Colorfoul couscous

Couscous is a dream come true for a person who needs a super quick meal. It can be prepared within minutes, seasoned with your favourite flavours and accompanied with any ingredients you have in you cupboard. No need to stress about having exactly what is listed in a recipe! I went the easy way and tried it with some vegetables and chicken. It was very tasty. A fail-proof couscous recipe for me from now on.

Do you have any information about the healthiness of couscous? Some say that it is super healthy, the others point out that it is rather rich in carbohydrates, those little bastards that make you fat…So where’s the truth? In any case, one thing I know - couscous is delicious, especially when you use the following recipe (serves two).

ca 100 g couscous and about 200 ml chicken broth for preparing the couscous

a couple of tsp butter

1 carrot (cubed) and some water to boil it

200 g chicken fillet, sliced

2 tbsp olive oil

300 ml chicken broth (for the sauce)

1 tsp turmeric

half green and half red bell pepper (if you don’t care for colorful dish, just use one colored bell pepper), cubed

1 small onion, chopped

2 garlic gloves, crushed

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp chili powder

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp lemon juice

 

Sauce:

# Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Season chicken with salt and pepper and add to the hot pan. Cook for 5-10 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden brown.

# Mix chicken broth with turmeric.

# When chicken is cooked, add onion and garlic into the frying pan and cook until onion is translucent. Then add the broth and most of the chopped bell pepper (keep a few tbsp of red bell pepper for the couscous).

# Steam the sauce for about 15 minutes, also add the chili powder, cinnamon and honey. Pour the lemon juice into the sauce just before serving.

Couscous:

# Place cubed carrots into a saucepan, cover them with water, season with some salt and bring to boil. When the carrot pieces are almost soft, add the remaining bell pepper, boil for another couple of minutes and drain.

# Prepare the couscous according to the directions on the package (I poured the couscous over with hot chicken broth and let it stand, covered, for a couple of minutes). When done, add some butter into the hot couscous, stir carefully and then add the drained bell pepper and carrot cubes. Give it a good toss. Everything is now ready to serve.

I really loved the colours of this dish. Chicken came out yellow - at first I thought it was weird and was checking the best before date of the package, but then I remembered that I used turmeric which turns everything yellow (I also spilled some on my white butcher board and now it is with some yellow spots). So, if you end up with yellow chicken pieces, it’s all good.

I guess you can omit the vegetables from the couscous, if you don’t feel like it. Or just omit boiling them beforehand - using raw vegetables gives some crispiness to the couscous. 

Warm pasta salad with basil and avocado

So, finally something that is not sweet for a change. One has to limit the amount of sweet dishes, after all, it is summer and going-to-the-beach time. That is why I decided to use avocados in the salad that I made, because this green little fruit is very useful for your health. Did you know that avocados help to lower cholesterol and regulate blood pressure and can even offer significant protection against breast cancer?

Firstly, some tips for you on how to choose a perfect avocado from the shop or in the market:

- A ripe, ready to eat avocado is slightly soft but should have no dark sunken spots or cracks.

- Choose the avocado which has a slight neck, rather than the one which is rounded on top. Slight neck means that it was probably tree ripened and will therefore have better flavor.

- If you are not planning to use the avocado right away, you might want to choose a firmer avocado. It will ripen in a paper bag or in a fruit basket at room temperature within a few days. It is not recommended to refrigerate avocados until they are ripe. Once ripe, they can be kept refrigerated for up to a week.

These kinds of tips. Maybe they might come to use. In this salad I did not use the very ripe avocados, as I wanted them to keep their texture. Warm pasta and chicken also softened it a bit, so I think it was a good decision to choose a firmer avocado.

The recipe serves two:

150 g pasta (penne, rotini)
1 avocado

150 g chicken fillet, chopped
handful of fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
handful of finely shredded Parmesan cheese
olive oil

# Boil pasta in water seasoned with salt.

# Meanwhile fry the chicken in a frying pan and season with salt an pepper.

# Using your hands, shred basil leaves into small pieces.

# Peel and chop avocado and place in a salad bowl. Drizzle over with lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Add shredded basil leaves and mix everything together.

# Place cooked chicken pieces into the salad bowl on top of the avocado-mixture.

# Drain pasta and add some olive oil to it. Mix to coat the pasta with olive oil and place pasta in the salad bowl. Give everything a good toss and adjust seasoning, if necessary. You can add the Parmesan to the salad or just sprinkle the platefuls over with some of it - up to you. Serve when warm, as then you’ll feel and smell all the nice flavors dish easy salad has to offer.

I liked it a lot. At first I was afraid of the taste of warm avocado. Never had had it before, that is why…but it was all okay - and mainly because I used not so ripe avocado, which could keep its texture while warm.  And the taste! The tender avocado together with strong Parmesan cheese - perfect combination.

Spicy peanut butter salad

I have already written that I need to have a tuna can in cupboard, just in case. The same story is with peanut butter - I don’t use it as a bread spread, only for taste in some dishes which is why I always need to have some in my kitchen. Just in case, a reason good enough for me.

