Making Hay

On Thursday I decided to batch cook a selection of curries, using my Mrs Balbir Singh's spice mixes.  I defrosted various packs of meat.     It was a long old afternoon,   but I ended up with:

• 4x 2 people portions of Mutton Rogan Josh
• 4x2 people portions of Shahi Pork Massala
• 16 individual portions (we use them as shared side dishes) of Beef Keema Massala
• 2 x 2 portions of beef Goan Vindaloo
• Many falafel sized pieces of lamb & pork kebab "meatbal/kebab" type things

The stack of Lav glass  lidded bowls  and the small bowls from Costco last time I went, really came into their own, as they helped me keep everything organised before cooking.  I have the recipe cards laminated, and I stood the bowls of ingredients on the relevant cards,  helping me make such a large number of dishes very smoothly.   They were worth the money!

I also made that evening's dinner:  a Keralan Coconut Curry, with fish!   I used some cod and some barramundi from the freezer.  The flavours of the spices cancelled out the fishiness of the fish, so I was able to eat it.

I had intended, but failed, to make  Chana Massala and Daal.  I couldn't find the chickpeas, and I didn't have the energy to make Daal.    Probably just as well,  as I don't think I'd have had the energy reserves for that too.

I felt like I'd achieved something!

Yesterday, we put the mega mutton joint on to cook.  It was the first time in months (maybe longer!) that we'd cooked anything in the oven.    Our airdryers and pressure cooker normally do the cooking.

My lovely brother arrived, to accompany me to Costco.   I've been struggling to make myself go on my own,   and I'd started to run out (or had completely run out) of a few things.

I bought a lot while I was there,  only a couple of extras from my list.

I bought 5kg of potatoes, a load of garlic, and some pre grated strong cheddar (yes, I know it would have been much cheaper to buy a block and grate it myself).  When I got home, I peeled 3kg of potatoes, pressure cooked them with one and a half peeled heads of garlic. While they were pressure cooking, I melted 500h of butter, added in the other half head of garlic, crushed), and left that to infuse, then put in a tonne of black pepper.   When the potatoes and garlic were cooked,  I Masha'd  them along with about half of the melted butter/pepper/garlic, then added 1kg of cheese and the rest of the melted butter.  The Masha was fantastic as always. 

I ended up 4 and a half kilos of Aligot mash, which I portioned up for the freezer (keeping a couple of huge portions  for dinner). 

The potato thing was all very quick,  and I'm so happy to have it in my freezer.    I need to do the rest of the potatoes, and I'll try and do something today before the enthusiasm (or capability) wanes.