Seven Vegetables

Last night I made Seven Vegetables Couscous for my visitors. It's a rather easy meal that allows for chatter and distractions during the cooking which was just as well, I'd not seen Chris and Martyn for months and received a couple of phone calls while I was cooking as well.

The seven vegetables bit is almost poetic, you can vary them at will and make your own mind up whether garlic counts as a herb or vegetable as required. We had the basic essentials of onions, tomatoes and chickpeas, with potatoes (Stroma from the garden), courgettes, carrots and garlic. Other nice additions are green beans, aubergine, celeriac, pumpkin, what have you really. The tomatoes can be fresh or tinned. The chickpeas should be cooked beforehand (or use a tin).

Chop everything into bite sizes, fry off the onion and garlic in some good olive oil, add the rest of the vegetables, a little water and let everything stew. The seasonings are a piece of cinnamon stick, cumin, ground black pepper, hot pepper flakes to taste, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (or any combination thereof) and a final addition of some chopped green coriander just before serving. Harissa is traditional but optional.

I don't have a steamer here so used instant couscous made with boiling water, allowed to swell and then fluffed up with a fork and some melted margarine.