Foodie stuff

On the back of Patak's Rogan Josh curry sauce it tells you to fry peppers in oil before adding the sauce. My tip is fry an onion and a pepper in butter instead. After the sauce has cooked add some cream and chopped parsley. I had this for tea and it was better than a lot of takeaways I've had. I'm still savouring the flavours an hour later.

If you want an easy meal and you hate cooking time-consuming things or doing lots of pots, cook some oven chips and sausages in one tray and serve with some chopped raw cabbage and a good quality mayonnaise such as Fox's Lemon and Avocado. The difference in flavour between an average and top quality mayo is vast and as it's something you'll store in the fridge is worth that little extra investment. I have to say I think the Dutch and Belgians deserve credit where it's due, it's so much nicer having mayo with chips rather than vinegar.

Another fairly easy meal is a paella. Buy some bomba rice to make one. Chop up an onion, carrot and two cloves of garlic small, then fry them in olive oil in a large frying pan. Also add some chopped up bacon, sausage, chicken, whatever meat you want - or vegan sausages. Then add some salt, pepper and dried rosemary to get lovely flavour in. Now take a few strands of saffron out of the spice jar and put them in a very small bowl and add some boiling water. The saffron will leech out its flavour and colour into the water, which after a few minutes you can add to your pan. After adding the saffron and water, pour in however much rice you want (100-150g per person I'd suggest) and add a big load of boiled water to cover all the rice. Start cooking on a medium-high heat (on a scale of 1-6, 1 lowest setting, 6 highest, I'd recommend 4). Have plenty more boiled water ready at all times and just keep topping up whenever rice is getting above the water. Keep stirring at least once a minute if t here's any sign of bits of rice rising above the water, but you don't think more water is needed yet. Test the rice by putting a fork in and eating a bit every few minutes. Once it's soft, keep cooking until the water has all gone, then pull off the heat and add some chopped parsley and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Drizzle over a little circle of olive oil too. 

-- Interesting fact about saffron actually. As well as being the most expensive spice in the world it's been found by some researchers to be no less effective than antidepressants prescribed by doctors in treating depression. (Link: https://www.psychcongress.com/article/saffron-effective-some-antidepressants#:~:text=The%20spice%20saffron%20was%20as,analysis%20published%20in%20Human%20Psychopharmacology.)