Curry in a hurry - good curry

You know those nights you're late home from work, or in our world - your partner has been attached to the sofa feeding the baby all day and there's nothing that you can just wallop in the oven and be done with in the house? That's where (to my foodie shame) ready meals for me step in. Cheaper than a takeaway, and these days if you're careful you can find those without too many nasties so you aren't overwhelmed by the guilt. Oh the guilt.

A few weeks back - 7 in fact, the nice people at Charlie Brighams got in contact with me regarding trying some of their ready meals. Busy as we were at the time, getting ready for the baby I thought they would be an ideal solution to our busy days - M was working in Birmingham, we were trying to fit in our NCT classes, finish decorating the nursery (nope, still not quite done) as well as sort the house out. They were the ideal way to ensure we didn't succumb to takeaway - too expensive - or toast and marmite - not ideal.

We picked up two of the new curry ready meals - Chicken tikka masala and Chicken korma. Both served two, so my plan was to cook both curries and one set of rice one night, and then the other portion of rice the next to have with the leftovers.

My prevailing opinion of the curries were that they were quite sweet - and even for two curries on the milder end of the spectrum, very mild. That said, they tasted clean and fresh and we definitely enjoyed them. The only other comment would be that portion wise I would dispute each meal serving two - I ended up making a very quick veggie dhaal to go with in order to bulk our dinners out.

I would definitely buy the meals again, but would consider adding some extra spicing, or maybe not the curries - some of the other options looked really interesting.

I should also point out - this was the last thing I ate before I went into labour!

Thanks to Charlie Bighams for sending me vouchers to buy both curries. This post is my own opinion.

Meal Planning Monday: loving maternity leave

I'm torn at the moment between wanting the baby to stay put so I can enjoy a little bit of summer at my own pace and being quite, quite ready to not be pregnant anymore. I started using crutches for the SPD last week and just feel like I now have a huge sign over my head that declares 'Pregnancy is too much for this one' and of course that's put the kibosh on my plans to swan around North London doing all those things I never get the time to do on a normal basis.

Anyway, enough whinging, I have a line of the teeniest, tiniest baby laundry, the nursery is finally finished and aside from the sewing, ironing and a breastfeeding class I have no plans for the rest of the day, except enjoying the sunshine.

Being at home hasn't changed how we eat really - I did think it would, between giving me the time to exercise my natural capacity to cook wondrous meals *ahem* and freeing up some of my imagination from the home-tired-chicken kiev-sleep routine we'd got into. What I didn't realise was that being pregnant seems to have freed me up to mainly go to the hospital a lot... between my regular monitoring, physio, midwife, obstetrician.... I swear they're going to hand me a BlackBerry and a laptop soon so that I can keep on top of what they need from me!

That said, I did some batch baking this weekend and we now have lemon drizzle cake in the freezer, and a chocolate banana loaf in the cake tin, so M's a happy camper. I want to bake a simnel-alike cake this week and try Michelle's Cinammon sugar mini muffin doughnuts 

Breakfasts - I'm sticking with the cereal. Baby in years to come when you realise my aversion to milk I hope you appreciate this.

Lunches - griddled halloumi salad is still the daily menu and I'm showing no signs of tiring of it. Last week I had a few days of halloumi, pesto and avocado sandwiches on pide which is a favourite flatbread of mine, but I'm back on salad this week.

Dinners -

Monday:  We've got our breastfeeding class a bit earlier than our usual NCT so I'm going to knock up some pasta nice and quickly - just a Pantry pasta will do I think

Tuesday: Is going to be our curry night - courtesy of Charlie Bighams we're trying two of their new curry ready meals, a Korma and a Tikka Masala so expect a post later on this week about how we found them. For someone who hasn't really had cravings as such (don't mention the cherry tomato habit) curry is something I've really enjoyed whilst pregnant so I'm really looking forward to this.

Wednesday: I'll be at the hospital being monitored on Wednesday so I'm hoping for leftovers from Tuesday night's curry.

Thursday: Brownies starts back (my penultimate session before I go on maternity leave from my littlies) so it would be a travesty not to keep up the chicken kiev 'tradition' this pregnancy has spawned. Home made sweet potato chips and lots of veg/ salad to balance out some goodness.

Friday: Sausages, baked potatoes and something nice and vegetable-y *vague*

We've got a much cherished weekends at home next weekend - I'm going to try and do some more batch cooking - Chinese chicken and mushrooms have been requested as have individual chicken and sweet leek pies (I'm clearly a soft touch).

Hope you're having a good week - and be sure to hop on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what all the other mealplanners are up to.