Friday, 7 August 2009

A week in France and Pink Couscous

Sorry for the lack of posting, things are very different in the holidays and taking photos of cooking is hard.

I spent the past week in the South of France with my new boyfriend and his family. We've actually only been going out for 6 weeks, so it's pretty fast moving, but we had a lovely time. There was lots of sitting in the sun, and swimming, and even some table tennis and crazy golf:



We had lots of lovely food, lots of good cheese and wine, and the boy and I cooked dinner one night: goats cheese bruschetta, lamb chops with garlicy potates and roast veg, and then grilled peaches. We went out for dinner a couple of times; the first time I had foie gras pate, and then sea bass on oriental-style veg, with sesame seeds around the edge, dessert was sorbet, fruit and macaroons. It was all really lovely! The other meal out was a late lunch, and I had steak and chips, then tarte tartin, before getting on the plane.

Last night I made dinner for dad and I, that was also lunch for mum and I today. One of my favourite things about it was that the couscous turned amazingly pink. Here's a photo of the leftovers:



Pink couscous salad:

I roasted one cauliflower cut into florets for about half an hour, and three fresh beetroot, wrapped in foil with some salt and olive oil in for about 45 minutes.
I double podded fresh broad beans - removed them from the big pods, then boiled the little ones and popped them out.
I cooked about 400g couscous (probably a bit much, actually) by adding boiling water, stock, cumin, corriander and paprika, and covering until the water was absorbed.
I combined all the veg and couscous, and then added some toasted pine nuts, and cubed feta cheese.
I made a dressing with crushed garlic, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar, and just whisked it together with a fork and dressed it all.
We served the salad with the leaves from the fresh beetroot, and some little cherry tomatoes.

It was great last night, and probably even better at lunch time today.

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