Balti madras

So far on the many marvellous curries list, we've got how to make some major spice mixes (balti and garam masla and green masala paste) and perfect rice, but the only main dish so far is the bright fresh-tasting jalfrezi. And for a true curry cascade, you need many many curries: you need "main" dishes and dahls and vegetable side dishes, all tucked away nicely in the freezer, so whenever you want curry, you only need to make one dish and still serve a curry feast. Or do what I've just done: crawl from a fluey sofa to pull a selection of curry dishes out to defrost, then curl back up with lemsip and a laptop. To muse on Madras.

Curry Cascade

Curry is its best when you have lots of different dishes - I usually try to have at least the main curry, two sides, and perfect rice:

And even better, several different curries, several different sides. BUT if you try to do all that at once, you end up with insanely complicated prep arrangements like this:

Wonderful tortilla collation

In this wonderful and magical world, which also happens to exist if you're following my cooking-for-one menu plans, you've already made a magnificent bolognese, and then converted some of that into chilli con carne, and saved a couple of tablespoons of that for tortilla. (You only need 1-2 tablespoons of it per tortilla, I know it sounds like nothing but trust me.) So this is really collation, more than cooking. The quantities here will make 2-3 tortillas. I can usually eat one or one and a half. Will usually eats two and the half I didn't eat.

Cottage pie

This one's a magical collation - if you're coming from the cooking-for-one meal plan, you already have your magnificent bolognese and a handy portion of mash.

Beautiful soothing ratatouille

Another regrettably photo-free post (for now) - I'll add one with photos, but want to get it up so very dear friends following the lovingly hand-crafted cooking-for-one menu plan have the recipes! I find it hard to believe that in all the ratatouilles I've made, admired, rejoiced over, I haven't actually photographed them, but maybe that's also the space they occupy. Slow, private, healthful, retreating, high-sensitivity retreat space. From an exhaustion of high-octane over-stimulation, ladle out a bowlful of warm red-green ratatouille, all the flavours perfectly and gently combined, and soothe...

Collating chilli con carne

This is one of the uses for the magnificent bolognese cascade and also one of the steps on the cooking-for-one meal plan. Once you've got your bolognese, the rest of it is really just heating and collating.

Meal cascade: a VAT of bolognese!

The idea of a meal cascade is that you cook in massive bulk (cheaper & then you don't have to cook if you don't feel like it) and you don't eat the same thing again and again for months to come. This is the magnificent bolognese's meal cascade:

The magnificent bolognese

This is the opposite of Spontaneous Pasta, my quickety-quick don't-even-cook-the-tomato-just-warm-it ten-minute-from-start-to-finish dish. You are going to sloooooow cook this baby.
You're going to pick a day when you're home anyway and feel mellow and relaxed and quietly interested in the world. Hey, put it on at lunchtime if you fancy.