Monday 18 February 2013

A cooking day and a day out

My dd wanted to buy Anne Frank's diary so we had a look on the book people. Not only was it a really reasonable price but I found this book too


As it was reduced from £25 to £6.99 with an extra 10% off I thought I'd give it a go and I'm really glad I did. It's based on a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Bradford and it includes some lovely recipes. I've spent the day today cooking three of the main dishes - pea and cauliflower curry (wattana and flower), garlicky black chickpea and potato curry (desi chana) and sweet and spicy cheese and peas (mattar paneer). The plan is to serve them with rice and then watch Skyfall which came out today. Ds and I agree that this is the best Bond movie EVER. Dh and dd haven't seen it yet so I'm looking forward to sharing it with them. I love half term as it gives me time to spend some quality time with the family (and we can all unwind).

I also decided to try out a new cookie recipe yesterday after spending the day with ds in Portsmouth. We went to Gunwharf Quays and walked out to Southsea. As it was Chinese New Year we also watched the dragon dancing

and went out for lunch at Pizza Express. We don't go out to restaurants so it's lovely when we do. Here's a taste of our meal


and the view from our window table


The weather was beautiful and we even managed to have some time on the beach. When we got back, I decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies as dd was poorly and needed a treat. I found this recipe on the Riverford website and they really hit the spot.

Cream together 125g marg, 75g caster sugar and 75g soft brown sugar until fluffy. Add half tsp vanilla extract and 50ml milk and mix well. Fold in 175g plain flour and half tsp bicarbonate of soda with 100g chopped chocolate. The recipe suggested 200g but I really don't think it needs it. Put in the fridge for half an hour. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Take the mixture out of the fridge, roll the cookie dough into walnut sized balls. Cook for approx 12 minutes. Leave to cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack. We eat them when they were still warm and they tasted delicious. I hope they work for you.

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