THIS week’s lunches have been a mixed fruit curry and fruit muffins. I posted pics of the muffins last week and had some interest from readers who said they wished to do something similar. That is cook a week’s lunches in advance. I thought I’d post each past week’s lunch recipe on a Thursday so you had enough time to grab the ingredients before the weekend and do the cook up on Sunday, or whenever suits your fancy. I’d like to have shown off my “thick gingerbread” from this cook book. It was a dismal failure. There’s an art to converting 50-year-old recipes and I thought I had this one beat. Saturday evening, when I left the bread to sit overnight it looked great, smelled great, and the mixture tasted great. It was the “bake in a cool 350F oven” that was my downfall. I went with the 350F, rather than the cool. The treacle-infused gingerbread burned. Ah well. Now I know it has to be done in a cool oven, and there’s always the “thin gingerbread” to try.

The FRUIT MUFFINS are a pretty regular menu item at the moment. We bake two batches of 12 and freeze them. By morning tea they’re defrosted, or if you’d like a warm muffin, zap them in the microwave for 10 seconds.

INGREDIENTS:
2/3 cup unprocessed oat bran.
¾ cup wholemeal self-raising flour.
¾ cup self raising flour.
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon.
1 cup canned pie apple.
2 tablespoons slivered almonds.
1 ¼ cup milk.
2 teaspoons baking powder.
¼ cup caster sugar.
½ cup chopped dates.
45g melted butter.
2 eggs, lightly beaten.

Grease a 12-hole muffin pan. (We don’t bother with muffin cases, but you can). Combine bran and milk in a small bowl. Sift flours, baking powder and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Stir in the pie apple, dates, almonds and sugar. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and stir in butter, eggs and milk mixture. Stir until ingredients are just combined. Spoon a heaped tablespoon of the mixture into the prepared pan and bake in a moderately hot oven (190C) for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown. The muffins can be frozen for two months.

The MIXED FRUIT CURRY was found in a cook book dating back to 1977. It was untried until this week, but curries are good for winter lunches because they’re easy to throw together, require only one pot to cook – in most cases – and keep well. We keep the curry together in a big plastic dish in the fridge and dish out a serve each evening to grab from the fridge the following morning. The worst thing that ever happens is I forget a fork and have to scavenge the office kitchen for one. Eugggh.

INGREDIENTS:
1 lemon.
2 large bananas.
3 cooking apples.
1 medium onion.
2 tomatoes.
5cm piece of fresh root ginger.
2 tablespoons vegetable oil.
1 bay leaf.
1 teaspoon ground cardamom.
1 teaspoon cumin seeds.
1 tablespoon turmeric.
1 clove.
1 teaspoon salt.
2 tablespoons sultanas.
3 tablespoons cashew nuts.

Grate the lemon rind and squeeze the juice. Slice the bananas diagonally. Peel, core and chop the apples. Finely slice the onion. Dice the tomatoes. Grate the ginger. Heat a heavy base pan with oil over a low heat. Throw in all the spices, ginger and salt and cook for five minutes. Add the onion and tomatoes, stir well and cover and cook a further five minutes. Add the apples, sultanas, bananas and cashews. Cover and cook until the fruit is soft. Serve with rice.