make | something sweet for dinner: fruity chicken cous cous

This is for one of those evenings when all you want is something sweet!  We love a bit of cous cous, and now that it's much easier to get so many different types, you can be a bit more inventive with it.  We've used wholewheat cous cous in this recipe, simply because it's a slower release carbohydrate, so should keep you going for longer.  It's still really cheap, with a packet in Waitrose costing only 99p.

This recipe does include pomegranate seeds (which are obviously not so cheap and cheerful!) but if you feel like a bit of an extravagance, do see if you can get some because they are so tasty and really beautiful!

This literally took us about 15 minutes to whip together, using up chicken we had in the fridge, so let this be the base for a meal out of whatever you've got hanging around leftover.  

Enjoy today!!
- rosinaviolets    x

Fruity Chicken Cous Cous 

Serves 4 

250g wholewheat cous cous

400ml hot chicken stock 

200g leftover chicken 

110g pomegranate seeds

400g can chickpeas

50g dried apricots, diced 

2 carrots, coarsley grated 

20g parsley roughly chopped, or 2 tablespoons dried parsley

4 dessert spoons mango dressing

• Put your cous cous in a heatproof bowl and pour over the hot stock.  Cover the bowl with cling film or foil and leave to stand for about five minutes, or until the cous cous has absorbed all the liquid.  

• Meanwhile, prep all your other veg.  Grate your carrots, dice the apricots, drain the chickpeas, de-seed the pomegranate and chop up the parsley.  Put it all into a big bowl with the leftover chicken and the dressing.  

• Tip: To de-seed a pomegranate, make sure you're wearing something you don't mind getting stained!  Pomegranate juice stains wooden chopping boards, so it's best to use a plastic one.  Chop the pomegranate into quarters, and then over a bowl, pick the seeds away from the membrane.  You can fill the bowl with water and rinse the seeds if you like. 

• Use a fork to fluff up the cous cous.  Stir it into the bowl of chicken, pomegranate, chickpeas, apricots, parsley and dressing.  

• You can then put it in the fridge to serve cold with a salad, or warm it up in the microwave to make a satisfying hot dinner.  Yum!

live | organisation: get that freezer into tip top shape!

Our self-imposed project beckoned this week: let's try and sort out our freezer! It really was in a terrible state.  So much so, that we felt a 'before' shot wasn't warranted.  We had no idea what we had in there, and it was all precariously shoved in, so when you pulled out the packet of fish fingers you were in danger of a loaf of walnut bread pinging out and whacking you over the head.

So, we set about taking everything out of the freezer, giving the whole thing a deep clean, and then taking the measurements so we could go out and buy some baskets that would fit the shelves.  That way, we knew we'd be able to pull out exactly what we wanted, without risking getting hit by flying food!

We put all the food into freezer bags, labelled them, and then re-packed everything back into the freezer.

The baskets were embellished with laminated labels so we could see where everything was :)

Here's the final outcome...

Enjoy today!!
- rosinaviolets    x

PS: Don't be alarmed by the amount of ice-cream... Well, actually, you could be alarmed!  :p But it's tasty.... 

make | middle eastern: chicken koftas with colourful coleslaw

This week, we've created a yummy version of a Middle Eastern favourite - koftas!  They are usually made with lamb, but to cut out some saturated fat, and also make ours a little cheaper, we used chicken instead!  Trust us - they still taste really good!  Turkey breast would work just as well too.  

If you don't like spice, then you can make your koftas without the chilli and only use one teaspoon of garam masala.  In the coleslaw, you can then leave out the cooling mint.

We served our koftas with the crunchy coleslaw, salad and a hot baked potato, but they would also taste really good stuffed in a pitta bread.

Enjoy today!!
- rosinaviolets    x

Chicken Koftas with Colourful Coleslaw

For four people:

For the Chicken Koftas

4 skewers

2 cloves of roughly chopped garlic

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

2cm piece root ginger, roughly chopped (we had some chopped frozen ginger to hand!)

2 teaspoons garam masala

400g chicken breast

For the Coleslaw

200g coleslaw mix (chopped red cabbage, carrot etc)

150g natural yoghurt

Half a cucumber, halved, deseeded and sliced

Bunch of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped (optional)

For the Baked Potatoes

4 baking potatoes 

A tiny bit of olive oil 

Maldon sea salt

• Zap your baking potatoes in the microwave (after piercing them all over with a fork) for 10 minutes on full power.  Then transfer them to a baking sheet (watch - they'll be hot!) and rub them with a tiny bit of olive oil and give them a sprinkling of sea salt.  Put them in the oven at 200 degrees centigrade for 45 minutes.  

• Place the garlic, ginger and chilli in a food processor and whizz it up until it's really finely chopped.  Then add in the chicken and garam masala and whizz again until finely minced.  

• Tip: Make sure you wash your food processor really well after you've finished mincing the raw chicken.  Wash your hands too!

• Wet your hands a little, and then shape the chicken mixture into twelve ovals.  Thread them onto your skewers.  

• Cook the skewers under the grill for about 10 minutes, turning until nicely browned all over, and completely cooked all the way through.  

• Stir together the coleslaw mix, cucumber, yoghurt and mint.  

• Serve everything together with a big mixed salad.