I love curry, and so do DH and DS. So much, in fact, that we have a curry every Friday night - sometimes we go out, but usually we have one at home, along with a bottle of wine to celebrate the end of the week (DS doesn't have any wine of course!).
I really like home made curry, and I like the fact that it can be made more a lot more healthy than a restaurant version where they tend to overuse the oil, and underuse vegetables. Every now and again I get this crazy idea that I will make a curry feast, and get out my pile of Indian cook books to look at the lovely pictures of all the delicious dishes I plan to prepare. Off I go to the specialist shops, armed with a HUGE list of all the spices I need - I have even been known to buy whole spices, fully intending to roast and grind them so that the flavour is fresher. Sometimes, I even get around to cooking an Indian meal from scratch! I slave away for hours grinding spices and making about 3 or 4 different dishes, plus rice, raitas, naans, etc (I have never actually made my own naans, even though it is apparently "very easy"). The dishes usually turn out to be delicious, and if I'm not cooking for other people, there is usually plenty left to freeze for another day. However, once I have done all this slaving away, that's it! I'm not going to attempt it for another few more years. I can't tell you how many times I have come across lots of little containers of spices in the back of the cupboard that are about 6 months past their "use by" date. Whilst no-one would die if they were used, the flavour would not be very fresh, so they all go into the bin.
Cooking curries is another thing to add to the list of "things I will do more of when I'm retired". I have to admit defeat for now, and not buy any more spices to go off in my cupboard (they smell nice when emptied into the food waste bin tho;!).
For an explanation of the 31 day blog, see Things I am not going to buy: Introduction post
I love food and eating, which is why I love looking through cook books. Not the small, cheap, paperbacks, with lots of words and no pictures, but the great bit, glossy, hardback books, full of lovely pictures of fantastic looking meals, and instructions on how you can make them yourself! I imagine myself in my kitchen, rustling up wonderful starters, mains, desserts, cakes, snacks, bread, for my family and friends (not to mention myself!) The reality is rather different, however. There is always something more important to do than to sit down and make an actual meal plan that involves new recipes, carefully going through the list of ingredients to see what I have (not many, usually) and what I need to buy (most of them). On the rare occasion when I follow through and actually buy all the strange bits and pieces to make the amazing dish, I either don’t get around to making it, or I make it but either no-one likes it, or they don’t comment at all, and I don’t bother again. Two years later, I find the remaining ingredients lurking in the cupboard, long past their use-by date.
Despite this (and despite the fact that if I DO actually bother to cook something from a recipe, I search for it on the web!), I still have a strange compulsion to buy yet another glossy book to add to the large collection on my book shelf.
