I am super excited because tonight John and I are heading out for a date night. We get to eat sushi and drink wine and there will be no one there asking “Why?” about everything she sees and no one throwing sippy cups of milk and then screaming “DAT’S A GAME.” At least I really hope John doesn’t start doing those things.
Going out to eat is a nice treat. I cook most of our meals. Most nights John and I eat later than the kids, which means I cook four meals a day. I like cooking, but by the fourth meal I just don’t care. I need a break. Which is why, when I stumbled upon meal kids at Aldi for Indian food I snapped one up.
I love Indian food, but we rarely get it. Our favorite restaurant is out-of-the-way, so we end up choosing easier options. Lately we’ve been eating Trader Joe’s freezer meals if we want an Indian food fix. I have made it from scratch, but that takes a lot of time. My hope was this box would provide at home like Indian food in much less time that was better than freezer food.
My review: It was fine. It took little effort. It was inexpensive (I think around $3 for the box). It made five servings. I felt the rice was sufficient, but I would have liked more chicken. I always want more chicken though, so that isn’t exactly surprising (that should be on my tombstone – “she wanted more chicken.”). I’ll probably get it again, as it seems like a good thing to have in my cupboard for nights that I don’t know what to cook. I would not recommend getting this if you want delicious Indian food.
Do you have anything you keep in your cupboard for nights you don’t feel like cooking?
I take my coffee with cream. I drink a lot of coffee. This is a great price on an item I use daily.
Summer is white wine time in my house. It’s great for drinking on the patio. Most of the time I tell myself I’m going to drink a bottle over the course of the week, but I only have two glasses and the I pour the rest down the drain later that week. At $6.99 this wine tastes like a $12 bottle (that is high praise in my book). I still feel bad pouring out wine that has gone bad, but when the whole bottle costs less than a glass when we go out to dinner it doesn’t sting as much.
I could not buy all of my produce at Aldi. The selection changes constantly and they never have all of the produce I am looking for. One thing that is consistently available and always good quality is their cherry tomatoes. I love cherry tomatoes. They are a great snack off the vine, and they are good sliced and added to sandwiches. My favorite way to eat them is to sautee them in some truffle oil with a handful of spinach, then scramble some eggs in with them and top that scramble with goat cheese.
I cook with ginger and garlic a lot. I usually use whole garlic cloves and grate my own ginger. There are times when I don’t have those on hand and I am not able to cook what I want to cook. It’s at those times that I reach for paste. Once opened, they keep for four weeks in your refrigerator. I don’t think these are going to replace fresh ingredients in my kitchen, but they are great to keep on hand for ingredient emergencies.
mildlygranola 