Couscous with Mediterranean Vegetables.

Marinate sliced aubergine, courgette and pepper in olive oil, crushed garlic, dried oregano, chilli flakes, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. 

Cook them on a hot griddle pan. 

Meanwhile, cover couscous in boiling water, a tbsp olive oil, a good squeeze if lemon juice. 

When the couscous has absorbed all the water use a fork to separate the grains. Mix in chopped mint, some lemon zest, salt and pepper, the cooked veg, some cherry tomatoes, halved, a handful of rocket and some crumbled feta cheese. Taste and add more lemon juice and/or chilli flakes, if required. Mix it all together and serve. 

Makes a great, filling, packed lunch to take to work. 

My week of meals w/c 7th April 2014

Weekday breakfasts consist of cereal, bread/ toast and eggs

Monday

L: ham, cheese, tomato and chutney (homemade, obvs) toastie

S: Ian and I had a spaghetti and wild garlic pesto 

Kids were at Lucy's for sups

Filo tarts for pudd 

Tuesday 

L: I had courgette, mint and feta soup from the freezer, kids had tomato soup with garlicky croutons, Ian forgot his soup and had something that sounds entirely rank from his drawer at work!!

S: We all had leftover sweet and sour chicken (see recipe) and I made special fried rice to go with it. I fried 3 spring onions, 3 mushrooms, 1 celery stick, half a tomato (all chopped) and a handful of frozen peas with some cooked long grain rice. I added a few chilli flakes and a sprinkling of Chinese 5 spice and some salt and pepper then I added beaten egg and, when it had started to cook, stirred it through the rice. 

I enjoyed it more the second time!

Wednesday

L: kids and I - leek and potato soup, Ian - wild garlic and mushroom soup

S: aubergine and chickpea lasagne with garlic pizza bread (see recipe)

I'm going to make a bolognese sauce with chickpeas to bulk it up instead of mince. 

Served with salad and garlic pizza bread. 

Update: It was delicious! Thumbs up!

Thursday

L: kids and I - omelette with chorizo, spring onion, chopped tomato and feta. If I have any green pepper left, I'll add that. 

Ian - sandwich

Jelly for pudding

S: Leftover aubergine and chickpea lasagne

Friday

L: Ian and I - soup from freezer 

S: bangers and mash with a warm tomato and caramelised onion chutney.  Kids at Lucy's 

Saturday

B: poached eggs on toast

L: homemade pizzas (my 8 and 10 year old nephews will also be here)

S: chicken (cooked chicken from freezer) in a tomato and olive sauce with couscous 

Sunday

B: scrambled eggs and smoked salmon (from freezer - great find!) on toast

L: beans/ spaghetti on toast 

S: wild garlic pasta 

I will only need to buy some more potatoes and I may need another pack of butter, this week. 

I had an anonymous food drop of some bread flour, yeast and tinned tomatoes from a true friend, thank you Gail :-) - I worked it out!, yesterday so won't be needing those this week! And my brother in law, thanks Dom :-), borrowed my rotovator and gave me a bottle of white as a thank you! Barter away, frugal foodies, barter away!

Middle eastern style lamb - leftover heaven

I had defrosted some lamb chops that I'd found in the bottom of the freezer and I needed to use them so I marinated them in lots of grated ginger, fresh mint, garlic, chilli, ground cumin and oil and fried them on a griddle pan then i put them in the fridge until i was ready to use them. I then stripped the meat off them and used them in this recipe. 

Ingredients

1 onion, sliced

1 clove garlic

1 tbsp coriander seeds,

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp chilli flakes

1 tsp fresh ginger, grated

I used the meat from 5 lamb chops

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tin chickpeas 

Leftover gravy from the roast chicken we had the night before but you could use stock

Serve with couscous 

Method

Fry the onions and garlic in some oil until soft. 

Pound the dried spices up in a pestle and mortar. Add them, together with the ginger, to the pan and stir. Add the meat, tomatoes and gravy or stock. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 mins. Add chickpeas and cook for a further 10 mins. 

If I had had any fresh herbs handy I would have added some at this point - coriander or mint would be best. 

Serve on a bed of couscous.