Busy, busy has been my middle name for the last couple of days.  Shopping, cleaning and cooking for a special occasion this weekend. After weeks of trying to find a suitable date the Catapult Crew came for supper.

This get together was postponed from last November when it was sunny, bright and light nights.  I planned a suitably spring like menu for us to all enjoy.  Today it was something more autumnal.  Something to warm the soul.  Something in keeping with the dark and colder night.

Since my capacity to deal with stress has gone the same way my memory has.  I am starting to perfect the no stress, less hassle approach to home entertaining.  Planning is key as is getting as much done up front leaving on the last few minutes to be a juggling of plates, pots and fiddly bits to serve things just in time.

When you’ve got your work colleagues coming to your home it needs to be a fairly informal thing.  No sense in putting on airs and graces since they already know me well.  There are however their spouses to present a more polite view so it the stage was set for an informal supper rather than the full blown dinner arrangement I’ve done previously.

Things had to be informal anyway as we don’t have matching chairs, crockery or glass ware for ten people!  No sense in trying to achieve the impossible when you don’t have the raw materials.  Also, I’d decided it was going to be buffet service as trying to juggle all those serving bowls on our narrow table for ten people was more than I could contemplate.

Since we weren’t dressing to impress the centre piece of the evening still had to delight.  I delved into my massive cook book library and decided on a feast fit for Nigella.  And if it’s good enough for Nigella Lawson it’s good enough for me. The trouble was it required a heck of a lot of pots and pans.

Thank goodness for our precious range cooker.  Love of my kitchen life.  I love my pots and pans too, they were wedding presents and still going strong coming up for 14 years.

Also lots of accompaniments that required preparation but could be done in advance and kept in the fridge till they were needed.

I did buy some stuff ready made.  My preserve making skills haven’t quite stretched this far yet. In fact I’ve not even flexed them yet!

And stocked up with lots of these I equipped to do battle with a mammoth feast fit for 10.

And at the end of all the hard work, this is what we feasted on.

Three types of curry – chicken, lamb and prawn – with two vegetable dishes – peas and cauliflower with potato.  All courtesy of Nigella’s curry feast.  I last did a variation of this when my in-laws were here a few weeks ago.  It was one of the most delicious selection of curries I’d ever tasted so decided to repeat this for my colleagues.

I did take some snaps of them all but they are a motley bunch and the pictures were not very good.  Hence you’ll just have to imagine them or if you’re really interested you can always check out the company website where they have their mug shots!

After the heat of the curries we enjoyed a chilled rice pudding – kheer – an indian pudding of course!  This was made with milk and long grain rice.  I was quite sceptical that this would work but it did.  It was a heck of a lot of effort though simmering milk for about 2 hours whilst the rice soaked up the milk and it thickened.  A blast of cream finished the pudding off.

I do like curries and this is something that is sadly lacking in New Zealand.  There are indian restaurants but nothing that sells the authentic cuisine.  They all tend to be kiwised making them too mild, too creamy.

I bought lots of the ingredients in the Spice Shop in Petone, our foodie enclave north of Wellington.  This shop was listed in Cuisine Magazines top 100 foodie things. It’s an aladdins cave of spices and all things for indian cooking.  Some of them I’d never heard of and they looked very – well lets just say different!  I’ll probably not buy spices at the supermarket any more.  Not only are they hugely expensive in comparison they look fresher and brighter in the Spice Shop.

When I was there buying bits and bobs for the feast I asked which indian restaurants they would recommend that would suit a British curry palate.  They were reluctant to recommend because he said there simply isn’t one!  But, try the Curry Club in town.  I’ve tried there and it was a pretty decent curry but the service was so efficient we were in an out of the restaurant in just about an hour.  Not exactly the big night out!

Oh I can’t help it I miss the Buckingham Fort. Their food was delicious.  Their service charming and the fact that every lady was given a flower to take home was the touch of grace every restaurant could learn from.  I wonder if we’ll be able to fit in a return visit when we go back to the UK later this year?  All these places I’d like to revisit – can’t wait.

I noticed in the foodie bookshop (also in Petone) I noticed Madhur Jaffrey has a simple indian cookery book out.  I was tempted to buy it as I’d like to try out more indian cooking as there are only so many times I can cook up Nigella’s curry feast.

The clocks go back this weekend which will bring us more light in the morning and an early bed time for the chickens.  I think that this is a signal that winter is heading out way.  In the meantime, we’ve had beautiful sunny days.  And, I heard on the radio this week that the long range weather forecast is for average or above average temperatures for the next three months.  Joy of  joys, an Indian summer after all!