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Tuesday 19 August 2008

Whew! Spicy.

The good thing about Sundays are that you have extra time to make something awesome! So I decided that I would try my hand at a tagine style stew and it turned out really well. I made some lemon couscous to go with it.

Edited recipe is at the end of this post - I forgot the chickpeas and added extra chilli which made it realllllly hot. I added the chickpeas in when I reheated it for dinner last night and they definitely belong in there!!


For dessert, I had some puff pastry that I defrosted that needed using up so I came up with these. Basically I just cut the pastry into rounds and bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes until they are lightly golden. Then I filled them with some rosewater pastry creme (recipe from VCTOTW, I just replaced the vanilla extract with rosewater). On the top I just mixed some icing sugar and rosewater together until it was a runny paste, drizzled it on top then sprinkled on some smashed up pistachios. These were tasty but MESSY! Luckily I live alone!


What to do with the leftover pastry? hmmm. I know, roll it out, fill it full of peanut butter and chocolate chips and bake it along with the pastry circles! Excellent with a cup of tea - 70's Animal agrees!

As promised, the recipe for the tagine-esque stew. It feels wrong calling it a tagine as, a) it was cooked in a crockpot and b) I don't really have any idea what should be in a tagine. So forgive the shite name and I give you...

Moroccan Inspired Veggie Stew
Ingredients:
1 small onion
Tbsp or so of olive oil
3 or 4 carrots (dep. on size – I used 4 small ones)
½ a large aubergine / eggplant
¼ small butternut squash
1 medium sweet potato
1 red pepper
1 can (400g) chick peas
500ml (2 cups) veg stock or water (in my case water from a kettle and 2 tbsp of oxo veggie stock concentrate!)
2 tbsp harissa (you can alter this to lower / raise the heat – if you don’t like spicy, start with one and add more later if it needs it!)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp cinnamon or a cin. stick
¼ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp smoked paprika
A 500g box of creamed tomatoes or passata (you can use a tin of tomatoes and just blend them if you don’t have passata)
2 bay dried leaves
Salt & pepper to taste
Juice of half a lemon
Small handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Couscous ingredients:
1 cup dried couscous
250ml / 1 cup hot veg stock or water
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Salt & pepper to taste
4 tbsp / ¼ cup sultanas
4 tbsp / ¼ cup pine nuts

Method:
While you prepare the veg, turn the crockpot on high and add the olive oil.

Peel and chunk up the sweet potato, squash, carrots and onions into large dice. Cut the pepper and aubergine the same sort of size.

Add the onion to the olive oil and stir around then add the rest of the veg, except the chick peas.

Veggies in the pot - I took a pic cuz they were so pretty and colourful!

Mix the harissa and spices into the stock and add to the crock, with the bay leaves and tomatoes and a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Turn the crock down to low, cover and cook for 8 hours. Stir every now and then. When there’s an hour or so left of cooking time, check for seasoning and heat. Add some chilli flakes if needed and adjust seasoning (this needs quite a bit of salt I found, but then I like lots of seasoning!)

To make the couscous, mix together all the ingredients, except the pine nuts, in a bowl and cover with a plate. Set aside for at least 5 minutes. Toast the pine nuts in a dry non stick pan, over a med-high heat for a few minutes until golden and toasty. Keep your eye on them – they go quick!

Fork through the couscous (don’t use a spoon or it’ll get claggy) and then mix in the pine nuts (I like to reserve a few to sprinkle on top).

This will easily feed 4 people but tastes great reheated the next day as well!

Cooking to: Weezer – Pinkerton

5 comments:

  1. sweet awesomeness, Sal! your Moroccan Inspired Veggie Stew looks fabulous - thanks for posting the recipe! i love the color of all the tasty veggies, too! your pastry creations are making me drool onto my keyboard! and Animal made me laugh out loud! he was always my fav! man, i'm so glad you're back!

    w00t! :D

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  2. haha Animal rules. I was 'being animal' on drums in my profile pic!

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  3. I love that mug!! My parents had the fozzie bear and miss piggy ones - leaves me all warm and nostalgic for the late seventies!!!

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  4. you rock a very pretty pseudo-tagine.

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  5. Wow! The stew you made looks and sounds delicious!

    Krys

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speak to me, yo!