Whoarrrr....curry.

We happen to be a family of curry lovers. Once I start cooking in the kitchen there begins lots of loitering and sniffing around. Cries of "Whoarrr", it really doesn't matter whether it's vegan, vegetarian or a meat based curry...we love it. I had to do this curry twice this week because it is a new favourite.

Tons of vegetables.

Thursday.

A little disappointed as I was supposed to receive two tickets to the premier of the local showing of "The Sapphires" for tonight....free. Never mind.
So, I got busy in the kitchen instead.

I made chocolate chip cookies, requested by certain members of the family. If it's going to be naughty at least I know what's gone into them.

 Then one of my top favourite salads.

The lentils are only cooked gently for a few minutes so they look like this and not falling apart into a great mushy mess.

A friend made it for me a couple of years ago and I've made it heaps of times since. I could gobble the whole lot up but I don't. I don't have her original recipe so I sort of improvise each time.

The basics are the same, lentils, capers, currants and red onion but the dressing (an oil and vinegar based dressing) depends on what I add as I taste it. Today I added cumin, tumeric, coriander, freshly ground sea salt and black pepper, seeded mustard, a dash of cayenne pepper, a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg. Oh and also a little coconut sugar, my sugar of choice at the moment.

Yum.

 

Banoffee Pie.

I have a sister who makes the best Banoffee Pie. I was thinking about her a few days ago and decided to try and make one, it is terribly indulgent, rich and just downright naughty but equally delicious.

It has four main elements. A biscuit base. followed with a layer of caramel ( the offee bit, as in toffee), then sliced banana , topped with whipped cream.

I grated some chocolate on the top, just to make it extra bad.

Luckily there were lots of people to share it with.

Easy to make, it can be done in stages. The biscuit base and caramel can be done the day before and quickly finished the next day.

Loads of oranges.

One of our orange trees.

A few days ago I made some date and orange muffins. Partly because I desired something naughty but also because we have six trees laden with delicous oranges. Sweet and juicy. Unsullied by sprays and picked fresh. Each year we have to give bags away as we cannot eat then all. We juice, freeze, eat and use them in cooking. Maybe I should make some marmalade...

The recipe asked for  1/2 cup of juice, I juiced two oranges. So one batch of muffins used three oranges altogether.

They were good, I think I''ll do another batch tomorrow.