I’m always on the look out for hacks and tips to make life more streamlined. After all, time is precious and if I can cut out some of the hard work and steal back those minutes, I’m all for it!
Dinner inevitably coincides with the busiest time of the day. There are bags to be unpacked, books to sign off on, sibling tussles to referee. Harvey has also decided that he is not a big fan of that second nap so he has taken up a new position – tugging at my tights while I cook.
What I should do, as Dave helpfully reminds me, is to keep it simple. Soup, fish burgers, stir fries. It makes sense, and I agree with him in theory, but each time I repeat the same boring meals over and over again I die a little inside. I want to experiment, to try delicious new cuisines, sample food I’ve never tried before, and introduce flavour and excitement to developing minds.
We are smack bang in the middle of India at the moment. My love of menu planning in cuisines has taken us to some exciting places, but curry has to be one of our family’s favourite types of food. We have been making our way (for the second time) through The Curry Guy cookbook, by Dan Toombs and the best part – each (restaurant quality) curry literally takes about 15 minutes to put together. It is kind of like magic.
Toombs is big on preparation. He has a whole chapter on base recipes – including pre-cooked lamb and chicken, a three litre batch of curry sauce, garlic & ginger paste and a mixed powder concoction that you ladle in by the tablespoon. The beauty of doing it this way is that (once you put in a little bit of prep work) the dinner almost makes itself.
The curry sauce just happens to be packed with vegetables (carrots, onions, garlic, capsicum, cabbage, tomatoes and ginger) and the kids have absolutely no idea because it just looks like a delicious gravy. I had to write a post about this sauce because I somehow find a way to slide it into pretty much every conversation I’m having at the moment, so clearly I’m a little bit obsessed. Each night, I sizzle some garlic & ginger paste, add in some spices, pour in the curry sauce, add the meat and voila! Dinner is served!
You would think that the meals would start to taste the same, but surprisingly they don’t. We’ve had chicken korma, beef saag, beef keema, chicken chasni, chicken dhansak, and rogan josh, and the flavours have been so different. We love it, (most of) the kids love it and even ask for seconds (I leave out the chilli and add it onto ours when serving).
So, if you love Indian food and you are in the mood for an awesome dinner hack that will save you some time, check out this curry sauce and tell me what you think!
What hacks are you into at the moment? I would love to hear about them (whether food-related or not)!
