From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

Mmmm, I kinda agree with you EH - but I think it does depend on a) the curry house - is it good/bad or indifferent and does real cooking take place, or is it ping, ping, ping - and that can apply to ANY eatery, of ANY cuisine, and b) what the home cook is like, and what ingredients they are using. I mean, if I made a chicken/chickpea curry, with either a jarred, generic 'curry sauce' or just whacked a bit of 'mild curry powder' into it, then I suspect a curry house curry is going to be different/better. But, if, as tmv says, you actually create a base gravy, and/or use freshly ground whole spices, or marinade meats, or temper dhals with spices, etc, then I think you can get some good results. As good as a time-served, curry chef? heck no, but you can get good results. Perhaps not authentic, but flavourful.

I remember discovering the difference methi makes to curry. Either the dried seeds (ground), the dried leaves, or 'fresh' leaves you can get if you are near to an asian grocery. The profile of methi/fenugreek, is bitter, you can't go overboard with it, but it's amazing the difference it makes when it's included. I feel the same about coriander (fresh), although I know that is a 'marmite' ingredient, and some folks just can't abide it - but for me personally it 'finishes off' a curry.

I always think getting towards 'authentic' is difficult. The amount of Greek dishes (and italian), that actually rely on gathered wild greens or herbs - difficult to recreate. It's the same with Mexican dishes - there is a herb, who's name escapes me, it's regarded as the 'equivalent' of oregano in flavour profile - but difficult to (readily) get in the UK.

I'm hopeful when we get to eat out, we'll have a successful visit. Differences on a number of levels. If we can secure that, perhaps we could confidently then move to takeaways, knowing what to order.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

So, tea munched. Now I went with Spanish Vegetable Stew - don't @ me! It was out of the vegetarian student cookbook I've got (the pink and lime green copy), and I suspect it got that name, as it has paprika in it - authentic? Possibly not. Tasty? Heck yeah. It has potatoes in it, and much like any cawl, beef stew, Irish stew or a simple vegetable stew - the tatties cooked to yielding unctiousness. I used the 2 tins of butter beans I got from FF the other week, and I added in some swede too, as I had it - it's an infinitely adaptable stew. I cooked it in the PrC, and it was done in 10 mins. When DH got home, I popped some frozen spinach in and set it to heat up again and defrost/cook the spinach. Cheap and cheerful, and just right for a dreich day. Clean plates all round.

The mizzle set in just before the school run (I'm ashamed to say I hadn't noticed, it was so fine), and by the time I got out to the washing, it had got a little damp again. However, it was worthwhile putting it out - it had dried more than had I just transferred it out of the machine and onto the airer. In total it will have 3 hrs in front of the dehu, and then fingers crossed, after a night on the airer, it will be put-away-able.

National Homemade soup is the 4th February. Do I stay with my 'soup 'n pud' day tomorrow, or shunt it over to Wednesday - decisions, decisions…. 🤣

It wasn't me that agent Million came to see, so I need to still keep curating the budget friendly recipes 😁

Ta for popping in. Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning MFW'rs

Wet start with us, and slated to stay the same all day ☹️ No laundry today.

But I'm £2 down already today, the 'Tooth Fairy' paid a visit overnight 🧚

I think I'm going to do baked potatoes for tea. I was thinking of doing chilli to go with (I have quite a few tins of red kidney beans now), but it seems churlish to call it chilli when LG doesn't really like chilli and we're not fans of hot-hot-hot. Maybe I should do ramja masala instead? But then one of the joys of home cooking is that you can adapt it to suit. We had a chum who was a real chilli fiend, and the more they ate, the more heat they could stand. DH and I are still at the stage that if there's much more than a tongue tingle, it becomes a battle to actually eat the meal.

Right, I love the foodie chat, but can't actually think of anything more MSE related, so off I pop.

Greying X

rtandon27

Wow - the tooth fairy is rolling in it! - Inflation at it's best - when I was a kid the most we would get for a tooth was a quarter!

