a sort of chicken tagine

I bought a pound of diced chicken last Friday, and soaked and boiled some chickpeas, with the full intention of making a tagine with them on Sunday. Didn’t get to it, due to an unfortunate cycling incident (OK, I fell off), so I stole 30 minutes yesterday morning to make it.

Browned the chicken pieces in olive oil, and put them in the slow cooker. Cut two peppers (one red, one yellow) into chunks, and fried them off until they were just starting to blacken at the corners, added them to the cooker. Hurled in a sliced courgette which was getting a bit tired, a lemon cut into 8, salt, pepper.

Cut a red onion into chunks, and chopped four cloves of garlic, fried them off, added some ras el hanout to the pan and cooked it for a few seconds. Rummaged in fridge for ideas, and found a jar of tomato and pepper relish, so bunged in a couple of tablespoons’ worth, then a squirt of honey and some water. Brought all that to a simmer, hurled it into the slow cooker with the chickpeas, switched on.

The smell drove us demented all afternoon, and we ate some for supper with rice, and chopped coriander sprinkled over the top.

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chickpeas with chicken

We had a load of cold cooked chicken left over from a roast, some rather tired coriander leaves, a wizened yellow pepper, so time for one of our favourites.

Roughly chopped two onions, several cloves of garlic and the yellow pepper, and sauteéd them off in some olive oil. Added some chopped chorizo and let it cook down, and then added some cumin seeds. Hurled in the chicken, a load of chickpeas (which I’d soaked and boiled, but tinned is fine).

Made a stock of Marigold bouillon powder (no home should be without it) and a teaspoon or so of arrowroot to thicken it. Squeezed in the juice of a lemon, and some salt and pepper.  It looked a bit unbalanced, so I bunged in half a jar of roasted yellow peppers, sliced thinly. Left to cook for about half an hour with a lid on, then added the chopped coriander and cooked for another ten minutes.

Delicious!

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chickpeas bitsa

We accidentally (as you do) consumed a small fry up while on a 7 mile walk today – this is progress, as normally we’d have gone for the large version, but we did feel we deserved it, especially as I’d already walked 2.5 miles and swum 16 lengths this morning!

Anyway, we didn’t want a lot for supper, so we had a rummage in the fridge.

Into a pan went three small chorizo chopped up, with some olive oil – the chorizo came from Discover Unearthed, who very kindly sent me a whole load of new stuff to review this morning, so you’ll be reading about those soon.

Then we added chopped onion and garlic, and a thinly sliced red pepper, and cooked it all down for about 15 minutes.  Added some sesame seeds, chopped rosemary, a dribble of honey and about a wine glass water, popped in the last of the chickpeas, and left it all for another ten minutes.

Ate out of bowls, accompanied by toasted wholemeal pitta – delicious, quick, healthy, tasty.  Perfect.

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roasted veg

We used to have this a lot, but somehow got out of the habit.  But it’s a nice healthy meal while I’m battling with health issues, so off we went.

Chopped an aubergine, a yellow pepper, half a butternut squash, half a sweet potato and a red onion, and put in a bowl with about five cloves of chopped garlic.  Added olive oil and sesame seeds, mixed it together (I always use my paws), then put some clingfilm on it, and zapped for 8 minutes in the microwave, which knocks about 20 minutes or so off the cooking time.

Turned into an ovenproof dish, and baked for about 45 minutes at gas 6.

To accompany it, I did some chickpeas (as I’d boiled up a load the day before) – browned a chopped shallot in some olive oil, add the chickpeas and a good dollop of lemon juice, and warmed through.  Added chopped fresh coriander at the end.We had the remainder of the veg on a small ciabatta each for lunch, topped with a little feta and grilled for a couple of minutes.  Fab.

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lunch today

Was the last of the chickpeas, that had already been enhanced with peppers.  There were two elderly chorizo sausages in the fridge, so I chopped them up and fried them with a little olive oil – as always, they gave forth some lovely paprika-y, garlicy oil of their own, and once they’d crisped up, I added the chickpea mix, and warmed it all through for 15 minutes.

We had it with some toasted pitta bread – Pete managed to burn the first lot (!), but we had more in the freezer, thankfully.  Was all very nice, apart from the smell of charred pitta through the house … :)

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chickpeas and peppers

I had a red and a yellow pepper starting to go a bit wrinkly, and some gingery chickpeas in the freezer, so I thought I’d combine them.

