NORTHERN PLANNER

There haven’t been any recipes for awhile so heres a belter of a curry. Half an hour, and I swear it’s better than a take-away.

You need:

Tin chopped tomatoes

1 large onion. finely chopped

1 finely chopped clove of garlic

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon chilli flakes (more if you like it hot)…you can chop up a fresh chilli which is better though, it goes in at the same time as the onion. If you like it hot, keep the seeds in.

2 teaspoons of garam masala

Handful of freshly chopped coriander

Massive handful of fresh spinach (optional)

Get 2 tablespoons of olive oil hot in pan, over the hob. Put in the onion and cook unto it goes brown around the edges, this should take about ten minutes.

While it’s cooking, whiz the tomatoes in a blender – don’t ask me why this works, it just does!

When the onion is cooked, throw in the garlic and stir for a couple of seconds, then  put in the tomato with the spices and half the coriander. Turn the heat up and stir really well until it all goes glossy.

You’ll have a very thick sauce. At this point, if you want meat with it, throw whatever it is in and stir fry for four minutes…..or prawns for that matter. Then add any vegetables you fancy and stir for another minute.

Then top up the mix with enough water to nearly cover the vegetables, meat, whatever. Be conservative with this, you don’t want is going too thin. To add depth to the flavour, you may want to add stock instead of water..vegetable chicken, whatever suits.

Bring it to the boil and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Then throw in the rest of the coriander and the spinach, stir really well, when the spinach wilts you’re done.

You can serve this with rice (must do cooking rice at some point) but it’s great stuffed into pittas too.

If you’re feeling racy, roasting a punnet of fresh tomatoes and whizzing (replacing the tin) them is amazing, as is coconut milk at the end.

By the way Fee and Chris love the tomato soup recipe. There’s a bonus baked beans recipe in the comments, which they loved. Visual evidence is here.