* Beef Rendang

This Beef Rendang has been lightened up by omitting the cooking oil at the beginning. It's a recipe that I adapted to be slightly more Slimming World Friendly and to suit my own taste buds. I've deseeded the chilli and added in chilli powder because it allows me more control over the amount of heat in the dish - but by all means leave the seeds in if you like the major burn that a fresh chilli can produce...

So... this could become a *thing* again (blogging). Well, for a little a while any way - at least until I spot a new shiny and chase it, whatever it may be.

I honestly thought I'd never blog a food recipe again - though I have kept my friends entertained (bored shitless) with photos of my experiments on my personal facebook page - I chucked all of my accumulated food props out when we moved home a year ago - including my beloved and much worn bread board that I used in the majority of my food photos. I also lost my beautiful desktop and pricey photo/paint program when The Little Man in our lives downloaded so much crap onto my pc that it kind of imploded.

He's not allowed on this one. It's not all singing and dancing like the last one... but if he breathes on it, I may kill him.

So... I'm going to *wing it* on the photo front for a bit and see how it goes - hopefully I won't put anything that resembles a pile of puke with rice, up for your perusal...

Oh... wait...

* Coconut Prawn Curry {Hairy Dieters}

Although I've always been on the voluptuous side of voluptuous, I have never really had a problem with my weight until I hit my fortieth birthday a couple of years back. All of a sudden it mattered. Oddly (or not) I have always struggled with my age... always... right back as far as the age of twenty four (many, many moons ago *sob*) when Neil bought me a bunch of flowers the day before my twenty fifth birthday because "You seem a bit bummed out about your birthday tomorrow".

Sweet.

He hasn't bought me flowers since. His excuses vary from "It's been so long, you'd wonder what I'd done wrong if I did"... to "The only flowers you'll be getting from me will be on your funeral wreath".

Wuuuuv. Twuu wuuuuv. 

I digress (what's new?)... in December last year I started up with Weight Watchers Online for about the fourth or fifth time and it lasted until Christmas Eve (ish), which is what I'd more or less expected - because I have the attention span of a rabid gnat when it comes to following any sort of plan... plus Christmas. Really. If you expected any different you seriously haven't been paying attention. I am offended. So... any weight that I lost before the Christmas period I gained back with big brass knobs on and a side of Christmas Pudding.

I've considered trying 5:2 again, Rosemary Conley, calorie counting... stapling my face shut. I've bought both of the Hairy Dieters Cook Books in a bid to inspire myself into Thindom and as yet, have only cooked the one recipe from them. This one. Coconut Prawn Curry. It's pretty scrumptious. So I thought I'd share it.

I have actually lost a couple of pounds this week, simply by walking the dog a bit further and a bit more often... I got up this morning to discover she'd placed a "Do Not Disturb" sign beside her bed and she's hidden her leash.

I'm tempted to shout "Walkies" just to see if she bites me.

* Shahi Chicken Korma - A Guest Post by Meena Kumar

A few months back, Meena at Elephants and The Coconut Trees asked me to do a Guest Post, and I jumped at the chance... of course, I also knew I'd be able to twist her arm into doing one for me too (which was HUGE motivation). I don't know how we first fell into each other's cyber lives, whether Meena found me or I found her - but here we are...

Meena's food  and photography is authentic and appealing on so many levels. There's something artful in her photography that makes each recipe an event, her gentle musings add to the atmosphere and the recipes themselves will make you wish she was your best friend, lived next door and was always inviting you over to dinner.

I shall stop rambling on about how wonderful she is, and let you see for yourselves... over to you (and the simply GAWJUS recipe you've created... I just want to drop my face into the bowl and inhale!!!), Meena...

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I feel so honored to do a guest post for such a popular blog. A space where I cannot decide which is my favorite recipe. Everything you cook looks so drool worthy. How do you do make it so appealing always! Thank you so much for the opportunity Abbe.

