Experiment! There's loads of dishes from different cuisines that cook rice in with the dish, but I like this one for it's tomatoeness. For adding meat, main thing is if it's cooked and what may happen to it texture-wise. Trickiest part is getting it to a desired consistency, especially if you want it fairly dry. The usual 2:1 rice:liquid has been working for me though (or 1 tin toms, 1 cup stock or water)

snipped, just on tomatoes as BIB is great advice for any cook - as tom plants are in the shops now.

Like you, I grow them, so come September we are inundated with them

These two taste great - quick and easy too
http://www.simonhopkinson.tv/recipe/...ato-curry.aspx
you need to buy dried( or fresh curry leaves)

and even though it looks dubious in the photo, everyone I know says "wow" ( never made it with basil only mint)
http://www.thewednesdaychef.com/the_...hopkinson.html
Edit - this link is for an oven dish, in SH's book he does this in a saute pan , turning toms 2 or 3 times during cooking and spearing them with knife as they cook - let the juices flow.

I could eat both, at least once a fortnight , plus both are quick recipes. ( Not sure they are worth doing if you don't have a source of flavourful, cheap tomatoes though. )

Ah, but plus side is then finding ways to use them. On which point, someone linked a traditional sweet shop that sold sweets in kilner jars. More fun than just buying the jars to make tomato pickles, chutneys, salsa etc.

(on which point, peppers & chilis can be easy to grow the same way)

I'm not a fan of cream, but a nice cheese sauce is an alternative. Or just take a nice crusty baguette, slice, butter (optional), plonk on some sliced or chopped tomatoes, splat (technical term) some pesto on top, then grated cheese.. Then bake/grill, or if you're hungry in a hurry, a quick blast with a plumbers blowtorch.

That tomato curry has a lot of ingredients. Just reading that list makes me exhausted

My husband is a diabetic and this is a pudding I do for him.

COCONUT RICE PUDDING

100 grams basmati rice
1 x 400 gram can reduced-fat coconut milk
300 ml soya milk
25 grams caster sugar
few drop vanilla essence
1 tbsp toasted coconut.

Place all ingredients, except the toasted coconut into a small pan.
Place over a low heat and simmer very gently for 20 - 25 minutes or until the rice is tender.
Serve with toasted coconut sprinkled on top.

I keep desiccated coconut in all the time and I just put some into a dry frying pan and stir until it starts to go brown.
Also I sometimes use Almond Soya Milk and Almond essence.

Another thing I also serve with some stewed apples.

"Remove the peppercorns from their branches...."
Yeah, whatever

Yes, very precious ......unless in his world the peppercorns come like that and he expects it's like that for everyone. Reading it again I think he's just into writing , he says" quietly cook it for 15 mins"

I had to go and take a look at the recipe again. It's 3 recipes for 3 dishes - it does look a daunting list. ( The actual curry has maybe 10)
If you're into curries, you're probably going to be using whole spices and more than 5 or 6 per dish.

But nipping back to tomatoes (and chilis, peppers), it's strangely satisfying to think 'I fancy a cheese & tomato sarnie', and picking a nice, ripe tomatoe off the vine

I could eat my cottage pie nearly everyday of the week i think.

Mmm - bubbling cheese crusted spuds.
A really good c.pie is a definite contender for a weekly basis.

So after much deliberation.. I think

SECs!

So Sausage, Egg & Chips. With or without blackpudding and grilled tomato. Nice and simple combination of flavors & textures, and I love nice runny egg yolk over a fork full of chip & black pudding.

But luckily for my waistline, not something I have every day.

And I also love a decent cottage pie. Or fish pie. Or 'oh, dear, I made too much chilli, so cover it in mash & cheese' pie. Must be a Mexican cottage pie I think..

That curry recipe made me look for something simple, which is probably a blasphemy, but I tried it today for the first time and I think it's a keeper.

For about 4 persons, I think.

4 chicken thighs, skinned, deboned, cut in small pieces
vegetable oil
2 big onions, cut it small cubes
80 g of ginger, cut in small cubes
6 cloves of crushed/cut garlic
2 big tomatoes cubed
salt
mild curry powder
250 ml chicken stock
100 ml cream

Oil in a pan, add onion, ginger, garlic. When done add tomatoes, cook until soft, add the meat, keep cooking for a while. I also added 1 chili cut with seeds, because I love spicy. Add salt, four spoons of curry powder. Cook for a while again, add chicken stock and cook another 20-25 minutes. BTW I learnt to do my own stock, because I could not get unsalted one from a cube. Without salt one does not have to care how much one can add without spoiling the meal, too much liquid, just reduce it more. In this recipe one could use chicken skin and bones to prepare the stock in advance. At the end refine with cream. Add coriander at the end if you like, I don't, to me it tastes like a soap. I don't cook with crème and I usually don't have it, but all the spices tasted a bit rough at the end, but luckily enough I had some whipped crème from a can and it did the trick Served with rice. I really enjoyed it. Perhaps too basic, but it tasted very good and I will certainly cook it again.

