Chop, chop, chop!

Sophie wanted me to make a chicken and coconut broth for dinner this evening, and we needed some ingredients for it, so Keith and I decided to visit Waitrose in Kingsthorpe this morning. Before we went, however, we drove to B&Q to look at tiles, but nothing at all inspired us. A lot of the displays said the tiles were out of stock as they were discontinuing the range, so why have them there in the first place? After a quick look, we went to Topps Tiles in Kings Heath, and we chose two kinds of tiles that we liked the look of, a glass mosaic, and a white subway tile. Both were in stock, thank goodness.

Used as a border to break up the white worktop and the white tiles?

From Topps Tiles, we drove to Waitrose, and we were surprised to find the whole store was in a bit of a mess! We had difficulty finding the ingredients we needed, one of which, galangal paste, I had never heard of before! Luckily, we found it!

I treated Sophie and me to a bottle of dry Riesling, which I hoped would go well with the soup. With lemongrass, mangetout, beansprouts, chicken and two bags of prawn crackers, we had what we needed! I was hoping to have a coffee there, but it looks like they've done away with their little cafe, which was a shame. 

We headed home to put everything away and had lunch. I'd bought some sourdough bread in Waitrose but it was stale (it had been reduced) so I made cheese on toast with it and sat in the conservatory to enjoy it. Outside, our grass has grown so long and I was itching to cut it, but it'll have to wait. I may do it at the weekend, but leave a patch of flowers for the pollinators to enjoy!

After picking Mike up from work I made the Thai red curry paste that was part of the ingredients. I could have bought it ready-made but I wanted to make my own. It involved chopping up garlic, lemongrass, ginger, red chillies and shallots and roasting cumin and coriander seeds, as well as the juice and pith of two limes. Next, I prepared the rest of the ingredients so all I had to do later was actually make the broth.

We used all of the red curry paste in the soup, along with chicken, beansprouts, spring onions, mangetout, chicken stock, and we threw some noodles in for good measure! Three of us enjoyed it, but Sophie hated the mangetout and said she could detect something bitter in the soup... Next time I may omit the mangetout!