Easy Thai Prawn Curry
Well thank heavens for the weekend. The ridiculous school run has left us all cranky and tired, and last night we all just wanted to crash out. I, being the total pig I am, was in the mood for a take-away curry. That being impossible as all the delivery men are too scared to chance the unfeasibly long, dark drive and the man-eating rabbits, I settled for some cooking-as-therapy and knocked this one up which, I have to say, was rather nice.
Sometimes I’ll be in the mood to take my time and make a proper one. Nigella does a great recipe in her Feasts book for Mughlai Chicken, which has hundreds of ingredients and takes ages, which I love, but Hubby doesn’t like creamy curries so I tend to cut out the cream and increase the garam masala and chilli. Also, I don’t know about at home, but here they sell tiger prawns in brine, which are lovely and cook really well, but obviously fresh is better. They’re also gorgeous fried in butter with the crushed chillies we bought in Turkey and served on croutons (ooh must remember that for when the girls come over).
Sorry, rambling. Anyway, the curry pastes that they sell in jars are really good – I recommend them if you’re in a hurry rather than faff around grinding up all those spices. It’s just dawned on me that my friend R’s husband, the lovely M is a chef. I hope he doesn’t read this sacrilege – brined prawns and curry paste – he’ll probably have heart failure. Ah well, it tastes good so here, for everyone apart from M who should look away now (sorry M!), is the recipe:
Thai Prawn Curry
2 x garlic cloves
1 x onion
1 x red chilli
Tiger prawns
Thai green curry paste
1 tin coconut milk
Heat some oil in a large wok or saucepan and add your finely chopped onion. Add the garlic cloves – I like them finely sliced but crush if you like. I also add a finely chopped chilli complete with seeds to shut Hubby up, but you can leave it out, then a couple of large spoonfuls of the curry paste. Stir, then add your prawns (if raw, you need to wait now until they turn pink), and then add the coconut milk. Simmer with the lid off until it reduces a bit, then eat with some rice in a bowl in front of the telly, then dance around like a complete family of idiots to MTV until dizzy but perfectly chilled.
(#2 had a ham and cheese sandwich).
Pals
While I was uploading that photo I noticed this one and had to post it for you. Gorgeous!
A vision in pink
Well, I went shopping with Hubby briefly yesterday for riding hats for our budding show jumpers, and ended up with some pretty lush new wellies which are lilac, pale blue and pink stripes.
Not to be outdone, madam received a little parcel from her Auntie J in Dundalk containing a seriously flash new collar with girly pink hearts all over it. The boys were not impressed and there was much tutting and eye rolling, but boy do we cut a dash in the lane now – bet the cows are dead jealous.
Here’s a little pic of the offending object for you – begrudgingly modelled by B when she was trying to nab forty winks and edge me off the sofa at the same time (don’t mention the nose, she’s a bit sensitive about it).
..and demonstrating the ‘full spider’ position (difficult to master but effortlessly demonstrated I might add) complete with ridiculous grin…
Wicked, innit.
Yet another beautiful day in Ireland today – weather man says it might get up to 20 degrees. B and I had a really lovely walk this morning: watching the cows grazing in the mist as it was burnt off by the sunshine (and sniffing for rabbits obviously). In fact, all was wondrous apart from the fact that my wellies are chafing somewhat (no rude remarks please – they’re Hubby’s and they’re too big) and I need to buy a pair. I sent J a text this morning saying ‘I’m after getting myself a pair of those pink patterned ones’, then realised that I’d inadvertently gone all Irish! What’s come over me? I’ve started to say ‘thanks a million’ to people too.
Last night it was quite nippy and the boys and I built a roaring fire – complete with several very bad impressions of Sid the Sloth from Ice Age (must be spoken through clenched teeth):
Sid: ‘With this stick, and my highly evolved brain, I will create…FIRE! From now on you’ll have to refer to me as Sid, Lord of the Flame!’
Manfred: ‘Hey Lord of the Flame, your tail’s on fire’.
Well it made us laugh (easily pleased). When we finally got a chance to sit down and have a glass of wine in front of the fire, Hubby and I wondered whether the children will start to speak with Irish accents. Apart from picking up a few phrases I can’t believe that he and I will ever lilt, but will our children? We’ve already noticed that they’re losing their more horrendous mock-cockney English-isms picked up from school, such as ‘well wicked!’, ’nuffing’ and my personal favourite ‘that’s well good, innit’. I therefore would be eternally grateful for lilting Irish children. I find listening to Irish people talking very therapeutic (apart from the swearing, obviously), and the radio is currently my saviour on the horrendously long school run. In fact, its well wicked (sorry).
