Winter Is Cumin

The average temperature of my student house is about minus-a-million at the moment (maybe a slight exaggeration but it is bloody cold) so I've been cooking up some cosy suppers to warm myself up. As I'm a student and a large amount of my minimal amount of money is set aside to cider and the like, I try to keep my food spending to a minimum. But let me make it clear that does not mean that you have to skimp on taste! I literally take the role of the bland police and season the hell out of anything that doesn't carry a kick. So here's a few of the recipes of the yummy dishes I've been rustling up the past week...(p.s. I do not claim to of created any of these ideas myself, BBC good food is my best friend and I've adapted them all from their website.)

Thursday - Prawn & Courgette Curry:

This is a really simple and surprisingly easy dish to make. All you need to do is fry 1 sliced large courgette for a couple minutes until brown in a wok. Add a scatter of cumin seeds (if you don't have seeds ground cumin is cheaper and taste pretty similar) and stir a few times whilst they sizzle. Then chuck in a tablespoon of grated ginger, a couple squashed garlic cloves & a chopped chili (I use Tesco frozen chopped chili's as they're cheaper and stay fresh for ever). Give it all a good mix together then add a can of chopped tomatoes and a splash of whatever stock you can get your hands on! And to top it off add a pack of frozen prawns (I used jumbo king prawns which were amaaaazing HOWEVER the only reason I didn't use normal prawns was because king prawns were half price). Let it all bubble away for a couple minutes and you're done, just serve with rice or bread. This dish tasted great, it was really flavorsome and the crunchy courgettes tasted really good in a curry (something I had never tried before). I will definitely be making this again soon!

Friday - Spiced Fish with Gingery Sweet Potato Mash:

This is a good, cheap dish to make if you're in a hurry and need to fill your rumbling tummy sharpish. First of all I chopped and boiled 1 large sweet potato and let it do its thing for 10 minutes whilst I sorted the fish. I wrapped the defrosted tesco value white fish fillet (£1.40 for a bag of 6 fillets is amazing value) with a bit of chopped chili, a crushed garlic clove & a drizzle of lemon juice (buy a big bottle for like 50p in tesco, keep it in the fridge and it will last you all year, saves buying individual lemons) in tin foil then popped it in the oven for 12 minutes. Once the sweet potato was soft I drained the water and mashed it with a table spoon of grated ginger and added a splash of milk and plenty of black pepper. I served the fish and mash with a heap of frozen mixed vegetables. The sweet potato and ginger mash was out of this world, honestly one of the best things I have tasted and eaten with the fish was yummy too! However the fish on its own was a little bland, maybe need a bit more of a chili kick, but then I like my food a little too hot sometimes.

Wednesday - Sweet Potato & Lentil Soup:

As you can probably see from the reoccurring theme I love sweet potatoes so when the weather really turned for the worse on Wednesday I cooked up a batch of sweet potato soup to cheer me up! The soup is so cheap to make and is actually really filling for soup too (if your anything like my boyfriend you don't believe soup constitutes as a food type) but believe me this wont leave your reaching for the choccy biscuits! To make the soup I simply toasted a tablespoon of madras curry powder in a pan for a couple minutes, then grated one onion, 3 medium sized and peeled sweet potatoes and 3 garlic cloves and then added them to the powder and cooked for about 5 minutes. Add a sprinkle of corriander and plenty of black pepper, 2 tablespoons of red lentils, 600ml of chicken stock and a splash of milk. Let the mixture boil away for about 10 minutes then blitz with a blender and its ready! I served my soup with half a baguette which was great for dipping and warned off any looming hunger pangs. I let my house mates try the soup and if they were being honest it was a hit with them too! I cannot wait to get stuck into the two portions I have left over tomorrow night!