Fifitr - apparently 22% of the British population had met or seen the Duke of Edinburgh. To see him so close and interact must have been special, though. He was indefatigable.
Libby - I really feel for the Queen. She is a distant figure in so many ways, I have no idea about her apart from bits seen from the news. But she is a human being who has lost someone who was close to her for 73 years, and perhaps the last person that ever called her by her name.
Bear made dinner.
He gave me a list of ingredients, which included chestnut mushrooms (expensive), kale (couldn't find it anywhere), kashmiri chilli (wut?) and black mustard seeds (unknown in local shops). I could probably have found the spices if I had taken the time, as I live in an area that has a lot of people from the Indian subcontinent, and it's coming up to Ramadan. I didn't feel that I had the time! I loaded up on the mushrooms, got a sweetheart cabbage for the kale and ordered the spices from Amazon. If I had more time, I would have gone to Just Ingredients, which I've used in the past, and I've had good experiences. As it was, the spices arrived like this.
It make take some time to get through them. There's around a pound of each! Tesco had the fennel seeds and cumin seeds, along with the motar and pestle that was suggested. I'm not sure that I have anything useful to bash with, and I suspect that bear will get some use out of that bit of equipment. The fennel and cumin seeds were also in fairly large bages, but I'm sure that they'll get used. Bear very much enjoyed making dinner and it was AWESOME! He also cleared up a lot of the mess as well, so I'm very impressed. He's cooking again next Saturday.
Not only did he choose and follow a recipe, but he was looking at it and wondering how to adapt it to other veggies and perhaps chicken or beef.
I use Just Ingredients for the dried minced onion, which works well for a lot of my stuff. I also pick up my Italian herbs in bigger bags. In the past I've got things like ground tumeric and ground cumin, which turned out a lot stronger than the stuff in the little supermarket glass jars! I had to tone down my seasoning quite a bit. I love looking through the herbs and spices. They stock stuff like Devil's Claw (which is apparently a herb) as well as things like garlic pepper.
I have a lot to do tomorrow, so now that I have been well fortified by a wonderful dinner, I'm going to crawl off for an early night.
Hugs and good health to all.
Sounds like my kind of dinner - could you ask bear if I can have his recipe please? I always try and buy spices in Indian shops as they are so much cheaper (although sometimes the quantities are rather large for twice a week curry cooks to get through!). I have been getting fresh turmeric from Delifresh and it is really interesting - rather a different and less earthy taste than the dried stuff but very pungent. I just made a cauliflower and fresh turmeric soup which has an unusual but delicious flavour.
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