Sunday 31 October 2021

Blogtober / Beermats Month is Complete

So that was Blogtober, a month-long challenge to blog every day. In case you didn’t notice, I did this on the theme of beermats. I spent a month neurotically Instagramming around 300 beermats from numerous places- from a huge boxful of mats I got from The Prairie Schooner in South Manchester in December ‘19, from my local area like Manchester and Saddleworth, and from trades from British collector N.E Beer Matters. I’ve also traded with Spanish collector Posavos Cevesa. Our mats are in the post. 

Along the way I also dropped in on a horror convention and spotted some movie stars, experimented with echinacea, (the jury’s still out on that) and followed a couple of delicious recipes. 

Some stats: 

 Last 30 days: 3.49k 

This month: 3603 

Last month: 3631 (I’m guessing this was September) 

Overall: 940,277 

So, even though in September I only uploaded 6 posts, my stats didn’t particularly increase at all in October when I blogged every day. Oh well. It was fun.

Saturday 30 October 2021

Chicken Jalfrezi

I thought it long overdue that I crack open the Hairy Dieters book from BBC’s Hairy Bikers. The Fakeaways section – low fat versions of popular takeaway dishes- has yielded some stunning results in recent years, so I went back to this for their slimline Chicken Jalfrezi. 

The recipe took me 90 mins to prepare and cook, but was fairly simple. Lots of ingredients- meat, peppers, chillis, tomatoes etc., and lots of spices (my spice drawer is now full). The mixture ended quite watery, but boiling this off gave me time to water a naan and jam it in the oven (which, predictably, I’d forgotten to preheat). 

Result: a hot, fiery curry but tasty and with a few meals’ worth. Well worth the wait.