Change of plans

 I originally was going to make a lasagna for Handsome Son's monthly dinner-with-Mom event. Then, the noodles made and stored in the freezer, logistics intervened.

His free evening is Wednesday, and some of the lasagna ingredients are in my Misfits box which arrives Friday.  They've extended their range to include dairy and eggs as well as fish and meat. This is good, if it works, organic food at reduced prices, at the door, saves me a big shop as well as $$.

I do like to get out and shop for a few items, since for a single older lady, it's a chance to see other humans, always a good thing. But a longer list means more exposure and more waiting at the checkout, which I'd rather not do 

So I took advantage of the chance of ordering eggs and dairy in addition to the produce,and changed my Wednesday plans. When the ingredients arrive, I can make the lasagna and freeze it for a future dinner.

Meanwhile here's the new plan:

To learn to pronounce it, go to the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen YouTube channel. The cook starts with how to say it. It's a recipe from Bahrain, where she's from.

It's also, like a lot of Ottolenghi, quite a performance to produce. Many ingredients, many lovely spices. 

I don't have access to prawns, so it's going to be the rest of my Misfits shrimp, smaller but okay. And I will add in halibut, diced.

Today I started with a vegetable stock I made from my frozen bag of peelings from recent Misfits boxes. There's enough over for a future soup. And specially for this recipe, it included a stick of cinnamon. The house smelt very savory today.

Here's the fridge shelf getting ready for the Big Cooking Caper

Left to right, stock, measured ahead, ginger, almond slices, golden raisins, cooked baby Bella mushrooms.

Then on today's abbreviated shopping trip, the all important basmati rice base

So posh it comes with its own recipe sheet and philosophy of life.

Tomorrow I'll get the fish organized.

What this is about is,: rice with onions, garlic, tomatoes and various spices, with heavily spiced and marinated shrimp, and here halibut, heaped on top of it.

This includes a lot of my favorite things. And I suspect it will make plenty. It will involve a lot of the contents of my three, count them, spice shelves. Including whole cardamom pods, a big fave.

It's just not for the faint hearted. 

Meanwhile I'd run out of bread, while I was organizing this fancy exotic stuff. So  I  made a batch of walnut biscuits 

while I was hanging about in the kitchen trying to conclude that this Bahraini adventure was a good change of plan. Some biscuits went next door, hot from the oven.

Whatever comes of it, and I have had good results from Ottolenghi recipes, I can always quote my mom: it's all good ingredients!

Dessert, in case you wondered, is that dish of handmade chocolates you saw yesterday.

It's all good, even while I'm wondering why I am incapable of just planning a simple, easy dinner for handsome Son. Since it's only once a month, it's an event, I guess.