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Red curry, rice and noodles from Sawadee Thai taste in Hill Street in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.
We didn’t have time for a Valentines meal yesterday so I got this as a takeaway for us with a starter of Thai fishcakes. It was very tasty.
Look up the restaurant in the phone book if you want to book a table or a take out meal. It’s good food and not too expensive even in these costly days.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was grapes. Imagining a bunch of grapes and trying to draw them is hard! But I tried x it’s a pencil crayon drawing and so I added the pencil as part of the sketch.
Afternoon tea, a couple of cheese ant tomato Staffordshire oatcakes with a dab of brown sauce and a hot chocolate with squirty cream, marshmallows and a tiny jammy dodger biscuit with a ram heart at its centre, presumably for valentines day? (which I have hubby). We had this at Westport Lake visitors centre. We sat on the balcony in a slightly chilly breeze, overlooking the lake. The geese were calling, I think they wanted bird food. But we couldn’t feed them because there us bird flu in the area and feeding a flock can help spread it. The latest news is that it has jumped species to small mammals which is very worrying. Anyway, sorry to put a downer on this post!
A quick curry using vegetables and a small amount of Quorn pieces and prawns.
Ingredients.
One jar of curry sauce, chose your favourite. I got tikka massala. One onion, one sweet pepper, a handful of button mushrooms, a big handful of washed baby spinach, about a quarter of a bag of Quorn pieces and a small packet of kingprawns (or small prawns). A packet of microwaveable rice.
Method.
Defrost the Quorn in the microwave if you have one. Peel and chop the onion. Put in a frying pan in oil and start to fry. Roughly chop the pepper and add to the pan. Chop the mushrooms and add. Put the Quorn and prawns in. Finally stir in the baby spinach, add the packet of rice and pour the curry sauce over the mix. Cook on a low heat with a lid on for about twenty minutes. Make sure the curry is thoroughly cooked before serving.
Serves two or three as a main meal.
Dessert is in the fridge. Well half, we have already had some for tea. It’s a trifle made of sugar free blackberry jelly with gelatine (not jam) with added raspberries and port. Topped with chocolate blancmange and whipped double cream.
It’s all sugar free so although it’s got fat and carbs in it, it’s not bad for sugar content. I try not to eat cake or biscuits, but this with fresh fruit in is lovely. I sometimes use strawberry or orange flavour jelly. You can also make it with sherry instead of port or alcohol free. Sometimes you can use sponge fingers in the jelly to make it stronger. It has to support the weight of the top two layers. But I don’t use that because they are too sweet. And some people add a layer of custard instead of blancmange, which us increasingly difficult to get hold of unless you buy it online. If you make it I hope you enjoy it. X
I’ll doodle and sketch on anything. This was a cup where I drew a donkey into the froth on the inside of my hot chocolate mug. I have drawn with sticks on beaches, creating mermaids and seahorses, into the gravy on my plate when we have been out to lunch, and when I was a child I used a sweeping brush to draw swirls in the dust on our garden path. That reminds me of videos of people painting Chinese characters with ink using a mop. I guess if you love mark making, it’s not easy to stop!
I have just been shopping, for the first time in a week. But really I’ve only been out a few times in a month through ill health. The trouble is the superstore I go to was refurbished in the summer and because I’ve been going to a cheaper, smaller, super market I don’t know where things are. It took me about half an hour to get eight things! I used to be able to go in and get what I wanted in about five to ten minutes. Now I have to search. Plus they have added a lot more self checkouts. I prefer the manned tills, but there were big queues today so I used the self checkout. I had several ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ situations. Partly because I took my own bag and it didn’t like it. Then it kept telling me to put the last item back in the basket? A woman manning the checkouts had to come over and sort out the computer screen. Oh for old fashioned checkout people. I went home and vowed not to go out again tonight.
My friend reminded me today that two years ago we were having afternoon tea at the Rabbit hole tea room in Stoke. We had a lovely meal of sandwiches, scones and cakes and tea in porcelain tea cups and saucers. We had to book a table in advance. Obviously it was closed during lock-down but I believe it is open again now. It was a charming place and suitable for families having birthday parties. I hope it does well despite the cost of living crisis.
I wanted to make Chow-mein and I had a packet of sauce. But my bean sprouts had gone soggy with having problems with my fridge. So I made something up.
I sliced some aubergine, red onion, broccoli, kale, pak-choi and red pepper and stir fried it all together. Then I added a tin of green lentils for carbs and cut up what was left of a roast chicken, mainly breast, then added the chow-mein sauce and cooked it for about fifteen minutes. I have no idea if this is the correct method but it tasted OK.
I decided to make a trifle for the New Year. I like doing this because I can make it sugar free. I also got my sister to bring some blancmange over because I hate custard in trifle.
There are lots of different recipes but mine is quite simple. I make up sugar free jelly first. Using about half a pint of boiling water and slightly over a quarter of a pint of port or sherry mixed into the jelly. (if you don’t want alcohol just use three quarters of a pint of water). The reason I don’t use a full pint is because I usually add a punnet of raspberries, blueberries or strawberries into the jelly, and this seems to add to the fluid levels in the jelly. (I don’t use sponge fingers because of the texture and they are full of sugar). Then I let it cool before putting the bowl in the fridge to set. A few hours later when the jelly is set I make the blancmange. That is a packet of blancmange powder mixed with three tablespoons of milk out of a pint. To this I add a tablespoon of sweetner. The rest of the milk is boiled and stirred into the blancmange mix. Then this is poured back into the saucepan and the mixture boiled again until it thickens. Once it is ready you have to wait for it to cool down before you pour it over the jelly. Finally when both layers are set I whip double (heavy) cream into stiff peaks, sometimes with a little sweetner. I spoon this on top of the trifle and serve. This makes enough for four to six servings. Tasty treat for dessert.
Mallaband-Brown