Friday, July 30, 2010

Courgette Woteva aka Vegetarian Tagine with Couscous

Whilst making Cottage Pie tonight, I also made 'Courgette Woteva' as it ended up being named by Biscuit Boy. I had actually planned to call it 'Vegetarian Tagine with Couscous' but, there you go ....

So, I picked one long, and two yellow round courgetttes/zucchini from my garden and chopped them up.
I chopped 1 white onion and 2 red onion.


I grated 2 large fat cloves of garlic

I added a selection of herbs - rosemary, and a couple of thyme variations from my herb box in the garden.

What did I do ?
First I sauted the onion and garlic
Then I added the courgettes and sauted those too, until soft.
Then I chopped and added all of ther herbs.
I was going to add normal tomato passata from a jar, but when I remembered that BB has an aversion to courgettes, I decided to make it a dish just for me and add the jar of tomato and chilli sauce that has been languishing in the cupboard for quite a while (BB is not a fan of chilli either..)




OK, so by now I was on a roll and I was thinking I have to go down the North African, Morroccan Tagine route with, so then I added
A good squeeze of lemon juice
Salt
(I had no preserved lemons otherwise I would have used one of those instead)
A squirt of harissa (I hadn't used this before, so I squirted some into the pot and then tested a tiny, weeny bit on my finger and it nearly blew my head off, so I had to spoon some of it out - oops !)
A teaspoon of Ras-El-Hanout (Haven't used this much before either, but like I mentioned I was on a roll...)
Another jar of tomatos, but this time with olives - still on the Moroccan theme

Once this lot was in the casserole, I just left it to bubble away with the lid on, and let those lovely flavours all meld together. We left for swimming.. 'We need to turn back!' I said halfway down the road. 'I've left the gas on'. BB practically wheel-spinned the car in his haste to not be late for swimming, but I got back and turned the hob off.

After another great swim we were in the car on the way home. I mentioned how I was SO looking forward to having one of the almond cakes, that a neighbour bought us from France, with maybe just a little icecream when we got back. 'No you won't',  BB said. 'Why on earth not ?', I asked.. 'They're gone, I've eaten them .' came his proud reply, just like the cat that got the cream. 'So, what can I have now then?', I said thinking out loud...

'If I'm hungry I'll eat anything, except for courgette 'whatever'' and so the dish was named. Of course, with BB's London accent it became 'woteva'.

I snuck a spoonful when I got in - tasting good, nice and sour.. Here's a picture of it taken the next day with some lovely couscous.



Bon Appetit !

2 comments:

  1. Looks like a bowl of comfort food. As a veggie, I am liking this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Mangocheeks. I often make veggie food, although I am not veggie. I just find you don't need the meat .. and the recipes are the better for it. I'm glad you liked it !

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