Hello lovely readers, I am Meena the owner of the blog - elephants and the coconut trees. I am from India, currently living in California United States with my husband and daughter. Needless to say I am a complete foodie ready to try any new dish  (drawback of not being a picky eater :)). of late my family thinks I eat, drink and breathe recipes :). Growing up, our family gatherings were always centered around feasts. By feast I mean  24 -30 dishes served in small portions in different courses on a plantain leaf including 2-3 really runny desserts. It requires a lot of skill to see that not even a morsel goes out of the flat leaf :). Only after marriage I started to really cook it was a struggle in the initial days... I must say it took a lot of perseverance in perfecting Indian cooking where masalas, texture and consistency play a crucial role and determine the pass or fail of a dish.

What/who inspired you to become a good cook?

I guess moving to the U.S, lack of easy access to my native food and too much browsing :) staring at good food all the time all led to better cooking.

Do your family love your food or do they have different tastes?

My herd loves what I cook when it is super spicy, non vegetarian or baked stuff but Indian vegetarian is a big no no for my daughter.

Why do you blog about food? Do you enjoy it? Does it fit into your life or do you have to make time for it?

We have lived most of the time away from our country so my daughter has no idea what is usually cooked in our homes so I began this blog just for her sake.Some day when she takes up serious cooking she will at least know the name of the dishes :) or identify by the pic is my hope. I do enjoy blogging and spend some time taking pictures. The blog does fit into my life because I cook dishes we love to have and never to feed the blog.

Do you eat out or do you prefer to cook at home? If you do eat out, where is your favourite place to go for a meal?

Never miss a chance to eat out. Oh Red Lobster! now the waitresses almost know us personally :)

What food could you not live without?

Rice and yogurt.

What food do you hate and why?

Oats ...I just don't like the slimy texture in porridge. I  find it hard to swallow in dry preparations.

What is your "must have" piece of kitchen equipment that you couldn't do without?

Coffee grinder, it works like a charm when it comes to Indian masalas.

What piece of kitchen equipment would you love to have?

Abbe. ..don't ask me, the wish list is endless :)

What's your favourite recipe that isn't your own?

Savory Layered Cake (similar to a layered meat pie)

What are your five favourite recipes that are your own?

Homemade Grape Wine

Purple Potato Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette (seen in the pic below)

Baked Chicken Wings in Indian Spices

Tiny Sweet Apples

Bok choy and cabbage soup

I hope you like my recipe (below), I can't wait to hear from you lovely people out there.

* Moroccan Style Chicken Stew

This Moroccan Style Chicken Stew was one of those "bung it all in and hope it works" recipes... that worked. Well of course it did - I don't feed you lot any old horse manure, do I?

The stuff that doesn't work, gets spoken about in an aside. I don't give it a recipe title, a picture and a page of blurb - I give it to the dog.

This time, I had half a jar of Harissa Paste that needed using up (something always needs using up), or this might have ended up as something completely different - without the chickpeas and the sultanas. I had thought that I'd got a packet of dried-ready-to-eat-apricots sitting in the back of the cupboard that I could make use of instead of the sultanas.... and I sort of did... but I'm fairly sure that apricots are supposed to be a pale orange in colour - not blue and furry and beginning to evolve - so I ditched that idea, along with the apricots.

It was lovely anyway, with a huge bowl of unfussy couscous and a generous glass (or two) of wine.

Neil enjoyed it, because it had chicken in it. He's really starting to notice when a meal is vegetarian just recently. I had some Butternut and Bell Pepper Curry left over in the freezer, and he guilted me out so much about the lack of meat that I grilled a chicken breast and chucked it into his when I used it up.

I almost regretted it when he gave me an "Atta girl!" upon spying it in his curry. I told him if he slapped my backside and called me a wench he'd be wearing his dinner. Not eating it.

He got the hint.

Dinner was a quiet affair that night.

