Winding down

 I'm taking the gentle slide from posting on this blog (me included, this is not a nag) as a good sign, pandemic-wise. Are we feeling a bit more normal now? Sometimes? Fretting less? Are we doing a bit more Out There? I definitely am, to the point where I very much spent last week with an ordinary cold, pre-covid style. I did at least manage to whang together the chicken and ricotta meatballs with a tin of consomme and some carrots and watercress, for a nourishing soup-stew job. Albeit one which steamed my lens right up when sitting for its portrait.

 

But stuff isn't bang to normal still. Today I am flat out exhausted, having done a perfectly unremarkable day's work at my desk, wearing proper shoes, which I haven't worn for a full day since a couple of fugitive office visits last autumn. (Sandals are summer shoes for me, and they don't make me blister between my goddamned TOES thank you.) We've talked about the problem of catering alllll the lunches at home, and then catering the return to office lunches (I'm still taking leftovers in fact, which is fine, but we do actually have a canteen again). 

Now I'm just starting to remember the joys of not having time to cook of an evening. For more than one odd night a week, as a regular thing that wants planning around. Tonight is the first time in the entire covidworld that I've got home and started cooking before taking off my work shoes (despite blisters), though I did at least manage to take my coat off so it's not quite so dire as it has been. 

I'd planned a curry tonight, but only a keema, aka mince curry with peas, which is a nice quick thing. And if the district line and my meeting schedule had cooperated, that would have worked out okay. But nothing went right in those terms, and I found myself trudging home uncomfortably near seven, with only a raw onion to greet me. 

Except... not just a raw onion! Tinned onions! The knackered cook's friend! I had almost forgotten you, but now here you are, as the old world memories suuuurge right back. 

Bless them, they got me 20 minutes into cooking immediately. Add garlic and ginger, add chopped tomatoes, add spices (cinnamon, cloves, cardamom as whole spice in theory; coriander, cumin, turmeric and chilli as ground). 

Add lamb mince (no browning), add salt, add a splash of water (which I either overdid or did not need - perhaps my tomatoes are a tad autumnal and wet). Bring to a brisk simmer, part cover, let it cook for half an hour, go about your other business.

Just before serving, add frozen peas and let them cook out, possibly together with a last quarter of your ground spices if you remembered to keep them back. Sure, sure, definitely did that. 

But I did manage to make a modified version of the side recommended in Crave for this - it's meant to be a tomato and cucumber salad but I needn't expand on the evils of cukes again. I just did chopped fresh tomatoes, with grated garlic, lemon and last-minute chopped mint. It really lifted the gentle brown curry. 

 

Allegedly it's still Tuesday, which seems fake. But maybe days were always this long and tiring in the before times? Re-entry is taking a while.