I cut a red onion in half, and sliced it thinly, then deseeded the peppers, and cut them into thin strips.  Started them off on the hob in olive oil, with a dash of sesame, till they were hot, then bunged them in the oven while the bread was cooking.

After 30 minutes they were nice and soft, so I added the chickpeas, and put the casserole dish back in the oven for another 20 minutes.  We ate with rice.  Very nice indeed.

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chickpeas and chard

There was a bunch of swiss chard lurking in the fridge; and we were slightly over-tomato’d.  So I soaked some chickpeas overnight on Friday, and bunged them in the slow cooker with some boiling water at early o’clock on Saturday, so that we could construct something for supper.

Sliced the chard into 1 cm strips, and blanched it for 2-3 minutes.  Skinned and chopped three fat tomatoes (actually, I got Pete to do that, as raw tomato makes me heave).

Fried about 1 dessertspoon of caraway seeds and an onion in some olive oil, then added tomatoes, ground coriander, some tamarind paste (watered down), some water and cooked that down for about 20 minutes, then added chickpeas and chard.  Chopped fresh coriander went in at the end, along with the juice of half a lemon.

We ate it with rice, and it was lovely.  A tub went in the freezer, and the last couple of spoonsful served as a base for a chickpea salad to go with yesterday’s barbie.

As usual, of course, there are Still More Chickpeas.  Some are being dealt with for tonight’s supper (details to follow), and the rest will go for hummous, I think.

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chickpeas and tuna for lunch

Into a bowl went:

1 can chickpeas
1 can tuna in sunflower oil
1 chopped sweet red pepper
3 chopped spring onions
6 or so chopped radishes
some cress
lime juice, mayonnaise, tamari

Mixed it all up, decanted into two bowls, ate with a wheat tortilla – made  a lovely change.

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chickpea and vegetable tagine

Sorry for the lack of posts – too much work, combined with end of year accounts and VAT return due – and the new freezer due for delivery at the end of this week (hurrah!) has meant that  we are eating out of the freezer, mostly.  It’s stuff we’ve cooked and frozen, but not very exciting to write about.

Anyway, we had a running about day on Saturday, so I thought I’d do a slow cooker thing for when we got home.  I soaked a stack of chickpeas on Thursday night, and slow cooked them on Friday in readiness.

Then on Saturday morning, I fried up a chopped onion in olive oil, while Pete roasted and ground some spices (cumin, coriander, allspice, and can’t remember what else). I whizzed up some garlic, fresh ginger and a red chilli and added that to the pan, then added a chopped up aubergine and yellow pepper to the pan (both of which were getting close to their end), together with the spices, and stirred it about until the veg were all softened and coated with spices.

Into the slow cooker they went with the chickpeas and some vegetable bouillon, and out we went.  When we came back, I sneaked a little taste and it was very hot – the chilli was mild so I left the seeds in, and it was a tad vicious.  I soaked some dried apricots in boiling water for ten minutes, and hurled them in, and added a little honey, then we rushed off out again.

That sweetness made all the difference – ’twas lovely.

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gingery chickpeas

More experimentation with the slow cooker, this. I started on Wednesday evening (i.e. 2 days before we ate this!), by putting some chickpeas (probably about 2.5 mugs full) to soak in cold water overnight. We do always have tins in the larder, but I like to used dried where possible, as they are so much cheaper.

On Thursday morning, I rinsed them and put them in the slow cooker for about 9 hours on low, then turned it off, then on Friday morning I took them out, rinsed and drained them and put them back in.

Then I chopped a large onion, and cooked it in some groundnut oil until it was just starting to brown. While they were cooking, I whizzed up garlic, fresh ginger, coriander seeds and a little bit of water into a paste. Added a couple of teaspoons of cumin seeds to the onion and cooked for a minute or two, then added the gingery paste and fried it all off for a couple of minutes.

Then in went a tin of tomatoes and a slug of balsamic vinegar (I was sort of following a recipe, vaguely, from my new veggie slow cooker book). Brought it all to the boil and put it in the slow cooker with the chickpeas.

It didn’t smell quite right – the balsamic was too … sweet, possibly, so I chucked in the juice of a lemon and hoped for the best. They had about 9 hours again, and we consumed them as an accompaniment to a tub of chicken dansak from the freezer, and some basmati rice. And the balsamic taste was all gone by then!

This also provided three tubs for the freezer, which would do nicely with some pitta bread for lunch, or as accompaniment for further Indian feasts. We cook/eat a lot of Indian food here, as you may gather.

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