needed to prepare a quick prawn curry, today, as we are out to rehearse a play in about half an hour after I pick up my partner from our shop.

Started with the usual suspects, onion, garlic (not too much), fresh root ginger and just one chilli (Angela doesn't like it too hot!). After cooking these for about 10 mins, added about a tbls of dhania/jeera powder, and another couple of tsps of powdered coriander, with about half a tsp of powdered star anise. Cooked that out, then added a tin of coconut milk, and a carton of passata. Cooked for about 10 minutes, then added some fresh mint, a handful of coriander leaves, and about a quarter of a lemon.

After cooking this for about 5 minutes, I blitzed the lot with my trusty hand blender, then added a little salt to taste, and let it simmer. I had to do some other things, so left it to cook, unattended. Unfortunately, it caught a little, but when I stirred it into the mix, it actually tasted very good, with just the right amount of tang from the lemon.

I'll put in the prawns after we return from the shop, and reheat the rice. Going to serve with cucumber raita.

well, the best laid plans...

I had got to the point where I had chopped the cucumber for raita, and went to the fridge for the curds, only to find I had bought cream, instead!. Ah well, although I was sure I had bought curds, I decided to turn the raita sans curds into a cachumber by adding tiny tiny tomatoes, sweet pepper and spring onion, add some lemon juice. And I added a little cream to the curry sauce, to counter the sharp lemon juice.

I picked my partner up from work, and got home quite quickly. I finished off cooking the rice, and went to the fridge to get the three packs or prawns (they were small prawns!) Pulling out the bag with the prawns in, I found the tub of curd. D'oh!

Anyway, we sat down to a prawn curry, rice and cachumber, and it was exceedingly good. We made it to the rehearsal on time, and I took the photos I was asked to do. All's well that ends well!

Nice to hear that other people do things like that too, I.e., missing items that are there ;)!

Your prawn curry sounds devine. Please feel free to send the pictures to me via the contact link or post them on mamtaskitchen facebook page.

will do, although I'm more likely to eat the stuff than snap it!

I once looked all over the house for a carton of sea salt when it was at arms length in the kitchen where I was working. I had it in my mind that the tub was blue, when it was, in fact, white.

A woman after my own heart! I sometimes get someone else to look, they have no pre-conceived idea of what it should look like and see things with 'open' eyes lol!