30 days / 30 things Day 8

I am horribly behind with this I admit so this afternoon I intend on catching up so be prepared for an onslaught of posts from me ! I also must post at some point about the amazing hotel we have just returned home from.

Day 8 (on day 12) is about my favourite food. Now this really is a tricky one, where do I start. As a wannabe foodie I love food - nearly all food anyway. I suppose I need to think about what would my last meal be, what food could I really not live without.

Looking at it like that it's not such a difficult thing really. While I love so many different foods and lots of different cuisines, it always seems to come down to seafood.

(picture from seafoodwashington)

I love prawns in all shapes and sizes. Little ones mixed with mayonnaise in sandwiches or potted shrimp. I adore the big king prawns done on the barbecue and I even love that retro classic that is prawn cocktail ! One of the best meals I have eaten was a meal of shell on huge prawns done with garlic and chilli, ripping them apart and eating the juicy, sweet and spicy prawns with bread and an ice cold bottle of white wine in a restaurant somewhere in the Med - bliss.

I also adore mussels, preferable as marinere but not overly fussy really. Lobster is another one that I love but I'm not that confident eating it yet - not enough practice obviously.

We've just come back from a weekend in North Norfolk - home to Cromer and the Cromer crab. On our way home from our lovely hotel (more about that later), we popped into Cromer and bought 4 lovely spankingly fresh dressed crabs. A lovely lunch when we got home of dressed crab, salad and crusty bread - delicious.

The only one I'm not overly keen on is oysters but then it's been a few years since I've tried any. May be time to rectify that one !

Quick prawn curry

Phew ! A busy week this week. My last week off before it's back to work, so we've been having lovely days out with the kids and generally enjoying time as a family. So far we've caught up with friends, been to the zoo, soft play (personally my idea of hell but the kids love it) and now getting ready for son no2 turning 3 next week !

It has meant though that the cooking has gone by the board a little with meals out, picnics and quite a few snacky  dinners thrown in for good measure.

I found this from my saviour website BBC Good Food. Actually having just checked that link works properly, there seems to be a nice recipe for chicken, potato and green bean curry on the front page today, will book mark that one ! It's such a great website, I often just type in my main ingredient and take pot luck with what the search shows up. This is exactly what I did when I found this curry recipe. Normally I'm a bit boring with prawns and just do them in a spicy stir fry, or in a paella.

This was nice and spicy, even though I did discover my curry paste was out of date after I'd put it in - oops ! But best of all it was very quick and tasty (please excuse the shocking photo - I am working on my photography skills !).

QUICK PRAWN CURRY
serves 2

a glug of groundnut oil
1 onion sliced
4 ripe tomatoes skinned and cut into wedges
knob of root ginger grated
3 garlic cloves crushed
1-2 tbsp curry paste
200g shelled raw king prawns
Couple of large handfuls frozen peas
Coriander to serve

Heat the oil and slowly fry the onions until coloured
Reserve 4 of the tomato wedges and whizz the rest in a processor with the ginger and garlic
Add the curry paste to the pan, turn the heat up and cook for a minute or so
Add the tomato mix and reserved wedges to the pan and bubble to reduce
Then add the prawns and peas and cook until the prawns are pink and the peas tender
Scatter with coriander and serve with rice