So, what on earth is this. Like some leftovers tossed together. I bet J taught the same thing when he found a bowl of this in the fridge, with a post-it “warm it up and eat, will have dessert later”. Later on he asked why he had to warm it up. Because it was a salad and one is not suppose to warm salads. I don’t know where he has been living. One can and in many cases must warm up salads. At least this one, I thought it tasted better when warm. If you like peanut butter, you should try it. Here’s where I got the idea. Made some changes though, but oh it was good. Serves two (pretty huge portions though).

2 tbsp creamy peanut butter
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tsp chili-garlic sauce (I used this kind of sauce)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground ginger

salt and pepper

water

200 g chicken
100 g rice noodles

1 carrot

half bell pepper

1 chicken bouillon cube

 

# Place chicken in a heavy saucepan, pour over with cold water and bring to boil.

# Add the bouillon cube and boil for about 30 minutes, until the juices run clear. You might want to add some parsley, salt or pepper or something else to spice up the chicken and the stock. I only used a bouillon cube and was satisfied with the result.

# When chicken is ready, remove it from the saucepan. Keep the stock - you’ll need it later. Shred or slice the chicken in the way you prefer.

# Combine peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili-garlic sauce, sugar, ginger, and 100 ml stock you used for boiling the chicken. Mix until smooth. If you are preparing a larger amount of salad, it is more comfortable to use a blender or a food processor for that. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.

# Grate the carrot (use  a grater with larger holes) and cut the bell pepper into matchstick-size strips. I cut them into 1cmx1xm cubes, but I guess smaller and thinner strips will go better with rice noodles.

# Soak rice noodles in hot water for a couple of minutes (I drained them in the same stock where I boiled the chicken). Drain and transfer to a bowl.

# Add carrot and bell pepper. Pour dressing over and toss to coat, adding more broth if dressing is too thick.

Yum. Although you won’t see the sauce in the picture, it is there. Its nice and light taste blew my mind! Leftovers were even better, honestly, though the next day the salad looked even less appetizing. But its not in the looks, in the taste! Next time I’d use different kind of noodles, maybe some kind of pasta. Should be just as good.

Rice noodles with vegetables

At the weekends we often go to L’Archiduc for some jazz and after that to Hong Kong Delight for some Chinese food. It is our favourite Chinese place, nothing fancy, but the food is great. Its plastic chairs and the fact that someone often tries to get their way to the kitchen (between the tables) with huge sacs of celery stalks or onions only adds the authentic atmoshpere. So, we try to keep up the tradition and find our way there every weekend. However, once we were either too tired or too lazy to go out, so I tried to make something chinese-food-like from the ingredients I had home.

200 g rice noodles

1 bell pepper

1 carrot

a handful of bean sprouts

1 garlic glove

4-5 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

olive oil and water

100 g chicken filled, boiled in chicken broth  

 

# Julienne bell pepper and carrot, set aside.

# Heat oil in a wok pan or a saucepan and add crushed garlic, fry for a few minutes to bring out the flavour.

# Place carrot and bell pepper to the saucepan and continue to fry at a lower heat. In case you sense that the vegetables will start to burn, add some water (not oil). Stir-fry the vegetables as long as they are tender (or until still a bit crispy - whatever you like most).

# Add chopped chicken fillet together with oyster sauce and continue to stir fry for another few minutes. Remove from heat.

# Prepare rice noodles (soak them in hot salty water for about 3-5 minutes, drain) and pour over the vegetables-chicken mix.

# Add soy sauce and bean sprouts, give it a good toss and serve immediately. You might want to sprinkle it with some toasted sesame seeds as well.

You’ll get two portions from this amount, in case you were wondering.

Chicken and pineapple curry

I wanted to try what comes out, if you put together coconut milk, pineapple, celery, bell pepper and potato and season them with curry powder and ground cumin. It turned out to be a kind of a mild curry (not as spicy as this one) and I loved it. You are of course welcome to spice it up with some Cayenne pepper and extra curry powder.

1 smaller onion

100 g pineapple chunks

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 carrot, julienned

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 crushed garlic glove

200 ml coconut milk

125 ml heavy cream

1 tsp ground cumin

3 tbsp curry powder (e.g. 1 tbsp hot and 2 tbsp mild curry powder)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

2 bay leaves

200 g chopped chicken fillet

salt and pepper

olive oil

 

# First of all chop all the vegetables and chicken, set aside.

# Mix seasonings and pour into a hot saucepan. Toast for a few minutes and add oil, onion, garlic and bay leaves. Stir and turn the heat lower.

# Add celery, carrot, bell pepper and potatoes and continue to simmer for 3-4 minutes.

# Pour the mix over with coconut milk and cream and stir thoroughly, to distribute spices evenly.

# Fry chopped chicken in a frying pan until not pink and add to curry sauce. Continue to simmer for about 20 minutes (stir once in a while).

# When vegetables are soft, add pineapple into the sauce, simmer for another few minutes and remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper, if needed.

# Serve with rice and naan bread.

Since I have come up with this ecipe myself, I can’t say it is authentic Indian food, but it has a pleasant taste and you can adjust the taste if you add more/less spices. If you don’t like sweet curries, I suggest omitting pineapple chunks.