Wednesday and red lentil curry

Wednesday is for recovering from Tuesday. And for making red lentil curry. I now have red lentils and since that was the only ingredient I was missing from this recipe from Yeung Man Cooking I was all set 

There's another page of instructions. This is a meal where you get into the process of cooking by stages, ending in a wonderful hot spicy endlessly interesting dish. 

You need to be left alone to cook this, many stages, involving chopping and toasting and crushing and sauteeing in stages. Just finding and setting out the ingredients is a thing.

I eat this with spoon and fork, or pusher,  because you get a different taste with each spoonful, all the different flavors and spices are in the sauce, and you'd miss some of the combos if you used a fork.

This half hour of prep and cooking makes three substantial meals. I suppose that's one family or a meal for a hungry couple.

Tomorrow's Misfits will include ginger beer again, perfect accompaniment to this curry, which I'll have again for lunch.

And I'm reading a cosy mystery 

Yesterday was full of good things. Aside from what you already know, one neighbor gave me dill, an herb I've never succeeded with, and she has a surplus. 

Another watered my flowers along with his own. He also told me his daughter had installed insulation for a sound barrier around his new fireplace where the speakers are, so I wouldn't hear his music. 

His fireplace and mine back each other and sound can travel. He can't do it himself at the moment, so he organized her into it! 

This is why I stay here as long as I can do it. Lovely neighborhood. Caring, not nosy.

 

This afternoon may involve a siesta.

Meanwhile, problem solving 

 

 

Curried red lentils at last

 The holdup on the diced tomatoes resulted in the red lentil curry not happening till today.

It's from Yeung Man Cooking on YouTube, a cook I really like, calm, prepared, great food with no evangelism. I've dumped quite a few fervent this is the right way to live people, who give me indigestion before I even get to the recipe. Likewise the people who write a chapter about their family, friends, history, hobbies, and might eventually get to a recipe. 

Will Yeung has great healthy food made in a quiet, calming way. 

Anyway this recipe is like an extended meditation, many ingredients and stages, involving toasting, grinding, chopping, dicing, mixing. It doesn't take a long time, though, each stage being only minutes. 

When it comes to counting plant ingredients, there are, well, a lot. And the results are spicy, many flavors going, different with each bite, just great. The coconut milk gives a warmth to the spiciness.

So here's the stage set. Rice is cooking offstage right.

Then, after toasting and grinding spice seeds and pods,  

here's the pan with all the spices plus lentils and tomatoes, and the last of the Serrano peppers, simmering gently before the coconut milk is added and it's brought to the boil then cooked gently for the last stage.

Here's the cook's share 

What a luxury, to cook exactly what I felt like eating, as hot as I wanted, when I was ready. 

I also got a couple of bargain reads for my Kindle, reissues  of Margery Sharp, lovely writer, serious issues with a featherlight touch. 

Cluny Brown, which I owned in paperback and read till it disintegrated, is one of them 

Happy day, everyone, enjoy your day. We are embarking on some hot weather this week.

I'm planning accordingly. Spicy food, reading material, then furniture moving after Ficus leaves..

Mother's Day, great food, friends and artisans

 Mother's Day was

I like the consoling "rain stopping soon" knowing everyone was a bit tired of it!

After several setup calls, Gary and I were sure our friend was up for a visit and clear about it.  So we walked down and spent a lovely hour, chatting about the orchids her husband gave her, as on every Mother's Day, blue this year, gardening, kids, grands, weather, cars, cancer treatment, dogs, vegetables, especially beets, and various other things.  

She was so happy, because her treatment has been happening daily, no chance to see anyone other than doctors and hospitals, so this was a change.  I'd say this was one of my better Mother's Days. I was doing what my Mom would do. 

Once home I plunged into the long awaited red lentil curry from Yeung Man Cooking's channel. This is a slow meditative process, many ingredients and stages, and the result was bangin'. Just great.

All the scents and colors were just a treat. And there's enough for several meals. He really knows how to teach a recipe. 

I'm taking a bit of time to decide on my next fabric book page, and I want it to be different from the previous ones.  I have a couple of ideas.

Meanwhile there's such a tempting offer on Freecycle of really lovely calico pieces..very local.. someone may save me from myself by getting in first... it's easy to refreecycle, if necessary, busily rationalizing.

I may do a bit of pinloom weaving, as a change of pace.

Speaking of which, I've come to value certain thoughtful YouTube channels, like Marion, the stitcher, painter, dressmaker, gardener, cook, modest, quiet and blessedly without music. It's like being with friends when YouTubers dare to allow quiet. 

Ant, of Ant's Country Life, is another. 

Sunday he uploaded a long video of himself rebuilding a collapsed drystone wall, occasionally turning to explain what he was doing. His skills are marvelous to watch and he's not afraid of silence, just letting us hear ambient sounds, birds, wind, sheep. It's an antidote (!) to the endless racket of the world. 

It doesn't hurt that Marion and Ant are both from my native part of the world, familiar scenery and speech, so restful.

I've been appreciating a lot of things,  quietness, friends, skills, Mother's Day greetings, chair yoga, simple days. 

Happy day everyone, enjoy what you have going, and, as one of my greeting texts said we're here, we're vertical, that's all we need!

Photo AC