Thanks to Uncle Ben’s Speedy Biryani Challenge we spiced up our menu one day last week and branched out into some indian cookery. The biryani *was* pretty speedy, though it was to be said that I slowed down the rest of the meal planning by deciding I’d make saag paneer, including paneer from scratch 😉
I was quite proud of myself though, I did an unusual thing, and actually planned out the cooking process for the two separate dishes side by side (I’d show you a photo if I hadn’t lost the paper!) Basically, I made two columns on a sheet, put the time we wanted to eat at the bottom, and then worked backwards in 5 minutes increments, filling in what needed to be done when. Take that, executive function difficulties!
The Uncle Ben’s ingredients we were sent were the ready cooked rice (quick microwave and it’s ready to go) and Korma sauce (my fave, and heads off all that fiddly messing about with spices)
We also bought chicken, onion, tomatoes, then saag (frozen spinach) and poppadoms and naan for the additions. All in all it made for a great spread. (Oops, nearly forgot the boiled eggs, how could I do that?)
The joy of this recipe is that it is very straightforward, just a case of chopping things up and putting them in the pan in the right order. Which makes it an ideal recipe for doing with children, and I have to say, I really enjoyed being in the kitchen with both my older ones creating a family meal. If you fancy giving it a try, Uncle Ben’s have teamed up with the Children’s Trust to support the Big Cookathon, and you can find out more on their website here.
Eating as a family is a really important part of our day to day life, and it turns out that cooking that way is pretty good fun too.
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