That sounds really good.
All I would change is to use a stronger curry powder and leave out the cream.
Husband should not touch cream and and I don't like it.
We have a curry once every few weeks and this sound just right.
Thank you.

I tried it without cream as I am not a fan either, but it tasted rather harsh, it improved with it IMO. Mild curry powder is what I had at home

Beef curry, dhal and plain rice.

run some oil, butter, smoked paprika, chilli if you like it and garlic round the pan.

add oregano, thinly sliced courgette, tomatoes a teeny pinch of cinnamon and onion [spring is nice].

pop in a spoon of sugar and a dash of balsamic or maggi if you have it.

bubble it down and serve it with flaked parmesan and thick chunks of bread and butter.

or roasted potato, pasta etc.

^^^ pity I don't have a courgette, I'd try it today, should be great on spaghetti. BTW I am cooking Mary Berry's rice today, all cut and prepared, it will be just an assembly work later

I keep chopped chillis, garlic, ginger, coriander and lemon grass in the freezer at all times.
So I make this alleged Thai style effort at least once a week.

Put fish sauce, soy sauce and a small amount of water in your pan. Add all those frozen things and then chuck in a packet of those already cooked, straight to wok noodles.
Lay some pieces of fish on the top of that and put some fresh spinach or fresh bok choi on top of that. Put a lid on and leave it for a very small amount of time, just so as the fish is cooked.
Put a splash of sesame oil in your dish then chuck your soupy, fishy veg noodles on top.
It's delicious. Sometimes I add a spoonful of peanut butter in at the start, to make a slightly thicker sauce with a bit of a different flavour.

That sounds really nice.
What fish do you prefer? Tilapia is nice.

It's lovely with salmon or prawns or scallops. My other half likes it with mussels and clams and those sorts of shellfish things, but I'm not a massive fan of those. I more usually make it with the fish pie mix my fishmonger sells, you get all sorts in there, though I will always take any smoked pieces out, as they aren't too good in this.
They go in the freezer until I'm making fishcakes, as I prefer smoked fish in my fishcakes.

Thinking about it, I have made it with chicken too. That was pretty good, too.

Cold ham, egg and chips, bread & butter. ( I do like black pudding, but I like mine steamed, break it open, dip in grain mustard. Bury black pudding all the way. Yes I could eat a whole loop. )

On the "Mexican cottage pie" - i tried this a fortnight ago and would make again , with some tweaking as I didn't have any sour cream and green olives sounded too weird. Typically made with ground beef.
Is it better than a really good cottage pie? Probably not
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2...st-recipe.html

I'm going to give this a go. Sounds like "agrodolce" courgettes which I have vague recollection of making - sweet sour.
Then I have to try the Mary Berry Malay Chicken from Ivan, and the Thai fish noodle dish from espresso!

Ivan, that Mary Berry is a simple version of this?

http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/30/how-to...ecial-4126047/

meat free "version " here
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/q...cy-nasi-goreng

I can, and have. I prefer mine grilled so it's a bit crispy, but needs to be soft in the middle. Then plonked into a warm baguette topped with toms and a bit of mayo/wholegrain mustard sauce.


Hmm, the idea of cornbread to soak up the juices is tempting. Think I'd prefer skipping the sour cream and using diced peppers instead of olives. Main thing I've found with making chilli pie is adding a bit of beef stock or gravy to make it a bit wetter than I'd normally do for chilli.. Helps get that nice gravy bubbling through the mash & cheese crust effect

No, those ingredients are different, but the general idea is the same.

The ingredients are: 2 chicken breasts cut into strips, pinch salt and pepper, 1 tbsp honey, 2 large onions, chopped, 1 red pepper, 3 cloves garlic, 200g button mushrooms, sliced, 1/2 tsp mild chilli powder, 1 tbsp curry powder, 250g long grain rice, 150g frozen peas, 4tbsp soy sauce, 1 egg for each person dining.

Start with cooking the rice, add frozen peas ~ 2 minutes before rice is done, put in the fridge to cool down. Then you cut chicken breasts into strips, put in a pan with a vegetable oil, add salt & pepper, honey, cook it quickly, she says about 1 minute should do, honey makes it brown, it should be done from all sides. Then remove the meat, add onion in cubes, cook it covered with a lid so it is half cooked half fried. Add the bell pepper cut in small pieces and garlic crushed/sliced. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add sliced button mushrooms. These days I cook them separately first, they have a better consistency, if I just add them into something they end up looking soggy and sad Cook for a while, add spices chilli and curry, mix it through, add rice, mix again. Add 4 tsp of soya sauce, fry till it's done. I do not know how long it is, but if the rice is consistently brown, it's good enough for me. Mix in the chicken breasts. She also does one egg for each person, I don't like eggs and it works just as well without them. I tried it without the chicken once and something was missing for me, the taste was not as nice.