Indian “takeaway” (from the freezer); rhubarb and custard cake with vanilla ice cream

Today started for me with a dream of walking on broken glass¹, from which I was unsurprised to wake with nerve pain in my feet². The rest of the day failed to live up or down from there; apart from confirmation from the local food bank that they could indeed make use of our many carrier bags (thanks to Alison Moreton for that suggestion), and a response from another charity I contacted about volunteering (website and social media management for a charity that looks after historic gardens which, at least as far as web management, takes me back pretty much to where I started my career 20+ years ago), I have done practically nothing today except play games and scroll through Facebook. Oh, and thank mum profusely for her gift of a substantial amount of money, and use a small amount of it to buy myself some treats from The Millionaire Baker, whose Oreo millionaire’s shortbread I have been daydreaming about since I received some from a generous Pineapple while I was in the residential home.

The lack of activity is good in one way, as it means I can keep this post short, which is good as I’m later than usual in writing this as mum wanted to watch The Masked Singer and I always end up watching it too. I have made precisely one correct guess in my two seasons of watching the programme, but am quietly hopeful I might have at least one of the three finalists right. I’ll tell you next week if I have or not.

Dinner was my attempt to create the Indian takeaway I’ve been craving for months, by way of Iceland’s range if frozen ready meals; Luxury butter chicken, vegetable tikka masala, pilau rice, and vegetable samosas. (Obviously the menu was chosen with mum’s spice tolerance in mind rather than mine!) It was easy to cook – just bung the lot in the oven and wait for half an hour – and the smells wafting from the oven took me instantly back to the years I spent living above an Indian restaurant, but with better food hygiene³.

The butter chicken was really good: lots of good-sized pieces of chicken in a creamy, fragrantly spicy but not hot sauce that had me scraping the remainder out of the baking tray onto the last of the pilau rice. The rice smelt authentically pilau-y, but just tasted of rice. The veg tikka masala was also excellent in flavour – slightly sweet, slightly tomatoey, with a gentle chilli heat under the creaminess – but was spoiled by the veg being mostly cauliflower, which I may have mentioned before that I can’t stand. I ate one piece by accident so can confirm that yep, it’s still horrible. The samosa was filled with peas and potatoes, in what I believe is the correct Punjabi fashion, and from what I could taste under the curry sauce was also very good. Well done, Iceland!

After eating that, either mum or I said “ice cream?” and the other one said “why not?”. I had vanilla, Grace’s brand, once I managed to get the lid off (I never realised how many things are awkward to use or access for people with poor dexterity), with the last of the rhubarb and custard cake, and got halfway through before remembering I should have taken a photo. As it was two creamy-white things in a white bowl, it might have been a photography challenge too far anyway.

And with that I will say goodnight, and will shortly lie down to dream of singing pufferfish and dancing bushes. It really is a weird show, isn’t it? 🎭🎶

1. …walking on glass, walking on glass, baby… 🎵 (Sorry, just having an Annie Lennox moment. Carry on.) ↩︎
2. I also dreamed of eating fruit salad containing slices of orange, which worried me briefly until I remembered I was dreaming and could eat what I liked. Lucid dreaming can be fun, but can also get annoyingly self-referential. ↩︎
3. I will just say that the cooks used to put the tandoori chicken, in a bucket, outside the back door by the bins, and I had a cat who had spent enough time on the streets to turn down an easy meal like that. 😬 ↩︎