Bagels and a monk
Well, my nightmare weekend finally being at an end and the unfeasibly long school run behind me, I decided that a spot of R&R was a good idea and headed to the largest shopping centre in the hemisphere for a spot of retail therapy. I’ve made that sound really exciting, and actually all I needed to do was purchase a couple of school jumpers for #2, who has managed to lose both of his in a frenzy of misplacement spectacular even by his standards.
Parking my car, then, in the firm knowledge that I’d never be able to find the bloody thing again, all car parks in the place looking exactly the same, I set out. Now you know that I do generally try to avoid the England vs Ireland thing as much as possible, but I don’t remember ever having problems buying school uniform (except shorts maybe). It seems that here if you don’t buy your entire yearly stock by the end of June, then you’re knackered for the whole year.
Talking of uniforms, the Irish are shockingly cruel to their school children. After I’d pathetically given in to the temptation of the Bagel Bar (do they have these anywhere else? They’re magnificent – you can choose any one of load of different flavours of bagel, then have it stuffed with practically anything you want) and settled down to scoff my Caesar chicken with chilli relish, followed by a medicinal Double Decker, I sat watching a stream of school kids going in to McDonalds (Jamie Oliver’s healthy school’s initiative obviously hasn’t reached Ireland yet). One particularly puke-inducing uniform consisted of a teal green pleated skirt (mostly hitched up over the knee), combined with teal green knee socks (never a good look on a teenage girl, believe me), creamy yellow shirt and grey jumper with a massive yellow splodge of a logo which looked like they’d lost the filling of their Big Mac down their chests. Poor little buggers. Maybe it’s some sort of punishment.
I also saw a monk – no, really I did – he had a brown hooded cassock-thing on with a rope round his middle. I’ve never seen one before either. Full of surprises this place.
Chaos and Carbonara
#2 has a friend to stay this weekend. The house is in chaos: this being Saturday there’s the usual festering rugby kits humming by the back door, and now there’s running sucker-gun battles in the hall (thanks for those by the way, Dad) and the lounge is a sea of lego. We’ve already had arguments over whose turn it is on Star Wars and over who is James Bond. My nerves are completely frazzled and the dog and her lampshade are gibbering quietly to themselves under the kitchen table. Cheery texts from Hubby who is coincidentally very busy today at work have been met with a veritable smorgasbord of expletives. Salvation has appeared in the unlikely form of son #2 himself, who being a bit of a budding Gordon Ramsey has decided to take charge on the catering front, which is fine with me. He’s quite keen that I post his recipe for your delectation, and measuring not being his strong point, we’re working in handfuls and..er..sploshes, so here goes:
#2 son’s kid-friendly spaghetti carbonara
1 pack streaky bacon
1 pack spaghetti
Frozen peas
2 eggs
Splash of milk
Boil a big pan of salted water, then add your spaghetti and a couple of handfuls of frozen peas. Meanwhile, snip the bacon into strips and fry. Crack the eggs into a bowl, add a good slug of milk and whisk.
When pasta is cooked and bacon is crispy, drain the pasta then quickly bung in the egg mix and the bacon. Mix up so the eggs cook, then serve with loads of grated cheddar.
For an adult version, I would use cream instead of the milk, parmesan instead of cheddar and maybe even pancetta instead of the bacon. Yummy whichever way you do it though. Now all I need to do is find the kitchen again under all the pans, packets and utensils. Happy days..
Lampshade Dog
Oh this is funny. Silly dog has not been able to leave her poorly paw alone and just will not let it heal. Yet another trip to our long-suffering vet produced a solution that was not only practical, but endlessly entertaining.
B has been fitted with an enormous plastic cone around her head to stop her licking her paw and is seriously not happy about it. Not only will the grumpy maggot not even look at us, but she’s even more indignant as we keep laughing every time she bumps into chairs, bangs into walls, and makes futile attempts to fit under the bushes in the garden where once there was wondrous fun to be had chasing bunnies. It’s clear from the facial expressions that I’ve ruined her life and I am no longer to be entertained. So there.
Stormy
The unfeasibly long school run had a whole new dimension to it this morning…it was kind of like an incredibly long obstacle course – like we used to do at school except this time in the car and with trees, whole bushes, bits of fence and a myriad of dead animals strewn in the road to avoid.
Having had a VERY sleepless night being battered by the 80mph winds caused by Hurricane Doris or whatever its bloody name is, we awoke to find the garden completely trashed: fences down and cars covered in debris. After a quick check to ensure there was nothing too drastic, we set off only to discover that the rest of Ireland took a battering seemingly far worse than our place, which is quite sheltered by tall trees all around it. Judging by the amount of dead bodies, Irish birds are not too clever at sheltering from the wind (bit difficult when you live in a tree I suppose) and there seemed to be an awful lot of dead rabbits on the road as well (your guess is as good as mine – maybe they popped out to see what all the noise was – either that or one of the local butchers had spent the night driving about flinging his stock out at regular intervals).