Watty1

Your Tooth Fairy paid well :)

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha - That Ice Hockey playing Dwayne -The Rock- Johnson is a generous soul with the fairy pennies… 😉 The tooth fairy hasn't been around in quite a while, but they do tend to be a tadge generous when it's the 'first' of one set or another 😉

Well, surprise, surprise, I have completely changed my mind about tea. I made the soup - which I was going to use tomorrow - today, so that the flavours would meld, and then couldn't fathom out what to have today, that wouldn't use the oven, or somesuch. So, I'm sticking with a soup&pud day. The soup is Kuru Fasulye - albeit I've made mine with tinned cannellini beans - getting hold of (reasonably priced) dried white beans is difficult. So my version is more soup-like and less stew like. I am not doing anything wrong in making my soup a veggie version - apparently this is perfectly acceptable in Turkish cuisine as an option. Pud is an experiment. It's a steam pudding kinda day, but I have no eggs and I must finally have thrown out my chia seeds, masquerading as ancient grains 🙄 So I used yoghurt, and adapted a vegan sponge recipe (for baking not steaming 😬), and then, once made, it dawned on me that I could have researched a vegan steamed pud on t/internet 🙄 there are a few 🙄 However, as it happens, I'm in the same ball-park with my ingredients/proportions as one I found, so we'll see. It'll be edible - or not - right? I've used some apple chunks out of the freezer for the pud.

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening MFW'rs

LG had a good-ish day at school, second day on the trot 👍 One or two changes have been made - not at my behest - but it seems a little more……. common-sense? is being applied, and whilst perhaps we will have to wait for the overall ethos to move away from 'manifesting makes it so', towards more concrete 'setting boundaries, guidelines and taking action makes the school work', a while longer yet; something has shifted, and LG has benefitted from those position shifts, so I'll acknowledge and take that, all day long. And just for clarity, I'm most certainly not against manifesting, but I think you (possibly) can only influence your own life/way of being/outcomes - I don't think an organisation of any description can change, develop, move forward, just because the CEO has written 'everything is smashing and rosy'. Just my opinion, of course.

Tea worked well, I tried one new recipe and one new way of doing something. Both are keepers - YAY! We had Kuru Fasulye - which is a turkish white bean soup. I based it on THIS recipe, but I used MrL paprika paste (thank heavens for eastern European week!), rather than pul biber paste, and I make a sort of soup base, using some green and red bell pepper, cooked up and then blizted with all the ingredients, bar the beans. I used tinned beans - cannellini. Obviously there was no meat in my version. I cooked mine in the PrC. It was thinner and more soup-like than the stew version, but when it came to serving, instead of serving it with boiled rice, I actually added some cooked rice into the soup. Not authentic, but not a million miles off, either, and it gave body to the soup, so that we could eat it on it's own.

Pudding was an apple steamed pudding made in the SC. I hadn't got any eggs, so adapted a recipe that I had for egg free sponge. I should have looked on the internet, as there are versions online. It worked, how I made it, but if I was making it again, I would probably refer to THIS recipe, as a) the lass is British, and b) she's encouraging supporting the Canadian Maple Syrup industry 👍 We're not a vegan household, the reason why I followed a vegan recipe, was because I'm all out of eggs. I served the pudding with the last of the ice-cream tonight.

We ate all the soup, and there is enough pudding for tomorrow night.

Greying X

rtandon27

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81865918#Comment_81865918

The one I go to with folks from the office 2 or 3 times a year is this one. It's fairly affordable (for London) under 15 a head for a very filling dosa - for lunch time you usually don't need reservations, but tea time (late afternoon) and dinner it's packed! - we've been gently ushered towards paying the bill instead of chatting after having chai and snacks, but the staff are so sweet and kind we forgave them, they just wanted to make sure everyone waiting was fed!

Greying_Pilgrim

Lawks rt - that sounds delish, but how many types of Dosa……? 👍🤣 My lunch slot would be taken up with deciding which one to have - at least I now know I could overlook the Podi dosas, as they look chilli heavy, but that still leaves a ton of choice - delish!

Greying X

rtandon27

Haha - tbh I always go for the same one - paper masala dosa - mostly because I love the visual drama of the huge crepe arriving to the table. The person from work who is from South Indian descent always has a Rava dosa - with ghee and/or onion - she tells me that one it made from semolina but I've never been brave enough to try it!

ETA - a different friend has just told me that the word rava can also mean millet - so best to ask in the restaurant which one it is if you are particular.