Moroccan Braised Chicken

Back in Cambridge, we bought a second-hand copy of a One-Pot Cookbook which was really useful in the series of tiny kitchens where we prepared our meals. One of the standout recipes, which I always go back to, is probably incredibly inauthentic and doesn't even rate a photo in the cookbook (and you can probably see why, from mine). But it perfectly embodies the spirit of one-pot cooking. You literally only need a knife, a board, and a single large casserole dish to make this, and it will serve four or more (depending on the size of your chicken). Easy, no-fuss, and totally tasty.

Ingredients

• a ~1.6kg chicken (giblets removed, etc)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large onion
• a thumb of root ginger
• 2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 725ml of chicken or vegetable stock (from powder is fine)
• 3 medium courgettes
• 1 medium red pepper
• 4 medium carrots
• a 340g tin of chickpeas
• 225g cous-cous
• 50g seedless raisins
• 30g pine nuts

Peel and finely chop the onion and ginger, then add to the large casserole and fry with the spices for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken and turn so it gets covered with the spices. Pour in the stock, salt, and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Dice all of the vegetables, then stir them in and simmer for a further 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Mix in the chick peas and then pour in the cous-cous and raisins. (You can remove the chicken first, if you prefer -- it certainly makes serving easier.)  While the cous-cous absorbs the liquid, toast the pine nuts gently either in the hot oven or on a small frying pan. Serve the chicken and vegetables topped with the toasted pine nuts.

Chick Pea, Chorizo and Orange Salad

I spent most of last week sleeping and reading, trying to shake off a nasty cold. As a result we hadn't worn down the food stores quite as much as usual, so this week I'm attempting to cook entirely using whatever I have left in the fridge from last week. OK - I definitely cheated here, as there was a HUGE bag of red peppers going cheaply at the grocers' when I popped into the park centre to buy milk, and I did have to top up the onion supply. Now that I've made this salad, I think it's actually worth going out to get the ingredients, as it was amazing! No internet link this time; I just had ingredients I needed to use and found the right flavours to link them together.

Ingredients:

• one tin of chick peas
• one medium white onion
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• a handful of green beans
• a small handful of raisins
• a fat, spicy chorizo sausage
• two roasted peppers, skinned
• an orange
• a small handful of mint
• 1 heaped tsp dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Drain the tin of chick peas and tip into a salad bowl. Thinly slice the onion into slivers, and fry over a very low heat until golden, translucent and falling apart - about 12 minutes. Add the sugar and cook for a further minute, then tip out of the pan onto the chick peas. Meanwhile, top, tail and blanch the green beans and raisins, then drain and add to the salad bowl.

If the skin of the sausage is tough, skin it, then finely slice the sausage and fry in the onion pan for a couple of minutes, until crisping up and colouring. If you like, blot the excess fat with kitchen paper before adding to the salad bowl. Slice or tear the peppers into strips and add to the bowl. Using a sharp knife, cut the peel and pith from the orange, then segment into the bowl; squeeze out the core over the bowl to retain all of the lovely juices. Finely chop the mint and add to the bowl.

Whisk the remaining ingredients together to form a dressing, pour over the salad, toss well and serve immediately.

Sweet Potato, Carrot and Chick Pea Soup

A super-simple meal for Cambridge telecon night, cribbed from this recipe, but with a whole tsp of chilli flakes extra at the start, and leaving the chick peas until right at the end, because cooking them from the tin is totally unnecessary. Topped with  a splob of natural yoghurt, some coriander leaves, and served with a beautiful hearty fresh sourdough from our breadmaker.

Minestrone

Minestrone is one of those things I rarely get around to making, but when I do I always wonder why Iit's been so long since I made it! It's really easy, fast, you can make an absolute mountain of it, and it just tastes better and better after it rests in the fridge. The best thing is the way the spaghetti swells up and absorbs all the stock flavours, and then you have to add a bit more hot water to loosen it all up again. Love it!!

Ingredients:

• a large white or red onion
• a couple cloves of garlic
• a carrot or two
• a large handful of green beans or runner beans
• a sweet corn-on-the-cob (optional but I love it)
• a medium-sized bunch of parsley
• five ripe tomatoes
• a tin of chick peas
• 1.5 litres of vegetable stock
• a large handful of spaghetti
• parmesan cheese
• black pepper

Finely chop the onion and fry gently in olive oil for a few minutes, until it begins to soften. Meanwhile, crush the garlic cloves, chop the carrots and green beans, and slice the corn kernels from the cob. Add the vegetables to the pan and fry for a further minute or so, until the garlic starts to smell awesome. Chop the parsley and tomatoes and add to the pan, along with the chick peas and stock. Snap the spaghetti into short pieces into the pot, then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Meanwhile, grate an enormous bowl (...or, more healthily, a small bowl) of parmesan cheese. Serve the soup with the cheese ready to scatter and the black pepper ready to grind over the top.

