Which is rather a worry really, considering how many I'm eating at the moment. Difficult times, economic climate, blah blah blah - we're all trying to cut back on our spending and for me, that basically means becoming a temporary vegetarian. I don't eat meat unless it's good quality, good quality costs money, so for me, meat is a treat to be saved for and savoured. None of this cheap, rubbishy, water-plumped, badly treated 'product' (it doesn't deserve to be called 'meat'), thank you very much, where you may as well have not eaten it as it doesn't really taste of anything. Meat is for special occasions and in the meantime, veg do very nicely.
However, as with any kind of vegetarianism, be it temporary or permanent, you need to get some protein in you, even if there is a danger of self-propelled lift-off. Probably thanks partly to Neil, lentils, beans and other pulses were left languishing on the shelf for aaaages - after all, what do you do with them? Boil them? Stick them in chilli? Make soup? Great, so that's three things. Bored now.
First of all, mix them with nice stuff that you like. Obvious really. Inspired by a Waitrose recipe card (yep, another one), I roasted beetroot, cooked lentils in a stock with some herbs, made a sharp dressing and tossed the lot in with some crisp leaves, crumbling goat's cheese over the top:
Hurrah, a beetroot salad that worked! Feta would probably work nicely here too, and roasted squash would be good instead of the beetroot.
I cook dhals quite a bit, and love them, but sometimes I like a spicy lentil dish that I can chew rather than slurp. This Diana Henry dish (yep, another one) adds peppers into a spicy tomato and lentil stew-type thing, which is ace with couscous. This stew freezes well too.
It's good to cook couscous with a bit of stock to give it more flavour and I've used Nigel Slater's idea of mixing sultanas and coriander in with it to liven it up a bit. A raita on the side cools it all down - a nifty tip from good ol' DH is to grate the cucumber and then squeeze it over a sieve before stirring it in the yoghurt, so that it doesn't become too watery. Nobody likes cucumber soup with bits of couscous floating in it. At the very least, it's exhausting swapping a fork for a spoon.
Although it feels like I'm cheating you, dear reader, and Neil too, by casting lentils aside in favour of chickpeas, this dish was utterly yummy. I had it for dinner one day, lunch the next and dinner tonight and I'm rather disappointed that there are no more leftovers left over:
Squash roasted with cinnamon, then joined by chickpeas, chilli and tomatoes for a bit more roasting, topped off with softened onions stirred with lemon and coriander. Another DH mega-dish.
Houston, we are ready for take-off.
