Mediterranean Couscous Salad

Great for a hot summer's day.

Ingredients:

A punnet of baby tomatoes

A big aubergine / egg plant / brinjal sliced & chopped

A yellow pepper, sliced

Half a cup of dry couscous

3 leaves of sage

5 leaves of mint

3 leaves of rocket

Olive oil

Flax Seeds

Greek yoghurt

Salt

Pepper

Method:

Get out a nice big roasting pan and put all your veggies in there. Sprinkle over the herbs (chopped), a bit of salt and pepper. And coat with olive oil (stir it up).

Roast this on 180 degress Celcius for 45 minutes.

While that is roasting, just cover your couscous with water and let it soak it up. You can also lightly salt it.

Add flax seeds to your couscous.

Serve the hot veggies around the couscous and top with Greek yoghurt and garnish with a spring of mint.

Avocado, the friend of Pasta

Oh, this poor, poor blog! I have dreams, aspirations and so many good intentions of making this blog something compatible with the Food Fox. You laugh, mock, and think I can't hear you. 

I imagine myself carefully styling a dish and moving a colourful serviette just the right amount of millimeters and getting the focus on just the right glossy part of my carefully dished up meal in a hand-made ceramic bowl. That's not real life. Well, not at the moment. Various choices in life have left me spending my time elsewhere and the only space to create good-enough-to-pass-and-look-edible photos, is in my mind. In real life, I make something different for breakfast, lunch and supper almost everyday (if I cook) or my husband does and then in a moment of triumph and finality, I gobble down what I have just cooked, famished and tired. 

The moral of this short story is that people with nice food blogs do not cook on an empty stomach. Maybe one day I will have the time and discipline to do that. Here's to good intentions.

Guacamole can go on a pasta because it can go on a pizza. Here's how:

Serves 3

Ingredients:
For the guacamole
1 finely chopped tomato
1 finely chopped red pepper
1 finely chopped clove of garlic
1 mashed ripe avocado
1 tsp chipotle Tabasco
Juice of one lemon
Salt
Pepper

For the pasta sauce
(200g cooked spaghetti or whichever pasta you like)
2 chicken breasts
A sprinkle of dried chilli
A sprinkle of dried herbs
1/2 tub of crème fraîche
Salt
Pepper

Method:
Fry the tomato, red pepper & garlic with some olive oil until soft and saucy. Add a touch of water if necessary to de-glaze the pan. Take that out of the pan & let it cool.
Mash the avo with the lemon juice and Tabasco sauce. Season with salt & pepper until it's tasty enough.
Fry the chicken breasts with the salt, pepper, herbs and chilli. Once cooked, chop them up into bite-sized pieces and mix in the crème fraîche. You can use Greek yoghurt as well I would think. It's definitely cheaper, but also less cheesy.
Now that the tomato and red pepper is cool, add it to the guacamole. If it's too hot it could cook your avo and make it go a strange colour or make it taste bitter (depending on the variety) as it could get cooked by the heat.

Serve your pasta, layer the chicken pieces over it and top with the guacamole! 

Chilli Con Carne

So, I thought I was making Bolognese Sauce - embarrassingly  it turned out that what I really was in the mood for was Chilli Con Carne!

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 chopped onion

1 chopped red pepper

2 medium-hot chillis

3 cloves of crushed garlic 

1 tsp of dried origanum

1 tsp of dried basil

2 tspn of dried coriander, powdered

1 tspn of cumin

A good pinch of salt

3 tsp of pepper

500g lean free range beef mince

400g can of tomatoes, puréed

400g can of Rhodes Mexican Salsa

400g can of kidney beans

400g can of butter beans

A good glug of red wine (dry Shiraz/ Merlot)

1 cup of water

Method:

Fry the onion and when translucent, add the mince.

Throw in the red pepper, chilli, garlic and fry for 5 minutes with the herbs and spices.

Add in the drained beans, and cans of tomato and salsa. Stir around with the wine and water and leave to reduce for about an hour.

Use as an addition to any Mexican meal, or wraps, or even enjoy with pasta!

Green Creamy Soup

Hmm, this is really good: creamy, herby and very green.

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes, sliced
2 heads of broccoli, chopped
1 head of cauliflower, chopped
4 cloves of garlic
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp beef stock powder
2 tsp paprika
1 cup Greek / Bulgairan double cream yoghurt
3 twigs of thyme
3 twigs of rosemary

Method:
Fry the onion and paprika in a little olive oil. Once translucent, add the veg, stock, garlic and almost cover with boiling water. Boil until the water has reduced by about 2 thirds and then mash it a bit. Everything should be soft and mushy. Transport to the blender and blend. I had to do 3 batches of blending. Blend the last batch with your herbs- de-twigged and the yoghurt.

Mix it all up and enjoy, maybe with some crunchy croutons.

Creamy Lentils

I pretty much just made this up right now and now I'm eating it and blogging about it at the same time so that I don't forget what I did.


Serves 2


Ingredients:
1 large carrot, chopped
2 peppers, chopped
5 tomatoes chopped / 440g can
2 tsp vegetable stock powder
2 tsp herbes de provence
1 bay leaf
1 cup water
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 cup dry, brown lentils
white sauce (1/2 c milk, 2 tbsp butter, 1 tsp flour)
1/2 block feta cheese
black pepper


Method:
Throw all herbs, garlic and vegetables in the pot with the dry lentils, water and stock. Boil for 45min until the lentils are soft. I think that the acid in the tomatoes and the salt in the stock makes them take longer to cook  - usually they take about 30 min.


Make some white sauce with about half a cup of milk, 2 tbsp butter and then gradually add in the flour and stir quickly to prevent lumps on a medium heat. As the butter melts, and the flour cooks, the sauce will thicken. Let it boil for 5 min, stirring. Honestly, I am not sure about the quantities, I have never made white sauce from a recipe, I just throw stuff together and stir it until it's thickened. Sometimes I like to stir in black pepper as well.


Serve white sauce on top of the lentils and top with crumbed feta. Enjoy with some toasted pieces of baguette.