I’m geekily excited at the prospect of writing a shopping list and doing a food shop tonight, too cool I know! It’s been a couple of weeks since we last did. Just been busy so haven’t had the time, also a bit skint, which never helps! It’s made me use up those random ingredients left lurking in the back of the fridge and the cupboards though.

There’s always pasta, rice, noodles and different pulses in my cupboards which is fine, but it’s when you’re lacking in fresh veg to go with them, that’s when it starts to become a challenge! It got to the point where I’d used up every frozen bit of veg we had too and was down to my last onion…

One of my favourites to order when I go out for a curry is Tarka Dal, so simple yet so tasty and comforting. Last night I cooked one, it’s definitely going to become one of my go to basic recipes, all you need is onion, spices and lentils. There’s other bits you can add to it but that’s the basics, perfect when your ingredients are somewhat lacking. Let’s face it most of the time when you think you’ve nothing in to cook with, you’ve got an onion and some dried lentils hiding in a jar somewhere. As well as some dried spices, saying I was down to my last onion was a slight exaggeration, I had some fresh chillies, some garlic and some ginger to add to the mix too. The dal turned out to be delicious. I’ll get on with perfecting the recipe and blog it for you guys, it really is worth giving it a go.

So now all that’s left in the fridge to eat is leftover dal which will be reheated for tea before we go shopping, I have to try not to shop on an empty stomach, it means I rush around, buy rubbish snack food and forget half of what’s on my list because I just want to get home to eat!

I’d better go and have my leftovers and get writing that shopping list…