In which we almost eat Peter Rabbit

Something of a Knife 'n' Spork holiday took place last week. Scott, Lucy, Helena and I got all 'Swallows and Amazons' in a glorified static caravan near Windermere. (I say 'static caravan' - I mean fancy shmancy log cabin with decking and a jacuzzi - Wordsworth wept! Good.) We've holidayed together before and have developed a merry pattern of dog-walking, movie-watching and face-filling - some of which I'll share with you now.

Before I do, I should explain that this post is really a failure. Scott and I had discussed a number of potential holiday/Lake-District themed post ideas: some would have been pleasant (documenting every main meal of the week;) some would have held literary merit (making a Rabbit Pie a la Beatrix Potter or buying some of the Beef Olives from the local butcher as in B.S. Johnson's novel "Christie Malry's Own Double Entry";) still more would have been outright disgusting (The Cumberland Sausage Challenge, The Kendal-Mint-Cake-A-Thon.) In the end we had too much fun for any ideas to come to fruition. Lost hopes. However, having cooked a proper good roast and a cracking curry during the week we were confronted with an impossible choice for our last supper: curry or roast? Roast or curry?

We chickened out, manned up and did both. Here's how:

We started in traditional curry fashion - Poppadoms!

For the CurryRoast meat Scott marinaded a joint of pork shoulder in yoghurt, cumin, turmeric and plenty of mustard seeds. This was left to marinade for twenty four hours and then roasted with onions and tomatoes added towards the end of cooking to make it a bit saucy.

For the CurryRoast potatoes we boiled new potatoes and diced them fairly small before roasting them with black onion seeds, cumin, turmeric, garlic and chilli.

In place of mashed potato we made mashed chickpeas by simmering a couple of cans of chickpeas with some grated ginger and garlic, turmeric, black onion seeds and plenty of salt and pepper.

We considered making cauliflower cheese with paneer but felt that this would probably be horrible. Instead we made a cauliflower and aubergine curry with tomatoes, onion, ginger, garlic and the usual array of spices. Bubble bubble until delicious. We made loads of this so there was plenty the next day when it was even better.

The CurryRoast greens took the form of some hot and sour green beans. Mustard seeds and black onion seeds were heated to popping point in oil then onions, garlic, chilli and plenty of ginger were sweated down with the seeds. Ground ginger and cumin was added before adding the green beans, lime juice and a little water. Boil the water away leaving green beans and jammy spicy-tart onions to which we added chopped coriander.

On the plate it looked like this. And then...

...like this! CurryRoast!