Couscous aux raisins secs, citron, menthe, potiron, poivron rouge et pois chiches

This title it is saved of being boring as it is in French. If it were in English, it would read 'couscous with raisins, lemon, mint, pumpkin, red capsicum and chickpeas' and how many people would click on that?

Today is a be-yoo-tiful spring (-like) day, and I have celebrated the sunny mood I am in as a result of the sunshine by remaking a dish I made on Friday for dinner, which did not photograph well because the lighting was, hmm, not exactly spectacular. (I also have a very cheap camera, as my parents do not let me use their own excellent one due to my general inexperience and propensity for breaking things, which may have been another reason for the less-than-stellar photos). Anyway, today the sun is shining, ze bees are buzzing and ze birds are trilling, so I brought out the cheap camera and it behaved. This dish was basically concocted from a bunch of things (chickpeas, pumpkin, red capsicum, olives) lying around in the fridge threatening to decompose if I didn't do something drastic, like ACTUALLY cook something not sweet. It turned out quite well, so I shall share the recipe.

Feast your eyes on this:

A very large proportion of recipes on this little blog of mine are sweet, so occasionally I shall post something savoury, preferably with a long French name.

Couscous aux raisins secs, citron, menthe, potiron, poivron rouge et pois chiches


For the couscous:
65g couscous
12g raisins (not the golden sultanas)
lemon juice, to taste (I use about 2 tsp)
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
20g pitted kalamata olives, chopped
sea salt

Prepare the couscous according to directions on the packet. For mine, I boil water, then add 75g of it to the couscous and raisins in a bowl. I let stand about 2 minutes, until all the water is absorbed. Then I return to the saucepan with about a tbsp of boiling water, and stir on low heat about three minutes, until cooked through. Then mix through the remaining ingredients. I do all this while my vegetables are cooking.

For chickpeas and vegetables:
125g peeled Jap pumpkin, chopped into tiny little pieces
60g red capsicum, ditto
60g red onion, ditto (this is optional, I added it the first time and left it out the second)
120g cooked chickpeas
1/2 clove garlic
1 tsp chopped green chilli (de-seed if you must)
pinch cumin (depends how much you want, I used about 1/8 tsp)
pinch coriander powder (adjust this to taste, I used about 1/8 tsp)
pinch chilli powder (optional)
about 2 tsp oil, to fry (I used peanut)
10g pitted kalamata olives, chopped
1 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan; add garlic and cumin and stir for a few seconds. Tip in all your gorgeously coloured vegetables, your green chilli, chilli powder and coriander. Stir occasionally while it cooks on a medium flame (I didn't time this). Add chickpeas, mint and olives right at the end.

To serve:
You can mix them both if you like, but I think it looks better separated.


I followed my couscous with the penultimate stick of rose-cardamom kulfi trial batch #1 that I made a couple of days ago. Recipe shall come soon, hopefully, but I would like to try another variation first.

Darlings, it was divine. Ideally, I would have liked to make saffron and pistachio kulfi, but rose and cardamom is far cheaper to make, and sumptuous and fragrant in its own right. Though I really do love saffron.

À bientôt, mes petits chatons! 

Chocolate-Macadamia Ice Cream

The weather has been unseasonably clement this past week, and my Vitamix replacement tamper has arrived. Naturally, given my predilection for eating dessert, I've been experimenting with banana-free ice cream recipes, as bananas currently cost more than gold. I adore bananas, and at least once a day I sigh and dream of a time when bananas were $1 per kilo and I ate at least two a day. When someone brings a banana to school, I sniff the air and almost die with longing. For my birfday, you know what to get me. Twenty kilos of bananas, which will set you back a measly $134,348,324.85

As macadamias are now cheaper than bananas (!!), I make ice cream with them. You can of course use cashews if you don't have macadamias. Macadamias are however much fattier than cashews, so either decrease the amount of water in the recipe or add some macadamia oil.

I froze the whole batch in 6 little popsicle moulds I bought from Ikea, as the smaller volume decreases the amount of time it takes for the ice cream to solidify. You don't require an ice cream maker for this recipe, just a very strong blender. 

Chocolate-Macadamia Ice Cream

• 120g raw macadamias (seriously, for the love of God, do not use roasted and salted. It won't work)
• 175g water
• 55g cocoa powder
• 8g vanilla extract
• 30g light agave nectar (or use sugar syrup)
• 15g raw sugar (I didn't have any more agave, so I added sugar)

Blend everything until the consistency of cream. I did the macadamias first, adding water gradually, then the rest of the ingredients. Freeze until solid. To unmould, run under a hot tap for about 10 seconds, or leave at room temperature for 15 minutes.

OHMYGOODNESS there's SUN, people, SUN. It's ICE CREAM EATING WEATHER.

Do make this, dear readers! The macadamias make it intensely rich and creamy, very solid and with a truly decadent mouthfeel, and the fat content ensures a complete lack of ice crystals, even though it's made without an ice-cream maker or even any churning (I hate those recipes where you have to stir the ice cream every half-hour; I always forget and when I come back it's a frozen block of ice). And the chocolate just makes everything 100x better, because of all the serotonin eating cocoa produces. You cannot BUY ice cream this good in a supermarket, people. Trust me, the person who, before going vegan, used to polish off an economy-sized tub of Haagen-Dazs every week.

This ice-cream is exceedingly simple, scrumptious, and yes, I WILL call it healthy. Eat one or two and feel saintly, not porcine. 

Cashew-Almond-Walnut Butter

This week, I broke my Vitamix tamper while trying to make ice cream (you know, the plastic stick you use to push stuff into the blades?). It was probably the closest I've come to crying all week (yeah, over a broken plastic stick). A new one is on it's way in the post (thank God for online shopping) and I am checking the tracking status every five minutes. 


One thing I've discovered while making nut butter in the Vitamix is that as your butter gets hotter and hotter, it becomes more and more difficult to blend. Fear not! I have a solution: instead of viciously stabbing your tamper into the unyielding mass and seriously contemplating buying Skippy, place your semi-blended butter in a jar and leave it to cool overnight. The next day, blend it for about 30 seconds to a minute. This turns even the toughest, roughest almond butter into a smoothie. If it's too runny, put it in the fridge to firm up.

Now for la recette. This buttah is absolutely divine on apples and pears. Or smear it on a bagel and sprinkle with cinnamon. You can buy dry roasted nuts, but they go rancid quickly. Buy raw and toast them on low heat in a large skillet. Add the almonds first and roast for about eight minutes, then add the cashews for another five, then the walnuts for another five.

Cashew-Almond-Walnut Butter

200g raw cashews, toasted as above

100g raw almonds, ditto

75g raw walnuts, same thing

40g peanut oil

25g rice malt syrup or other liquid sweetener

1/8 tsp salt


      Put nuts and oil and salt in Vitamix and process until smooth (or smooth-ish). Add syrup and re-blend briefly. Transfer to container. The next day, re-blend cooled butter until very smooth and runny.

CAWButter post first Vitamixing.

This butter is particularly heavenly on fresh wholemeal bread with dark brown sugar.

I haven't blogged in over a month, but I have been working on a numbah of original recipes, which I shall post soon, provided I am not inundated with schoolwork by a free-time-loathing school system as I have been. These include:

Chocolate Coconut Cream!

Za'atar Foccacia! (cue stop-bastardizing-food hollers from traditionalists)

Chocolate Macadamia Ice Cream!

Leave a comment and tell me which you'd like to see first!