July is cold this year. We haven’t had our usual rainfall, either. I have been occupied despite the weather!
cooking chicken tikka masala
Warm and comfortable food features here during winter and we really like a good curry. I found this Chicken Tikka Masala online at https://www.thecookingfoodie.com/recipe/Chicken-Tikka-Masala-Recipe and set about preparing it. Like so many things I cook, the ingredients are readily available or easy to acquire. Apart from the chicken I had everything else. The chicken was cut into cubes then marinated in yoghurt, lemon juice, garlic, ginger, paprika and garam masala.
Then the browned chicken is added to a sauce/gravy mixture of onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, chili, coriander, cumin, garam masala, diced tomato and yoghurt ( the recipe actually calls for cream but I prefer yoghurt). It tasted as good as it smelt and we really enjoyed it.
The recipe said it made five serves but actually we had six generous serves. So, two serves in the freezer, two in the fridge and two for dinner that evening. This is a lovely, rich recipe and I’ll be making it again.
reading
A few weeks ago I reviewed Lucy Foley’s cleverly written murder mystery The Guest List. Featuring any number of people who would have liked to murder one of the main protagonists, it wasn’t apparent until the very end which one was responsible.
This week I’ve read The Paris Apartment. Foley writes gripping murders set in contemporary environments. Her stories are full of twists and turns, so action packed and a little bit scary, too. This story involves the half sister of the man who has disappeared arriving in Paris, realising he is missing and trying to work out what has happened. She moves into his apartment in a rambling old house full of very odd people. Things start to go very wrong and she has no idea whom she can trust. It’s a great read.
eating mussels
It’s mussel season and I’m keen to eat them! No-one else in the family eats mussels so I made a little feast for myself. This year I cooked the mussels in a simple sauce based on passata with some herbs and vegetables. I like the flavour of the mussels to star and not be overwhelmed by the sauce.
Our mussels are caught in the Cockburn Sound, about 11 kilometres from here. Originally mussels were wild caught but since the 1980s they have been farmed.
making bread
I usually made two loaves of rye sourdough at a time. Two loaves last me about two weeks. Most of the bread is sliced then put in the freezer. I have a piece of toast at breakfast and a piece of bread at lunch time. This has worked well for ages but I must eat more bread when it’s cold! This week I have made three loaves, two regular loaf shaped ones and a boule, because I don’t have three rectangular dishes!
This bread needs a few days from start to finish. I take the starter out of the fridge and feed it flour and water before leaving it on the table near the window for about 24 hours. It starts to bubble and increase in size. The next day I take some of the bubbly starter/sponge and mix it with flour, water, salt and a tablespoon of molasses.
I used to mix it by hand as I liked to feel when the dough became elastic and ready. Now I mix the dough in the mixer and then leave each loaf to rise again. This takes about two hours. Next the loaves go into the oven. The serious bakers say you should bake one loaf at a time in the middle of the middle shelf of the oven. I cooked two rectangular loaves side by side on the middle shelf and the boule on the shelf below and they look good and taste great.
cat aggravations
I’d like to say I am not really a cat person. We have a dog. It is not a friend of cats and usually ensures none venture into our garden. Dog has been sleeping on the job, obviously. Went out the back door the other day to find a pot plant which had been sitting on a ledge, smashed and the plant a bit of a mess. Assumed it was cat damage. Knew I would have to buy two new pots and re-pot the plant and another one, too, as they were in matching pots. Annoying.
Had to buy two new pots. Annoying.
Later that day my husband heard a crash outside the back door and went to investigate. A rustic wooden ‘house’ which had been on another ledge was on the ground but part of the roof was smashed off. Humph. Out with one of my many glues and masking tape to repair it. I have repaired this roof in the past but the little house, made out of scrap timber, reminds me of a beautiful garden we visited on a farm down south during an ‘Open Garden” weekend. So, I’ll repair it again and investigate ways to discourage cats.
The rustic little house is becoming weaker but I’ll keep repairing it for now. This strip has broken off the front previously.
Glue then held in place with masking tape.
did you know?
There are about a million camels roaming wild in Australia’s deserts. They represent the greatest number of purebred camels in the world and are exported to the Middle east.