Curry, Cupcakes, Spinach and Soup

I have several things to share with you today, as you probably guessed by the title! First up, curry.

Last night for tea I made chicken lentil curry, a paper recipe from a magazine that came highly recommended from my mum. And with good reason. It was, quite simply, delicious. Even though it was quite a simple recipe, the flavours were just amazing. Safe to say I'll be making this a lot! The colours were great as well as the flavours! I loved the way the lentils changed colout from a bright red-orange to a muted khaki brown, the bright green of the spinach, the white of the yoghurt before it was stirred in, and the colour of the curry against the clean white of the rice.

Now, cupcakes! It was one of my flatmates' birthdays today. He drinks red tea (rooibos) like me, so when I saw a recipe for a Rooibos Loaf I knew I had to make it for his birthday. I don't have a loaf tin with me, so decided to make cupcakes. They worked really well, and he (and everyone else!) really enjoyed them. They were quite sweet as two of the four teabags were vanilla red tea (just what I happened to have); they really tasted as though they had honey in! A very nice, light fruitcake which I'm sure would be fabulous as a loaf too.

The fruit soaking in red tea

A quick side note, not even a recipe. For lunch today I made a spinach and Christmas Chutney sandwich, and the colours looked lovely together (very Christmassy, red and green!), so I had to take a photo!

 

 

The homestretch! Tea tonight. Moroccan Lentil Soup, another paper recipe. It was supposed to take an hour and a half, but as I have had a long and busy day, I did it for half the times at a higher heat. It worked fine. Just goes to show, you don't always have to stick exactly to the recipe! The main ingredients were lentils, obviously, and chickpeas. Alongside them were tinned tomatoes and quite a few spices- including smoked paprika, which I will be trying to use a lot more now. I bought it for another recipe a while ago, I hadn't had it for a while and really loved the taste. It was smoked paprika, slightly different to sweet, but both are good!

 

 

 

Filling and tasty, who could ask for more?

 

Tomorrow: I have a special lunch planned for tomorrow, made in a very special dish...