Lovely day, lovely day, a luuurvely daaaay!

I've had a splendid day today. I've broken up for two weeks holiday and spent some of this morning working on my NVQ on meat and fish Tescos style and had a trip into the city of Nottingham to get some printing paper and plastic folders. On the return journey I popped into the food hall at M&S and purchased some Madagascan prawns at a discount, a jar of Thai curry sauce and a chicken. Once back home I got hold of some brown mushrooms and a slim red pepper and set about making a chicken and prawns curry with flagrant Thai rice and fresh garden mint.

As I am putting together a book of meat and fish products for my NVQ I chopped the chicken up into various parts and photographed them. First I spatchcocked the bird, then quartered it and then broke the parts down into wings, thighs, drumsticks and boneless breasts. Most of this went into the freezer and I kept the breasts for the curry.

I made a simple paste from the chopped pepper and four or five garlic bulbs, a shake of ground pepper and a dollop of sunflower oil and after cutting into the chicken flesh rubbed the paste in to the point of poulet submission.

In the meantime I had stripped the prawns of their heads and tails and crusty golden shells and laid their sweet meats in a bowl for cooking at the last minute. I had also cleaned up a carton of brown mushrooms and chopped them up ready for a quick fry in the wok. The sauce came from a jar and was a (gets jar out of recycling bag to check)Marks and Spencer Green Thai Curry Sauce - an aromatic coconut sauce made with green pepper pieces, lemongrass and lime leaves.

Naturally, I put the chicken in the wok to cook first, adding a few chopped spring onions and once cooked through set aside to drain off the oil. Then the mushrooms got a quick cook through in the wok along with one piece of star anise to infuse a bit of oriental flavour. Again these got put aside to drain off the excess oil. Somewhere along the way I drank a few chilled beers and cooked up enough Thai flavoured rice for three hungry people. I had the intention of sharing this aromatic dish with my neighbours Jo and Mick.

Outside, au jardin, I noticed that the bees were having a wonderful time buzzing about my massive lavender bush and I took a few moments out to photograph them.

Once all this was coming together I quickly cooked through the prawns (three minutes at the outside) and with some fresh mint from the garden brought the dish together and served it up. It was sublime!

Later in the evening I had the pleasure of speaking with Dom of 'Dom at Belleau' blog and then I had a few more beers and typed this blogpost up. Voila!