Wow. Believe it or not both Kemey and I were free last night. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to catch up with. Boring? Not at all! It was a refreshing break in our otherwise especially hectic (if incredibly fun) summer calendar. We knew we wanted to stay in, relax and have a nice dinner for two to accompany a bottle of chilled white in the fridge but beyond that didn’t have much of an idea what we wanted to eat.
A ha! Hit up Great British Chefs for some last minute inspiration.
K’s vegetarian. So that narrowed things down for us. And GBC’s got a great collection of vegetarian recipes up on its site. Neither of us was really in the mood for preparing something even remotely labour intensive. Cheap was definitely a prerequisite as well. Add to that the need for something summery (as in not too heavy or apt to heat up our tiny top floor flat) and … voilà: Paul Heathcote’s couscous recipe came out the winner.
Following this recipe was an absolute breeze – but just hands-on enough and with the right number of fresh ingredients to give us a feeling like we were actually doing something meaningful with what little effort it took to whip up this delicious dish.
Yeah, it was easy. But not easy in the “duh” variety; it was ingenious in its simplicity (and now I really wanna come up with an opportunity for a scouting expedition to Heathcote’s Ribble Valley restaurant). Broad beans, fresh peas, sweetcorn, whole almonds, raisins, green olives, mint … summer summer summer … aaah. And all stuff available at pretty much any local supermarket.
Paul Heathcote’s couscous is a brilliant dish on its own, would be a welcome addition to any BBQ or picnic and is without doubt one that will be recreated again in my kitchen.
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