* Moroccan Style Chicken Stew

This Moroccan Style Chicken Stew was one of those "bung it all in and hope it works" recipes... that worked. Well of course it did - I don't feed you lot any old horse manure, do I?

The stuff that doesn't work, gets spoken about in an aside. I don't give it a recipe title, a picture and a page of blurb - I give it to the dog.

This time, I had half a jar of Harissa Paste that needed using up (something always needs using up), or this might have ended up as something completely different - without the chickpeas and the sultanas. I had thought that I'd got a packet of dried-ready-to-eat-apricots sitting in the back of the cupboard that I could make use of instead of the sultanas.... and I sort of did... but I'm fairly sure that apricots are supposed to be a pale orange in colour - not blue and furry and beginning to evolve - so I ditched that idea, along with the apricots.

It was lovely anyway, with a huge bowl of unfussy couscous and a generous glass (or two) of wine.

Neil enjoyed it, because it had chicken in it. He's really starting to notice when a meal is vegetarian just recently. I had some Butternut and Bell Pepper Curry left over in the freezer, and he guilted me out so much about the lack of meat that I grilled a chicken breast and chucked it into his when I used it up.

I almost regretted it when he gave me an "Atta girl!" upon spying it in his curry. I told him if he slapped my backside and called me a wench he'd be wearing his dinner. Not eating it.

He got the hint.

Dinner was a quiet affair that night.

* Spicy Tomato and Chickpea Soup {Meatless Mondays}

I absolutely loved this soup. It was filling. more-ish and nommy and although I have previously harboured a vindictive and somewhat unreasonable hatred of chickpeas in the past - I now love them too. Not quite as much as I love cheese, or spinach or mayonnaise... but we're working on our relationship a bit at a time and it's slowly moving forwards.

Me and chickpeas... we is now friends. 

I think this is mostly down to the fact that I stopped buying cheap supermarket *own* versions and started paying out a few extra pennies for better quality ones. There's a world of difference that you wouldn't expect in something so simple. 

Neil has always liked chickpeas, and has dipped out in the past because I've only cooked with them rarely... and Neil doesn't cook. Like... ever...

... the last time he made anything, it was a BLT and he brought it up to me as breakfast in bed. I don't know what he did to it, but it was the soggiest, pappiest most disgusting thing I have ever bitten into! Thankfully, he buggered off downstairs and I was able to flush it down the toilet. I was positively STARVING come lunch time because I didn't tell him.... not for about five years anyway...

...when it would no longer damage his ego. Not quite sure why I waited so long. I really didn't want him to cook again, and I'm pretty damn glad he never offered.

But that's between you, me and the gatepost.

* Slow Cooker Moroccan Lamb Tagine

I JUST BOUGHT A SLOW COOKER!!! Oh yes I did. I've been rebelling against this one purchase for yeeeeaars. Rebelling. Truly.

I love cooking gadgets and cooking gimmicks but until recently, a slow cooker/crock pot was at the bottom of my list. Purely because I honestly believed the only thing you could cook in it, was Chicken Chasseur.... This is because as kids, whenever we saw that mum had got the crock pot out, we knew it was chicken chasseur for dinner, and don't ask me why, but we'd spend the whole day dreading it. Possibly because mum got the crock pot out A LOT. I think we ate almost as much chasseur as we did bolognese!

I no longer have an aversion to chicken chasseur, and have in fact, included a recipe for it within the walls of this blog - however, up until recently I've had no designs on owning a slow cooker. None whatsoever. That's until I started up this blog in an endeavour to make our food a tad more interesting for us to eat - we'd fallen into a food rut. Since starting Abbe's Cooking Antics, I've spent a lot more time surfing the net, looking at what people are cooking and eating, and I had no clue that there were quite so many things that you could cook in a slow cooker... cheesecake for example (really?!?).

So, I gots me a slow cooker to slowly cook stuff in and what do I do? I don't cook a slow cooker recipe... meh... too easy... I adapt a stove top recipe that I've never actually cooked before. There's a time adapter/conversion thingy at netmums.com that converts times of oven/stove top based recipes to slow cooker temperatures and times. Brilliant.

Coincidentally, Genie at Bunny Eats Design, has invited me to join in a monthly link up party - Our Growing Edge - designed to connect food bloggers and challenge/inspire them to try new things and share the end results. I think this is an amazing idea, especially for someone like me that occasionally needs a push to experiment. I really can be quite lazy when it comes to trying new stuff. I do tend to stick with what I know works! This month's link up is hosted by Sonya at and more food and the recipe I'm submitting for it - is this one because...

It was lush.

* Lemon and Parsley Couscous

I love couscous. Hugely. If my life depended on it - I couldn't give it up. It's so incredibly easy to cook and it's my comfort food above all others.... however... Neil hates it, so more often than not I'll have whatever he's having out of ease. Lazy, but that's life and I know I'm not the only person that does it.

I never realise quite how much I miss it until I've made a slight effort and am actually eating it - usually with just a knob of butter swirled through it. It's rare that I add anything to it because I genuinely enjoy it just as it is comes. Not exactly life altering.

Adding lemon and parsley to it isn't exactly life altering either, but I've never done it before (don't ask me why, I don't know why!) so was very pleasantly surprised that it worked as well as it did. You know what it's like - the simple things require what you believe is a bit less effort, and it all goes a tad skewiff because you've gotten cocky and lazy and just stuffed a whole lemon, unpeeled and unjuiced into a bowl of raw couscous along with a handful of unchopped parsely - dirt and all... Then stand back in amazement when your somewhat dormant cooking genius gets up off the sofa, packs it bags and grabs a one way ticket to El Salvadore... all without a backwards glance...

... even the simple things require the tiniest bit of effort sometimes. Not always something that I remember or can even be bothered with... and when I can... I usually have one vital missing ingredient - like errrrr.... couscous.

I didn't. I had the couscous. I had everything....

Cue *birthday dance*.

* Moroccan Style Chicken Soup

I have a new passion... Instagram! Yeah, I know the rest of the world discovered it when men were still living in caves and wiping their backsides on badgers, but it's a very recent discovery for me... AND. I. LOVE. IT.

I sort of knew it was there, but honestly wondered what all the fuss was about. Then about a week ago I was bored and somehow or other I downloaded the App. I no longer remember why. I no longer care why. I just know that I. LOVE. IT.

All of a sudden, every opportunity is a photographic one... taking the dog for a walk, meeting my oldest BFF - Kerry - at the beach for lunch and a stroll, the cat snoozing, the cat stretching, the dog eyeballing me while I should be taking her for a walk.... fooooood (obviously). I even took a photo of the washing blowing on the line. Oh yes I did. Didn't share that one though. That would have been passé.

There's a heck of a lot of feet, on instagram. Just random photographs of feet. I've painted my toenails (and shaved my toes) just in case I'm over taken by an incredible compulsion to point my phone-cam downwards and click away.

I'm fairly sure I will. In fact... I might have already succumbed.

If you wanna see what colour my toenails are, come say hello at abbes_antics ;)

I really should try to remember the point of all this, shouldn't I. There is a recipe, there always is. It's soup. Or stew, depending on what time of day it is and how hungry you are. This one is "to die for"...

... much like my undercoating.