courgette and chickpea salad

i’ve been eating versions of this salad quite a lot recently – it has an eye towards brighter, warmer weather but still has enough bulk to make it suitable for a chilly day.

at it’s heart are courgettes, chickpeas, lemon, cheese and cumin. my chickpeas tend to come straight from the tin and if i want them warming through i just cover them with boiling water, after draining and rinsing them, while i prepare the rest of this dish. having said that, i don’t usually bother as adding the just-griddled courgettes to the salad tends to warm everything through just enough for me.

the courgettes are sliced, tossed with a little olive oil – 1 tablespoon is enough for 2 courgettes which, along with one tin of chickpeas and the rest of the ingredients tends to be enough for two people. i use the bowl that had the oiled raw courgettes in to assemble the salad as i go, so any excess oil forms part of the dressing. the cumin – 1 teaspoon of seeds, toasted and then ground, is sprinkled on the veggies and adds a depth of slightly spicy flavour to the dressing, which has the juice and zest of a lemon as it’s final components (just add these to bowl, while you cook the courgettes in batches, stirring as something new gets added).

for the cheese component i use whatever i have in – pictured are little cubes of smoked ricotta; last night i used some crumbled feta. other ingredients depend what i have in – crunchy red peppers as pictured above, or chery tomatoes are nice. you can also add garlic, chilli, shallots or spring onions for extra oomph and i always finish with a sprinkle of fresh herbs.  a nice and easy healthy dish. perfect too for fast days if you’re doing the 5:2 diet, coming in at c200-250 calories, depending how generous you are with the olive oil and cheese.

moro top ten: lamb with chickpea puree and hot mint sauce

 

“this dish feels familiar yet with an exotic slant"

from casa moro, this is lamb with chickpea puree and hot mint sauce is the one dish in the top ten that i had previously made. well, a short cut version of it, which means that this time i followed the recipe to the letter.

so, how did i get on

Click to read more ...

lamb and aubergine pilaf

roast lamb invariably results in leftovers, which can easily be turned into quick and delicious packed lunches or suppers.

this pilaf  was very simple to pull together – leftover lamb was mixed with basmati rice, roasted aubergine, chickpeas, a glug of pomegranate molasses (this has an intense sour flavour – you could use tamarind paste or lemon juice in its place) plus lots of chopped mint and flat-leaf parsley.

hot mint sauce

 

slow-roasted shoulder of lamb is one of my favourite weekend dishes.

this week’s lamb was rubbed with a mix of crushed garlic, grated red onion, smoked paprika, lemon juice and olive oil – a scaled back version of a moro recipe (i didn’t have any fresh thyme leaves to add). the recipe suggests the lamb is served with a spicy chickpea puree and a hot mint sauce.

again i adapted the chickpea mash – thinly sliced red onions were cooked over quite a high heat until they softened and began to change colour. having turned the heat down i added sliced garlic, some bashed cumin and coriander seeds and left it to slowly caramelise. this was added to pureed chickpeas (i use tinned – if you drain and rinse them then leave to stand for 5 minutes in boiling water it’s easy enough to turn them into a warm mash). flat leaf parsley was stirred through at the end, along with a pinch of smoked paprika.

the hot mint sauce was the most interesting part of the dish – chopped garlic is fried in olive oil until it runs golden, fresh mint leaves and cumin seeds are then, after a minute, some red wine vinegar. simmer for 30 seconds, add a pinch of sugar and seasoning and that’s it – a lovely homemade zingy mint sauce to liven up your lamb.

Click to read more ...

carrot double-whammy

i like carrots but rarely seem to have creative thoughts about the, most often they just end up being eaten raw, by david, while he’s prowling for snacks when supper is being cooked. 

however, i needed a veggie starter for a recent supper with friends and came across a carrot-tastic feast courtesy of maria elia’s modern vegetarian – carrot pancakes with carrot hummus and feta salad.

i skipped the feta salad as we were having goats’ cheese for our main course (toasted and served on a bed of puy lentils flavoured with caramelised onions, wild mushrooms and spinach) and kept it simple so that the pancakes and hummus could be the focus of the dish.

the result was predictably delicious and i have found a great new way to use carrots. the pancakes are wonderfully flexible as they can be frozen and reheated. the hummus (which is worth making anyway, as an alternative to plain hummus) can also be made in advance, although i haven’t tried freezing it. a good start option for a festive meal? or make mini ones as part of a canape selection.

Click to read more ...