Easy couscous recipe

If you are running out of recipes try this easy couscous! I will start by writing the original recipe I found on BBC Good Food and then I will tell you how I did it the other day. I forgot to take a picture of it so next time I will cook this for dinner I will take a picture for the article. 

Ingredients:

- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion thinly sliced
- 200g chicken breasts diced
- 1-2 tbsp harissa paste, plus extra to serve
-10 dried apricots
- 220g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 200g couscous
- 200ml hot chicken stock
- handful coriander chopped

• Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion for 1-2 minutes until softened. Add the chicken and fry for 7-10 minutes until cooked through and the onions have turned golden. Stir through the harissa to coat everything and cook for 1 more minute.
• Tip in the apricots, chickpeas and couscous, then pour over the stock and stir once. Cover with a lid or tightly cover the pan with foil and leave for about 5 minutes until the couscous has soaked up all the stock and is soft. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and scatter over the coriander to serve. Serve with extra harissa if you like. 

As I was cooking for children I didn't dare to follow the recipe so here are the few tips I can give you:

• I replace the harissa with tomato purée for a non-spicy version
• I didn't put apricots because I don't like it and I'm not sure the children would have liked it too. 
• Next time I will do more than 200ml of chicken stock because the couscous was quite dry. To me 200ml is not enough, it burned the bottom of my pan and I was only on medium heat.

London, July 4th

 Last Saturday, under this beautiful British summer, me and my friend Lola went in London looking for clothes and books. We first stopped by the gigantic shopping centre of Stratford: Westfield, located in the Olympic Park. So we had a little shopping spree to see what the summer sales had to offer... Well not much! We both ended up with an item each. But the atmosphere out there was exotic. The sun, the heat, a bridge which vaguely reminded me of Barcelona's Maremagnum... We felt like we were in Spain and not at all in the British capital city. 

Quick lunch outside and we took the tube to Camden. When you live near London all the year, you tend to forget this is one of the most visited places in the world. So obviously in July you have a mass of tourists visiting trendy places (including Camden). We searched for presents in the market or at souvenir shops but nothing really interesting. Completely dehydrated, we decided to grab a drink at Costa Coffee. From our table, we could see several street arts on the walls outside. Once we finished our cups we took some pictures and carrying on walking we found out a nice little street with colorful houses (if you often read my blog it's no secret this kind of street is my weakness). 

Arrived at Chalk Farm Station, we headed to Granary Square because Lola (bookaholic) heard of a barge selling second-hand books called "Word on the water". The place is made of a big building with water jets in front of it and stairs with synthetic grass leading to the canal. Because of the heat, Granary Square was full of people tanning in their swimming costumes. We went on this barge searching for books. Once Lola came out with the one she bought, we finished our lovely day in the shade of Hyde Park. 

Mango sorbet

Summer is definitely here and the heatwave too! So to cool us down from these crazy temperatures, why not making a quick and easy sorbet? You can find the recipe in "Simple and delicious desserts".

All you need is:

• 2 large ripe mangoes

• the juice of 1 lemon

• a pinch of salt

• 115g sugar

• 3 tbsp water

Using a sharpe knife, thinly peel the mangoes, holding them over a bowl to catch the juices. Cut the flesh away from the central stone and put in a food processor or blender. If your mangoes are not giving any juice squeeze them over the bowl. Add the mango juice, lemon juice and salt and process to form a smooth purée. Push the mango purée through a nylon sieve into a bowl.

Put the sugar and water in a heavy-based saucepan and heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil, without stirring, then remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly. 

Pour the syrup into the mango purée and mix well together. Leave to cool, then chill the mango syrup in the refrigerator for 2 hours, or until cold.

If using an ice cream machine, churn the mixture in the machine following the manufacturer's instructions. Alternatively, freeze the mixture in a freezerproof container, uncovered for 3-4 hours, or until mushy. Turn the mixture into a bowl and stir with a fork or beat in a food processor to break down the ice crystals. Return to the freezer and freeze for a further 3-4 hours, or until firm. Cover the container with a lid for storing. 

7 books for bakers

Last weekend I had some time to kill so it gave me the idea to go in town and do a "cookbook hunting". So here are 7 books that amateur bakers will love:

- "Have your bake & eat it" - very nice book with all the British cakes and desserts you need to know.

-"Primrose Bakery celebrations" -  All the delicious cakes of this famous London shop won't have any secrets for you.

- "Mary Berry's complete cookbook" - THE BIBLE!

- "The Hummingbird Bakery home sweet home" - Another famous London shop. Before you were drooling in front of their windows, now you can do it at home!

- "The Pink Whisk guide to cake making" - We offered me this book last Christmas and I love it. It is easy, well explained and full of tips.

- "Simple and delicious desserts" - Very nice and simple book!

- "Grandma's best recipes" - It is a "must have" for all bakers who haven't inherit of their grandma's original recipes.

Bath

Finally visiting Bath!! I was supposed to go last November but several reasons delayed this trip.

SO last Saturday, Lola and myself took the train for Somerset. After all this disorganisation at the railway station, we arrived for lunchtime at last. We quickly ate our takeaway food and with the map in our hands walked along the river Avon. We stopped a moment to have a look at the Putney Bridge and we carried on our journey. Wandering in the charming streets of the city, we took some pictures of Bath Abbey and seeing many tourists queuing next to it we guessed the Roman Baths were here. We then went and checked the ticket prices. To be honest it was a bit annoying to pay £14 but you can't go to Bath without visiting the biggest attraction. It's like going to Paris without visiting le Louvre. As we were inside now, we decided ti visit it. Surprisingly, the £14 are completely worthy!! I thought it was just to see the baths but before that you have an interesting museum telling you more about the Roman times. 

Two hours later, we finished the Roman Baths and went on walking around looking for the Circus and Royal Crescent. Once we went to these two places that was it!! Bath is a small city that can be discovered in half a day. Indeed, this beautiful city is quite quick to visit. Of course you also have lots of attractions about the writer Jane Austen and I also heard Bath was a good place for pub crawl but we were not interested in it this day. 

I highly recommend you to give a try to Bath because even with a cloudy weather, the city looks really clean and charming.

 

Feeling good

"Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realised what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - Marmite, village fêtes, country lanes, people saying "mustn't grumble" and "I'm terribly sorry but", people apologising to me when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, stinging nettles, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, crumpets, hot-water bottles as a necessity, drizzly Sundays - every bit of it.

What a wondrous place this was - crazy as fuck, of course, but adorable to the tiniet degree. What other country, after all, could possibly have come up with place names like Tooting Bec and Farleigh Wallop, or a game like cricket that goes on for three days and never seems to start? [...] What other nation in the world could have given us William Shakespeare, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None of course. [...]

Here is the country that fought and won a noble war, dismantled a mighty empire in a generally benign and enlightened way, created a far-seeing welfare state - in short, did nearly everything right - and then spent the rest of the century looking on itself as a chronic failure. The fact is that this is still the best place in the world for most things - to post a letter, go for a walk, watch television , buy a book, venture out for a drink, go to a museum, use the bank, get lost, seek help or stand on a hillside and take in a view.

All of this came to me in the space of a lingering moment. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like it here. I like it more than I can tell you."

- Notes from a small island by Bill Bryson

Gallery: Natural History Museum + Regent's Park