OK, I seem to be falling into the blogging category of "if you have nothing to blog about, just talk about the shit you buy." (I still love those nail polish pens, by the way.)
So now I will talk about what I just had for dinner. Sunday nights can be pretty rough - it's my last work day of the week, it's one of my only two nights off, I usually want to cook dinner, but I'm usually too freaking tired to do so. I've been in the habit of ordering in, usually Indian, and then just crashing on the couch. All the takeout, though, gets really expensive, even though I get two meals out of it, and the number of non-recyclable plastic containers I accumulate makes me feel like a very bad environmentalist.
So tonight, I was actually awake enough to do something I've wanted to do for a while - I cooked my own version of my usual chicken tikka masala. Not from scratch, mind you, but using some stuff I've heard good things about and have had in my kitchen for a while:
This is huge in the UK, apparently. It's yummy and easy - I sauteed a couple of chicken breasts (free range, of course!) then dumped some sauce on, covered the pan, and simmered for 10 minutes. It's not as creamy as what I'm used to, but the flavor is great and just 90 calories a serving (they have a korma sauce too, but the calorie count kinda scares me!)
Instead of the usual Indian yellow rice I get, I used this :
Yep, frozen brown rice. Surprisingly good, and so much easier than having to spend 45 minutes cooking it. I had heard that Trader Joe's has a great version of this, but since the closest TJs is a million miles away from me (ok, 14th street, might as well be a million miles) I did a little research and found the Rice Expressions brand. Good stuff, though the three minutes it was supposed to cook in wasn't quite enough, I had to add another minute and it was perfect.
On the side I had frozen organic peas and fresh steamed cauliflower (which tasted great with the sauce) and I have a whole plate of leftovers, just like any Sunday! I'm usually not one for packaged, frozen foods, but there are some really good ones out there, with a minimum of waste (and certainly less than what I had after ordering in!) and they're such time savers without compromising flavor. Yum.
(now? I might be enjoying some Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra) (double yum)
