Beetroot curry

Adapted from aWaitrose recipe.

Ingredients

400g raw beetroot
2 tbsp sunflower oil
¼ tsp black mustard seeds
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 green chillies, seeded and cut into fine strips
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 can chopped tomatoes
2 tins coconut milk, thick part only to start with, add thin part as needed
1 Lime, juice

Method

Peel the beetroot (you might want to wear rubber gloves to avoid staining your hands) and cut into matchsticks. Heat the oil in a wok or saucepan, then add the mustard seeds. As soon as they begin to jump, add the onion, garlic and chillies and fry until the onion is tender. Add the remaining spices and beetroot; fry for a further 1–2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, 250ml water and a pinch of salt.
Leave to simmer for 15–20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the beetroot is tender. Stir in the coconut milk, and let it simmer for another 1–2 minutes, until the sauce has thickened. Stir in the lime juice, taste, adjust the seasoning and serve.

Drinks recommendation

Try a lightly chilled, light-bodied red with this vibrantly colourful curry. The fresh fruit in a beaujolais partners the beetrooty sweetness well.

Disordered Minds

disordered_minds

I read this for reading group.

I have to admit that this just isn’t my type of book; there’s very little description and it reads a bit like a script. Apart from the shocking gang rape at the beginning there is nothing hugely evocative in this book. Even the explanations in the closing pages of the book didn’t hold my attention. I was lost in the discussions between Jonathan, Georgina and their various interviewees and it was frustrating trying to work out what was truth and what was lies. By the time I got to the end my head was spinning with the various possibilities and I was hoping for a satisfying ending. It was a sad and unexpected explanation but not satisfying unfortunately.

One thing I did like was that the main character was quite unusual – a highly educated, mixed race man who has issues. But that isn’t enough. I think this book would make a good TV adaptation but I wouldn’t recommend it as a book.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Completely Beside Ourselves

I read this when Nat told me that Maddy had read it and I’d already heard about and was interested in it. It’s good. I felt slightly uneasy all the way through the book, even after the ‘surprise’ on p77. I definitely related to the narrator feeling like she was a bit weird that that no one liked her when she was growing up. I enjoyed the humour which contrasted with the sad family situation. This book is different and refreshing.

Restless

Restless

I read this for book group. Even though I had to look up the meanings of lots of words it’s a fairly easy read. I thought it was good that the two main female characters were written in such a human way; they got irritated, angry, annoyed etc.

What I didn’t like was the way it kept you in suspense over what was going on for more than 89 pages. Also on p56 Lucas tells Eva ‘Never trust anyone’ and I knew then that Lucas was going to betray her, so the book was spoilt for me. Although Eva’s story had a lot more action in it than her daughter Ruth’s I found boring in places and skim read some of it, especially the descriptions of places. Life After Life and The Night Watch invoke that wartime period far better.

In Ruth’s story there are lots of people introduced and storylines that didn’t seem to have any relevance in the end. Actually Ruth (Eva/Sally’s daughter) seemed to have no significance apart from as a vehicle to tell her mother’s story. Her husband’s brother’s appearance had no reason whatsoever. Or Hamid. Or Robert York. None of these people added anything to Ruth’s story. It was supposed to be set in the 70’s but there wasn’t anything there that evoked that period for me.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book.

Checkmate

Checkmate

In this, the third book of the trilogy, I was a little disappointed. I felt that the writing was very simplistic, as it has been throughout the trilogy, but this book didn’t counteract it with the suspense of the other books. I didn’t like Callie Rose and Sephy’s happy ending; thought that was a bit sugary. Jude was beyond a caricature. All that said, I did think the earlier tension between Sephy and her teenage daughter was quite realistic.

Life After Life

Life after life

This book is beautifully written. I can’t believe that this was written by the same person who wrote Started Early, Took My Dog, which I read recently. KA has a gift for writing from women’s perspectives, no matter what time period they are in.

Aside from the quality of the writing, what kept me reading was wondering whether Ursula would fare any better in the next perumtation. I was utterly gripped. I also loved how the Snow period is revisited and bulked out gradually through the book e.g. we know that Sylvie is given a snowdrop in a vase on her breakfast tray, then later we see how it came to be there.

There are so many characters and permutations that I feel compelled to make some kind of chart to make sense of it all but it looks like someone has analysed it already with an accompanying flow chart:


Life After Life permutations


I think the flow chart is a bit too simplistic though so I’ll be going through the book again, making my own notes.

This is a wonderful book with a well-told story (or should I say stories?). The characters feel very real and the are tragedies enormous and poetic. Ultimately I found this to be quite a sad book but I loved it. I would go so far as to say that it’s the best book I’ve read all year.

Beetroot & feta salad

Based on: http://recipes.doctissimo.com/main-dishes-recipes/vegetables-recipes/roast-beetroot-and-feta-salad.html

500g bunch of beetroot
Block of feta cheese
1 red onion, very finely sliced
Handful of walnut pieces
Fresh coriander. chopped
Chilli to taste, either powder or finely chopped fresh
Salt

Dressing:
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp clear honey

Make up the dressing and mix in with the onions. Letting the onions sit in the dressing while the beetroot cooks for a while removes their harshness.
Roast the beetroot at 200C for 40 mins. They should be cooked but still firm enough to dice after being peeled.
After peeling the beetroot, cube it and the feta then mix with the dressing and onions.

To make a simpler version, miss out the onions and dress with lime juice only.
Add chilli and salt to taste
Sprinkle walnuts and coriander on top just before serving

Started Early, Took My Dog

Stared early took my dog

This was a book group choice. I’ll be concise.

1) It has so many characters that I got confused.

2) I found it very difficult to believe that a woman who spent 30 years working for the police would buy a child.

3) I didn’t like the rambling thoughts of characters in this book. It was difficult to glean what was relevant. I didn’t feel like I connected to any of the characters and got fed up of Jackson going on and on about his dead sister. He’s done it throughout the series and it’s getting boring.

In its defence, it’s fairly ‘readable’, just disappointing as I liked the first Jackson Brodie novel (Case Histories).

Dry

Dry

I became aware of this book on the Hello Sunday Morning Facebook group. AB is a good writer. I wouldn’t say that he’s a great or brilliant writer, but he’s smart, sassy and funny. Dry is his alcoholism memoir. It took me a while to get going but today I’ve read the last two thirds of the book. Unlike Running With Scissors, Dry reads like really good fiction because it has an excellent story arc. Like Running With Scissors, it’s compellingly honest. I’d recommend it.

Running with scissors

Running with Scissors

A crazy book. Just when you think things can’t get any more insane, they do. I raced through it while sunbathing in Cyprus. It was a perfect holiday read: easy, very original and ultimately uplifting.