In these economically rollercoasterish times it becomes even more important to know how to do more with less. This is a general approach to life that our grandparents would not have to think twice about, but we seem to have left it behind as if being profligate were some kind of badge of honour and progress. I think that attitude is now showing itself to be just as shortsighted as our grandparents would have said it was. So, I am doing more than usual in the area of cooking thriftily with good quality but relatively humble ingredients treated well. Many people from all corners of the world know all about this kind of cooking - at the moment I'm particularly interested in Indian and Italian.
So, with that in mind, this evening I set out to make aloo mattar (potato and pea curry), accompanied by tarka dhal (lentils). I was improvising on a theme using some especially good quality madras curry powder I found on offer in the local supermarket looking lonely on the clearance shelf. I love those kind of finds! The husband seemed very happy with it, and I must say for a first stab it was quite pleasing. The only downside is that the house will now smell of curry for at least the next two days - fine on the evening you eat it, not so much the morning after.
I have the prospect of delayed coverage of the 6 Nations matches on Setanta this weekend, so it will be curry and rugby for a couple of days. Not bad really - although I'm sure that most of the people I know around here would be bemused by both aspects of my weekend plans. If I were to try and integrate it would be tailgating and the NCAA top 28 March Madness games (that's college basketball for the uninitiated). A different world.
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