but the latest novel to hit the scrapheap? What do you think?

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I have been meaning to write a blog post for a while now and yet each time I have planned a post the meal has fallen decidedly flat. Like tonight.

Yesterday, I felt the nervous excitement of finding a recipe I looked forward to making, (I need to get a life) but come this afternoon, I found I had no green lentils and only half a tin of chopped tomatoes. I decided to go ahead with the recipe anyway, which I found in the Asda Good Living magazine. I do like trying out new recipes, so I decided on the Lentil and Chickpea Curry, as I had no spinach.

I used what I had in, meaning half a red onion, half a carrot and half a yellow pepper as well as 100g of red lentils and a can of chickpeas, plus spices. The meal looked and tasted like every other vegetable stew/curry I have ever made. I can’t complain as it was eaten by everyone so it must have been ok?! I served it with brown rice which apparently ages you, according to a report David had recently read. However the health benefits are better than white rice, so a few wrinkles have to be better than being in an early grave?

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves crushed, (also used pepper and carrot… I hate waste)
• 2tbsp of medium curry powder
• 400g of chopped tomatoes
• 400g can of green lentils, drained. (I didn’t have enough so used 100g of red lentils, dried)
• 400g of chickpeas, drained.
• Baby spinach (I never had any)
• salt for seasoning
• Naan or rice to serve

Method:

• Heat oil in pan, cook the onion, slowly and then add the garlic.
• (I added the onion, garlic and pepper together and simmered in a lidded pan until soft)
• Then add the curry powder and cook for 1 minute
• (I also added a squirt of tomato paste just to add taste)
• Add the tomatoes, lentils and chickpeas and simmer for eight minutes, or until thickened.
• Add the spinach at the last minute to wilt it
• I also used brown rice which took 25 minutes to cook, adjust cooking times accordingly

The finished recipe if following the above should look like this:

 

 

One-pot Curried Quinoa with Butternut Squash with Chickpeas

I had recently seen a recipe on the blog Oh My Veggies that looked absolutely delicious. Oh My Veggies is a blog based on vegetarian/vegan recipes using fresh, seasonal vegetables.

I have been wanting to try butternut squash for some time and decided that the time was perfect!

David was not so sure, but he ate the final result!

One-pot Curried Quinoa with Butternut Squash and Chickpeas

Ingredients: makes 4

• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 300-400ml of light coconut milk, (I just used skimmed milk)
• 150 ml of water
• 100g of quinoa, rinsed well
• Salt, plus more to taste
• 450-500g of  butternut squash
• 2 mixed peppers (I used red and yellow)
• 150g of frozen vegetables, I used peas and green beans
• 1 400g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Method:

1. Add the olive oil to a large pot over medium heat. When hot, add the onion and saute until translucent and tender, 3-4 minutes.
2. Stir in the curry powder, ginger, turmeric, and cardamom. Sauté for 30 seconds, until fragrant, stirring constantly.
3. Add the coconut milk, water, quinoa, butternut swuash and peppers, and 1 teaspoon salt, scraping the bottom of the pot to remove any stuck bits. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.
4. Stir in the frozen vegetables and chickpeas. Return the lid to the pot and cook for 5-15 minutes more, or until the quinoa is tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed.
5. After the quinoa is done, turn off the heat and let sit, covered, until the vegetables and chickpeas are warmed through, 5-6 minutes.
6. Taste and add additional lemon juice and salt if desired. Garnish with parsley and serve (optional). I missed this part altogether

One pot curried quinoa with butternut squash and chickpeas

I am thankful for David and my mum for attempting to eat my creations, though a few days later, mum said that she would not eat the butternut squash stew again. 😮