Cookbook Challenge 2013 - Week 16

Again this week I felt the need for something to prolong the glimpses of summer that we’ve had recently, and thinking back on some lovely hot days in Marrakech I decided to cook Spicy Moroccan Fish Stew with Couscous from Jamie’s Ministry of Food. I think maybe the warmer weather has made me lazy because any dish where I can just soak some couscous for ten minutes makes me inordinately happy at the moment (lord knows what I’ll be cooking when some truly hot weather arrives!). This dish was very quick and easy to put together and was incredibly fresh and light, definitely a winner for a work night!

Next up was the obligatory weekly pasta dish, and so I dug out the packet of ziti that I had stashed at the back of the cupboard and diligently studied my cookery books looking for inspiration. Eventually after many long and happy hours with my cookbooks I settled upon Ziti Lardati from The Geometry of Pasta. Now I’m happy to try any new pasta and I do appreciate the subtle differences in texture and taste but what’s the point of ziti really? I mean, it comes in long tubes which you have to break into four even pieces before cooking, by the time I’d broken it all down my fingers were sore and there were tiny little shards of pasta all over the kitchen. Regardless of the trauma involved in the preparation the dish was quite lovely; the crispy pancetta lardons working very well with the cherry tomatoes.

My final new recipe of the week was one that had kept being put off for various reasons (couldn’t be bothered to cook after a night away, hubby taking me out for dinner because my head hurt…I won’t go on). So finally I made Haricot & Lentil Chilli from Delia’s Frugal Food, and I will admit that when I opened up the book and saw that it included a small amount of pearl barley* I shuddered (though not so much as to upset my still-throbbing head) and decided to simply up the quantity of lentils instead. I halved the recipe since there was just the two of us but still ended up with enough to feed a family of four – another little food parcel for our camping trip I think! I served it with some tortilla chips, and resisted the urge to cover them in cheese and heat through in the oven – the dish itself was meaty enough without the need for anything else.

 *Now I should probably apologise for my misgivings surrounding pearl barley, I think coincidentally that I’ve managed to eat it around the time that something else has upset me – firstly I had some just before a hellish week of mushroom poisoning (ok, so it’s just an ‘intolerance’ but I literally thought I was dying at times) and now it seems my new contact lenses were the wrong prescription and therefore they're what's giving me the most horrendous migraines and not the barley. So what can I say…I’m…er, really sorry for giving pearl barley a bad rap. <Whisper>…though I’m still not in any hurry to have any more, it’s become psychological now.

Recipe Count: 51
Target: 52
….I’m seriously going to have to up my target otherwise the rest of the year will not be so tasty!