Nottingham and Lamb with couscous and tomato sauce (from Thu 4 Aug)
I spend a lot of time telling anecdotes about Lauren, her mad actions and her pearls of wisdom - all true and never embellished I hasten to add, so it makes me laugh a little when I take her to work, which she begged about for days and when confronted by my team mates, by all accounts quite a friendly bunch, she clams up and hides behind me, even with Helen who we holiday with for up to 3 weeks of the year! She did have one animated conversation over lunch (pizza, chips and tuna mayo - her choice) with Shane Prosser, I think they have a lot in common. When he'd gone she said I remembered him, not his name though, he's the silly man from the car - we once had a car journey to Drayton Manor, I believe, I think there was a lot of face pulling going on while I was driving! It was then she started remembering that she liked everyone in my team and wanted to go back and talk to them - I like Andy, Tammy's the best can we go back.....a sharp exit was made no one wants to spend all their day off at their place of work (do they?). Then to cap it all she starts speaking to strangers telling them where we are going!
Where we did go was to The Contemporary, we went to see the Jean Genet exhibition and for the first time, I think this is the fifth exhibition we've seen, I wasn't that taken and neither was Lauren, I think the themes were too stark, it was hard for me to explain in easy terms, racism and politics is a heavy topic for a 6yr old. From there we went to Victoria Centre, I let Lauren run wild in the toy shops, the highlight being playing with remote control Cars 2 cars before we spent our Christmas 2010 vouchers in John Lewis getting a new toaster, our at least 15 year old toaster had a small explosion a couple of months ago. Then we headed home.
In the fridge I had another pack of those little lamb slices that we'd had on the barbecue last weekend. I had onions, mushrooms, courgettes, garlic etc and I know I had 6 kilos of couscous in the house (courtesy of Makro) so my brain started ticking.
Couscous with lamb and spicy tomato sauce
First I put some couscous (you can gauge how much you need or use the packet instructions) in a bowl. I'm a fan of the easy method for couscous, so literally all I do is cover it with water or stock and other flavourings, put a lid or plate on the bowl and leave for about 5 minutes until the grains have swollen. If I want it to be dry I only just cover with water, if I want it to be moist I take the stock to a few millimetres above the top of the couscous. Make sure you give it a stir so you don't end up with dry grains at the bottom, but ensure all the grains are covered by liquid.
I used a pint of water with one chicken stock cube and one vegetable stock cube, plus 1 heaped teaspoon of cumin, a teaspoon of ground coriander, a sprinkle of dried coriander leaf (could use fresh), some flaked, dried chillies (optional) and quarter of a teaspoon of turmeric, I used three quarters of the stock to cover my couscous and reserved the rest. I also stirred in some finely chopped dried apricots.
Next I fried in some olive oil, a finely chopped onion, 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic, a handful of thinly sliced mushrooms, when they were soft I stirred three quarters of the mix into the now swollen couscous, reserving the other quarter.
In the same pan I then quickly stir fried the lamb slices which I had cut into strips.
While all this is happening I added a tin of chopped tomatoes to a small saucepan, put in the reserved stock mix, the reserved vegetables and some dried coriander, you can add some chili to the sauce too if you like.
When the sauce was bubbling I served it all up, a nice pile of the couscous, scattered with some lamb and topped off with the sauce.
We both agreed this was really tasty, it's sometimes really hard to get couscous to take on flavour but this was just right. We both conceded that olives would have been the icing on the cake, but I also think if you wanted to change it up you could add some dried prunes to the couscous or top it with some crispy fried onions.
Give it a go, make up your own, leave out the bits you don't like and/or add some things you do, would love to hear if you've tried any of the recipes. Sorry it's been such a long time coming - will try to do better in the future!
Where we did go was to The Contemporary, we went to see the Jean Genet exhibition and for the first time, I think this is the fifth exhibition we've seen, I wasn't that taken and neither was Lauren, I think the themes were too stark, it was hard for me to explain in easy terms, racism and politics is a heavy topic for a 6yr old. From there we went to Victoria Centre, I let Lauren run wild in the toy shops, the highlight being playing with remote control Cars 2 cars before we spent our Christmas 2010 vouchers in John Lewis getting a new toaster, our at least 15 year old toaster had a small explosion a couple of months ago. Then we headed home.
In the fridge I had another pack of those little lamb slices that we'd had on the barbecue last weekend. I had onions, mushrooms, courgettes, garlic etc and I know I had 6 kilos of couscous in the house (courtesy of Makro) so my brain started ticking.
Couscous with lamb and spicy tomato sauce
First I put some couscous (you can gauge how much you need or use the packet instructions) in a bowl. I'm a fan of the easy method for couscous, so literally all I do is cover it with water or stock and other flavourings, put a lid or plate on the bowl and leave for about 5 minutes until the grains have swollen. If I want it to be dry I only just cover with water, if I want it to be moist I take the stock to a few millimetres above the top of the couscous. Make sure you give it a stir so you don't end up with dry grains at the bottom, but ensure all the grains are covered by liquid.
I used a pint of water with one chicken stock cube and one vegetable stock cube, plus 1 heaped teaspoon of cumin, a teaspoon of ground coriander, a sprinkle of dried coriander leaf (could use fresh), some flaked, dried chillies (optional) and quarter of a teaspoon of turmeric, I used three quarters of the stock to cover my couscous and reserved the rest. I also stirred in some finely chopped dried apricots.
Next I fried in some olive oil, a finely chopped onion, 2 finely chopped cloves of garlic, a handful of thinly sliced mushrooms, when they were soft I stirred three quarters of the mix into the now swollen couscous, reserving the other quarter.
In the same pan I then quickly stir fried the lamb slices which I had cut into strips.
While all this is happening I added a tin of chopped tomatoes to a small saucepan, put in the reserved stock mix, the reserved vegetables and some dried coriander, you can add some chili to the sauce too if you like.
When the sauce was bubbling I served it all up, a nice pile of the couscous, scattered with some lamb and topped off with the sauce.
We both agreed this was really tasty, it's sometimes really hard to get couscous to take on flavour but this was just right. We both conceded that olives would have been the icing on the cake, but I also think if you wanted to change it up you could add some dried prunes to the couscous or top it with some crispy fried onions.
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| Tastier than it looks!! |
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