Thai Green Vegetable Curry (or prawn, or chicken)

Thai curries, I love them.  Bought pastes are ok but when you make your own paste it tastes so much nicer and it's not all that much effort.  The only problem is making a curry paste for one seems like a bit of a pain as you can't make a tiny amount.

I have a solution; freeze it!  This way you have a delicious meal and then a second meal later, ready to go when you are probably even more time strapped than you were the first time.  Result!  What's more is that curries of any kind are almost infinitely variable.  Add meat, fish, different vegetables, prawns, it all works.

The joy of making this vegetable filled (if not vegetarian due to the fish sauce) is that when cooking for one, getting a variety of vegetables in your diet can be difficult so eating the odd meat free meal does not go amiss.  The joy being though, that you would barely notice this was meat free because it's so substantial and tasty.

One is the loneliest number?

Like many people in the UK, eating and cooking alone is something I am doing more than ever before.  Due to shifting work patterns, time pressures, differing likes and dislikes and the breakdown of the traditional family unit, this is becoming more common.

I never used to understand how people could struggle to find time or effort to cook for one.  When I was at university, I relished the challenge of cooking alone.  Although my Mum taught me how to cook, trying things out without worrying about someone else not liking it was how I developed my cooking style and love for food.

Now, (a few too many) years later, I find cooking for myself sometimes difficult, sometimes a chore.  It's another thing on my list of 'to do's.  One day, after cooking a tray of oven chips with mayonnaise for my tea (yes, really), I had a word with myself.  I used to have a blog, devising recipes for my young son and found it a great way to expand the food he liked to eat.  I love cooking for others and it's the way I show my love.  I realised, in a moment, that I needed to eat like I loved myself.  Would I cook oven chips and mayo for my son?  No.  Is it a nutritiously balanced meal?  No.  Does it even taste all that nice?  Not really.  I like mayo and all but there are better foods in the world.  So if it's not good enough for someone I love, it's not good enough for me.