WARMING VEGETABLE TAGINE FOR A MEAT FREE MONDAY

Cinnamon, lemons and coriander

HELP!


The boiler's broken so we have no hot water or heat. Great..

In an attempt to warm the house I decided to cook.

Also we have a few meat eating mates for supper tonight and I had just planned to do pasta...

However a one pot supper suddenly looks much more appealing now I have to boil kettles of water to wash up...

To give the illusion of warmth I decided to go for a warming Vegetable tagine..with couscous, followed by a fruit crumble. 


Hopefully the cooker can warm the house and the spices will warm our insides.

VEGETABLE TAGINE

Feeds 6

Preparation time- 5-10 mins

Cooking time- 30 mins

INGREDIENTS

2 tbsp olive oil

2tsp each of ground cinnamon, smoked paprika, 

2 tins of tinned tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste

3 cloves of garlic

70 g almonds

70 g pitted prunes

30 g dates

1 400g tin of chick peas

2 red peppers

2 courgettes

200g sweet potato

1 onion

1 bay leaf
1 piece of fresh ginger about 1 inch long, chopped finely
2 cinnamon sticks

Juice of one lemon

1tsp honey

WHAT TO DO:

       

      Heat the olive oil in casserole with all the ground cinnamon, tomato paste and smoked paprika.

     Chop the peppers, sweet potato and onion roughly and add to the pan. Cook for    about 5 minutes. Then add the tomatoes and lemon juice, bay leaf, garlic, almonds, prunes, dates, cinnamon sticks..basically everything except the chickpeas and cook for 20 mins.

     Add the chick peas and honey and cook for a further 10 minutes...

     If you have the oven on you can just put the pot in the oven as this allows the flavours to really develop and helps warm your kitchen!! 

     But if you are pressed for time just keep on the cooker.

    Serve with fruity herby couscous..

Couscous

For this I hydrate the couscous with warm water as normal then add a handful of chopped apricots (great for extra iron) and a bunch of coriander also chopped.

The verdict was...It looked great and all tasted delicious.

Fantastic!

At least we are all warm and well feed and I only need to boil the kettle for hot water bottles later.

 Roll on mending the boiler..please!?!