Personally I've never had good results with a stick blender, but find that a liquidiser for about 5 minutes per jug gives a pretty smooth, homogenous base sauce. I have tried sieving the final sauce and removed a very small about skins and bits but only tried it once. it didn't make all that much difference to the final dish and 'life is too short....'

Thanks - personally I guess its about finding a balance, sufficient oil to cook the dish correctly, but at 47 years old keeping one eye on the calorie content. I will try upping the oil level but my current creations certainly taste good, so I'm not worried about the cooking side of things

Thanks - this was my first attempt at sharing some photos, which I did by simply attaching them. I did see a post from CA from years ago about uploading them to a image hosting server, but it seemed a bit of a mess about. Is this still the preferred method?

They look lovely 

Welcome to the forum and prepare to have some great tasting curries.  ;D

Re rice you could have a look through here.

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/board,86.0.html

People seem to have their own favourite 'go to' recipe  so you have to try a few and see what works for you.
Personally (and briefly) I soak/wash rice for 30 minutes, boil it in excess water for 5 minutes, drain, allow to cool, spread on a baking and put in a low oven to dry off and then 'fluff' using forks. It freezes really well and once defrosted can be revived by 3 minutes in a microwave. Lovely and fluffy rice every time. To make it more interesting you can fried off some spices prior to boiling, cook 1/4 of the rice with turmeric and once dried recombine and/or add spots of food colouring to the baking tray for pilau rice