Roasted Beetroot and Pepper Salad

One of those throw-the-random-fridge-contents-together meals. Worked out really well!

Ingredients

• 2 red bell peppers
• 3 medium-sized beetroot
• 2 soft Australian chorizo sausages, or 1 proper Spanish
• 6 medium cloves of garlic
• a few sprigs of rosemary
• 1 tsp paprika
• several large leaves of lettuce
• a 340g tin of chick peas
• 75g cous-cous
• half of a vegetable stock cube
• juice of a lemon

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Deseed the peppers and slice them into large strips - about six to eight per pepper. Top and tail the beetroot, then peel or scrub well, and slice into thin wedges - about eight to ten per beetroot. If using Ozzie sausages, cut into fat pieces. If using an old-school dry chorizo, slice into 3mm pennies. Remove the majority of the paper from the garlic, but not all. Add all of these ingredients to a big roasting tray, and toss with the rosemary, paprika, and a little olive oil. Roast for 45 minutes, until the beetroot are tender and the peppers are just beginning to blacken around the edges.

Meanwhile, prepare the cous-cous by soaking it in hot vegetable stock in a 1.5:1 stock:cous-cous ratio. Shred the lettuce and drain the chick peas. When the roasting vegetables are done, toss everything together in a big bowl with the lemon juice. The beetroot juices will run over the cous cous and turn everything a lovely pink colour.

Pumpkin and Chick Pea Curry

Sometimes I crave a really warming, satisfying meal full of carbs and veggie proteins. I was really hungering for the sweetness of pumpkin and earthiness of chick peas, along with mellow spices and rice. So I trawled around on the internet for 'pumpkin and chick pea curry', and found quite a few recipes. Sadly, 90% of them involved adding 'curry paste' or 'curry powder' to the basic ingredients. Then I found this nice blog, where a fellow craving-strucken foodie had been inspired by a TV show to create the kind of recipe I wanted, right down to the neat little coriander leaf garnish. My coriander had wilted in the fridge, and I didn't have quite the same selection of spices or number of frying pans, but I did manage to create an extremely tasty and quick dish that really hit the spot. We stirred a few tablespoons of lemon juice and a teaspoon of mustard with our brown rice, and found that the lemony flavour complimented the curry nicely. Naan or chapatis would also be tasty. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, chopped
• two cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 teaspoons grated ginger
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 pinch cinnamon
• 1 pinch dried red chilli flakes (or more, to taste)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 500g eating pumpkin (squash), peeled, seeds removed and cut into cubes
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 150ml boiling water
• 340g tin of chickpeas, drained
• a small handful of fresh coriander, washed and chopped

Set your rice cooking, or chapatis warming, as you prefer. Fry the onion over a low heat until golden and soft. Add the garlic, ginger and bay leaves, and fry for a further minute. Add the spices and again, fry for a further minute. Add the pumpkin and water, and dissolve in the stock cube. Cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes, until the pumpkin is tender. Switch off the heat, stir through the chick peas, and allow to warm through. Depending on your pumpkin, you may find that your curry is either too watery or too dry; if the former, remove the vegetables from the pan and vigorously boil down the liquid until it is thoroughly reduced, then recombine. If it is too dry, add a little water. Serve with your carbs and a garnish of fresh coriander.

Hummus

Today I'm still a little poorly so I've been working from home. At lunch, that gave me the opportunity to make my own hummus, which I haven't done in ages! It's really simple, and the individual ingredients keep for a long time, so you can quickly whip up a batch whenever you need. You can vary the flavours, at the end stirring in toasted spices, chopped herbs, even small pieces of roasted pepper or sundried tomato; or you can vary the proportions somewhat for a runnier, or more lemony, or more garlicky basic recipe.

Ingredients:

• 210g of cooked chick peas (i.e. the contents of one 400g tin, after draining)
• juice of half a lemon
• half of a medium or one very small clove of garlic
• 2 tbsp tahini
• 1/2 tsp salt
• olive oil
• paprika (optional)

Drain and rinse the chick peas, removing the goobery liquid they're packed in. Add to a blender along with the lemon juice, garlic, tahini, salt and 1 tbsp of olive oil. (If you don't have any tahini, you can toast 4 tbsp of sesame seeds over a low heat until golden on all sides, and use them instead, but the hummus will not be as smooth.)

Blend, starting on a low speed and then turning it up to create a smooth paste. Scrape the hummus out of the blender (use a piece of bread to wipe out the last few tasty bits!) and put in a bowl, smoothing down to remove air pockets. Dash over a little paprika and a touch more olive oil. Brilliant with sharp cheddar or hot lamb and some salad leaves.

Ernie is perplexed: how can I still be hungry after
the mouse he brought me as a snack at 5AM?