* Chard and Chickpea Curry {Meatless Mondays}

I was out cutting the grass a few days back when I heard a voice comment on the fact that I needed to trim my bush. My fuscia bush. You are so rude. It (the fuscia bush) covers the end of the path that leads to the front door. My friend Trina, was attempting to get past it, hefting a bag of ruby chard that her mum had grown and given her for me to try.

I knew nothing about chard - beyond the fact that it was green and leafy - so had to do a quick google search to find out how best to cook it/use it. I was fascinated to discover that it's related to the beetroot family.  It does taste very mildly like beetroot - it's got a subtle, earthy flavour to it - doesn't turn your tongue pink though.... yes... I tested it. Twice.

You can use the stalks of the chard like you would celery, and the leaves like you would spinach. Trina and her mum had both tried it in a salad and not been impressed, so I thought I'd have a go at something different and came across a recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for a Chard and Chickpea Curry, that I altered to suit the ingredients that I had available... because I STILL never have everything I need to follow a recipe.

As I've never cooked with Chard before - this recipe is going into this month's Our Growing Edge link up - hosted by Palachinka from Food and Travel. Our Growing Edge is aimed at connecting food bloggers everywhere and inspiring us to challenge ourselves and try new things. It's a great idea and absolutely everyone is welcome to join in, so come on over and take a look for yourselves.

Oh yeah... the curry was lush. I think I may be having an affair with chickpeas.
  

* Butternut and Bell Pepper Curry {Meatless Mondays}

Well... I liked adding the "Meatless Mondays" moniker to my recipe title soooo much, a couple of weeks back... that this time I've actually aimed for it. The only coincidence involved this time, was my need to use up a shed load of vegetables... so I can buy more.

I've cooked this once before and it was scrumptious - though the last version had parsnip in it (we picked it out, it didn't work at all) and only one type of pepper. This attempt was even better. The sauce was thick, rich and almost buttery and I had a hard time not turning the whole thing into a curry smoothie and grabbing myself a straw.

I'm actually enjoying developing a few vegetarian/meatless recipes. Though mostly I would put this down to the fact that they make me feel a little "holier than though". "Smug Mode" is so hard to just happen across recently - when it comes to me and food - that actively seeking it out is very satisfying.

Funnily enough, although he doesn't usually care - Neil was fishing around in this dinner, looking for meat. His face was a study in forlornness, when he realised there wasn't any. Which was dead funny if you were watching him, but apparently not funny... if you were him. Which actually made it even funnier.

Obviously, you had to be there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On a quick side note, for those of you that left such lovely messages (here and privately) when I wrote about Neil being made redundant.... he started a new job today! Not sure how it's gone yet, but happily he hasn't come home early with a face like a slapped arse... so... so far so good, and thank you for all your support!

* Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Tagine

I JUST BOUGHT A SLOW COOKER!!! Oh yes I did. I've been rebelling against this one purchase for yeeeeaars. Rebelling. Truly.

I love cooking gadgets and cooking gimmicks but until recently, a slow cooker/crock pot was at the bottom of my list. Purely because I honestly believed the only thing you could cook in it, was Chicken Chasseur.... This is because as kids, whenever we saw that mum had got the crock pot out, we knew it was chicken chasseur for dinner, and don't ask me why, but we'd spend the whole day dreading it. Possibly because mum got the crock pot out A LOT. I think we ate almost as much chasseur as we did bolognese!

I no longer have an aversion to chicken chasseur, and have in fact, included a recipe for it within the walls of this blog - however, up until recently I've had no designs on owning a slow cooker. None whatsoever. That's until I started up this blog in an endeavour to make our food a tad more interesting for us to eat - we'd fallen into a food rut. Since starting Abbe's Cooking Antics, I've spent a lot more time surfing the net, looking at what people are cooking and eating, and I had no clue that there were quite so many things that you could cook in a slow cooker... cheesecake for example (really?!?).

