Waitrose Ready-Curry

For the first time in my life I have become a regular consumer of ready meals. Waitrose microwave curries seem to be worth making an exception for. We originally tried the Meals For Two that come in a box; the Spicy and Aromatic was our first adventure in Readyland, and we were pleasantly surprised. The next week we tried a Mild and Somethingorother, which was okay but not as exciting. It occurred to us that we didn't need to buy rice or naan bread, as we have plenty of that sort of thing at home, so we then started to explore the individual dishes. I can't remember what we had last week, apart from the Bombay Aloo, which was yummy.

Tonight we had a Chef's special aloo mutter keema with tawa paratha, chicken jalfrezi, and aloo gobi saag. This was a somewhat quirky combination; the jalfrezi was exactly the right hotspicyness, and the keema curry very unusual, with little potato dumplings. Pete did the necessary, including cooking the rice and placing upon the table one jar of mango chutney (Sharwoods).

I notice that we did forget to get the bottle of wine out, and Pete has had a beer now, so maybe we will have that tomorrow. It's our last bottle: the Pouilly Fume that we were saving for a special occasion. That occasion is the occasion of our running out of other wine. Congratulate us.

Bernard's tea was last night's uncreamy chicken, which became much creamier after the application of the blender. I told him if he ate 11 spoonfuls, then he could have a jar pudding. He ate more than 11, although he did get a bit fractious, and didn't quite finish the lot. So he got his Cow & Gate Organic Banana & Cookie Crumble, which is a mystifyingly long name for what should rightly be called Sweet Banana Slop.