Dinner: chicken tikka biryani, chocolate ice cream cone

This post comes to you from a rather grumpy and disappointed pineapple: as those on the PS Facebook page will have seen, I didn’t get my long-awaited takeaway curry as our local Indian restaurant, the only one that delivers in this rural area, only accepts cash for delivery orders. I have no cash, and therefore had no curry. After months of planning exactly what I would have when I finally got to place an order¹, to get nothing at all was so disappointing I genuinely nearly cried.

Mum really didn’t understand my disappointment – we have plenty of food in the house, after all – but she did her best to be sympathetic. Food was still needed, though, and so I got cooking.

Amongst the goodies from our first Iceland order² was a bagged ready meal of chicken tikka biryani, which I hoped might at least partially soothe my curry craving.

If you’ve ever wondered where the magic happens, this is it. 👆 The perching stool is essential as I can’t stand for long (while being immensely grateful I can stand at all, of course), but has also been responsible, in the four days it has been here, for more trips, bruises, and stubbed toes than the rest of the furniture in the house put together.

The biryani smelled suitably curryish when the bag was opened and, once I’d managed to get the big lump of frozen rice out through the opening, looked… well, you can see that for yourself. It only took about ten minutes to turn the frozen lump into bubbling hot dinner, although at the cost of a slightly scorched pan. (Thank you so much to carer S for scrubbing it back to a usable state.)

After that very minor effort, it’s suitable that the meal was a very minor solution to my curry craving. The pieces of chicken tasted vaguely of tikka, although of course without the nice scorched edges you get on proper tikka anything.

The rest of it tasted of not much, although it had the sort of chilli heat that builds as you eat, eventually becoming too much for mum, who left the last bit on her plate. I finished mine, although only because I was hungry and not because it was so delicious.

I followed it with a choc nut ice cream cone from Tesco, which are really good, and will now go and get some fruit, because health. 👼 That won’t be disappointing after eating chocolate ice cream, surely?

1. If you’re interested: tandoori mixed grill, chana masala, onion bhajis, mint yoghurt, and paratha. ↩︎
2. The second order, containing the things I forgot from the first order, where I was so focused on Christmas I forgot essentials like bread and stuff to put in sandwiches, will be arriving tomorrow lunchtime. I’m looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with corned beef sandwiches. ↩︎