So, I gots me a slow cooker to slowly cook stuff in and what do I do? I don't cook a slow cooker recipe... meh... too easy... I adapt a stove top recipe that I've never actually cooked before. There's a time adapter/conversion thingy at netmums.com that converts times of oven/stove top based recipes to slow cooker temperatures and times. Brilliant.

Coincidentally, Genie at Bunny Eats Design, has invited me to join in a monthly link up party - Our Growing Edge - designed to connect food bloggers and challenge/inspire them to try new things and share the end results. I think this is an amazing idea, especially for someone like me that occasionally needs a push to experiment. I really can be quite lazy when it comes to trying new stuff. I do tend to stick with what I know works! This month's link up is hosted by Sonya at and more food and the recipe I'm submitting for it - is this one because...

It was lush.

* Chicken, Pineapple and Coconut Curry

Last night I was invited to "A Really Good Night In" in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, at my friend Lynne's place. The idea was that we all turn up with a bottle (or three) of whatever we wanted to drink, and some nibbles - then put the money that we would have spent in the pubs and clubs, into a pot supplied by Macmillan. I've no idea how much money we raised, as "the hostess with the mostest" is currently nursing a hangover of mammoth proportions and has completely lost the ability to count...

I - however - am bright and breezy this morning because I drank alcohol-free wine all evening. Yes I did.

Noooo - I'm not back on weight watchers - I had to drive home because I had to go to work this morning. See... I can act responsibly when required. Although - twenty years ago when I couldn't drive, it wouldn't have phased me to go out socialising all night, then get up and go to college in the morning, then to work in the evening... then back out again for more... socialising.

I have NO IDEA how I managed to do that. Even thinking about how I managed to do that is making me feel like I need to go lie down somewhere and recover. It's also making me hungry. Even now, on a night out, I crave junk food of some description. I've spent many an evening sat on a wall, stuffing my face with a donna kebab or a take-out curry... my bum slowly turning blue from the cold. Walls are never warm at night in this country, neither are pavement edges, car bonnets... or boats...

I really need to get in the habit of mentioning my recipe at the beginning of a blog post, rather than ramble on until the end and suddenly realise I have no segway into it. The recipe really isn't the afterthought, it's the reason.

Note to self: Develop better blogging habits...

Dammit... I'm doing it again.

The recipe... the recipe... what's the recipe?!? .... oh yeah. Chicken, Pineapple and Coconut Curry... goes very well with Chicken Flavoured Rice. Of course.

It's lush. Eat it.

* Chicken Biryani

Guess what I did???!!!

I MADE A FACEBOOK PAGE!!! I did, I did, I did.

I've held off on doing it for quite some time, because I didn't want to share what I've been up to in my spare time with everyone that actually knows me ( a few people knew because I can't keep my mouth shut and because my darling mummy can't keep hers shut either). I wasn't sure what their reaction would be, and it really mattered. Plus I'm a little bit vain and I wanted to tidy up the furniture a bit before inviting everyone in for a cuppa and a slice of cake... or three.

Even after I'd created the page I wasn't sure if I was going to invite my mates to *like* it. But I accidentally posted one of my recipes on my personal page. I was immediately messaged on my mobile phone by Charlene (who I love because she takes no prisoners), saying that she loved my blog. Have to confess that I panicked slightly and thought "OhMyGodI'mNotReadyYet!!!!", but she just kept on saying nice things... mainly recipe titles with drooling words and demands that I get in the kitchen and cook something now.

Everyone needs a Charlene.

Her reaction convinced me to just go for it and invite them all (and all of you) into my little corner of the food blogging world.

I'm so glad I did. They were amazing, and funny and kind and supportive and I'm feeling a little bit lucky right about now.

Right. Enough about them. Lets talk about me. There's a facebook widget in the top right corner of the page. If you want to click *like* you'd make my day. I promise not to plague your facebook pages with random poop that is completely unrelated to what I do in my kitchen.

There is actually a recipe in here somewhere for Chicken Biryani. It's dead easy and dead quick and dead tasty. Just click the linky below to find out :)