I also noticed, apropos of absolutely nothing, that one of the petrol stations on my route is currently pricing its unleaded at 103 cent per litre – read it and weep my UK readers!! Don’t know exactly what that is in sterling but it’s got to be around 70 pence per litre.
Anyhoo, with the boys safely at school, I drove back listening to ‘Dermot and Dave in the morning’ (don’t mock, it’s quite good), had a good laugh at M and 50 the Toll Trolls (the two trolls that live at the M50 toll obviously – you had to be there):
M: ‘Why did Tigger have his head down the toilet?’
50: ‘He was looking for pooh!’
…and had the good fortune to hear most of my current fave songs (well, we haven’t had a list in a while have we?). So (fanfare!) in no particular order:
Top Ten Songs to Enjoy while Avoiding Hazards in the Road
1. Scissor Sisters: Don’t Feel Like Dancing
2. Shakira and that other bloke: Hips Don’t Lie
3. Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway
4. Gwen Stefani: Hollaback Girl
5. Gwen Stefani: Cool (it’s my list, I can have two if I want)
6. A Ha: Take On Me (oldie but goodie methinks)
7. Jack Johnson: can’t remember the name of the song
8. Pussycat Dolls: Buttons
9. Green Day: American Idiot (and no, they don’t censor it here)
10. Justin Timberlake: SexyBack (it’s growing on me)
There you go – happy Friday!
Spotty Dog’s Surgery
This week B has been mostly eating:
My Chanel make-up brush (for the second bloody time – rescued but somewhat stubbier in the bristles than before); one of my socks (in her defence, this was tidied up into her bed but not actually damaged); the plastic lego container that’s been hanging about in the bathroom for ages; an empty egg box (no idea why, it obviously just looked appetising); several soft toys left lying around by their careless owners and rescued into the dubious safety of B’s bed (not chewed exactly, just..er..kissed a lot) and precious spotty dog that was pinched from its usual position on #2′s bed and given some rather random facial surgery (#2 son now not talking to very sorry greyhound AT ALL).
My friend J in Italy is down a pair of glasses and several pairs of trainers (phew!), but this week’s winner is a lady on the greyhound website who answered my moan by telling me her greyhound has had: ‘several weekend ads, half a shoelace from one of my running shoes and last night he chewed the plug out of the socket leaving my living room in total darkness — does he win?’ Er..yes.
Hurricane Doris
Wowee, is it windy here or what?! Last night was rather sleepless, caused, I now know, by one of the branches of a tree in the garden tapping on the roof in the wind. I was consumed with panic that we were about to be attacked in our beds last night by some tapping, blood-thirsty burglar, but obviously was far too lazy to get out of bed and actually check (or indeed to worry why any blood-thirsty criminal would think to knock first). Apparently we’re catching the tail end of Hurricane Whatnot (or maybe that should be Hurricane Yoke, using my new Irish language skills), causing winds gusting at over 40 miles per hour. This, combined with driving rain and a nasty accident, took my total school-run-from-hell time to a record-breaking 2 hours and 45 minutes. Not only was this intensely frustrating and boring, but I had plenty of opportunity to discover that my local radio station plays exactly the same news broadcast every 15 minutes. And I’m sorry, but I could feel no sympathy for the poor punters stuck outside the K Club waiting while every ‘temporary structure’ was battened down. No, I was more concerned with the fact that I needed a wee. I apologise for lowering myself to the discussion of bodily functions but, blimey, have you ever needed to go when stuck in traffic? No? Well lucky you because there’s nothing more excruciating.
To take my mind off my toilet troubles, I started to wonder why hurricanes have such pathetic names. I mean, this is the 40 mph tail end of a hurricane that must have been a belter, yet they call it Hurricane Bernard, or Hurricane Doris, or some such unlikely thing. I mean, with something so powerful, you’d think they’d think of a better name, like..er..Hurricane Satan or Hurricane Lucifer, or, with the Irish penchant for naughty language, maybe Hurricane Bastard would be more appropriate. Ooh, or Hurricane Gobshite (sorry, I’ll stop now).
You also won’t be surprised to know that after getting over her excitement that I was actually home again (I think she’d lost all hope), B nearly died of shock when faced with the very strong breeze and proceeded to spend our whole walk crawling along practically on her tummy and trying to squeeze herself in between my feet, tripping me over several times in the process. A greyhound terrified of wind? Hmm.. a certain irony there I think.
