Mutabbal & a new squeaky friend

I love the taste of Middle Eastern food, so when I saw Vegetarian Dishes from the Middle East by Arto der Haroutunian, I knew I had to have a copy! Flicking through the pages causes my mouth to water! Some cheap aubergines led me to make mutabbal (which is similar very to baba ganoush - imagine hummus but with aubergine rather than chickpeas).
Delicious, especially with some roast onion, courgette & pepper spicy cous cous.
And to help eat the parsley stems, today we brought home a new beastie, perfect for the job!

Courgette Fritters

I have a bit of an issue with courgettes. I go through phases of really liking them, and then for no reason I can't stand them. It's the texture, I think??? When I saw this recipe on Craftster I just had to try it, to overcome my zucchini fear!
I didn't have an nutritional yeast, so skipped that. But added some chili powder, and served with rice & sweet chili sauce. They were delicious, very moreish! Thank you Calm Mind Busy Body!

Baked bean comfort soup

This week I have managed to chip a tooth and develop a sore throat. This makes chewing food is not so desirable at the moment! Feeling sorry for myself, I made soup, using the ultimate comfort food, Baked Beans!


Ingredients:

• A tin of baked beans
• One red onion chopped
• One carrot chopped
• Handful of pasta shapes
• Vegetable stock
• Salt & pepper to taste
• A little oil
• A generous squirt of tomato ketchup

In a large saucepan, lightly fry the onion, once soft add the vegetable stock. To this add the tin of beans, chopped carrot, tomato ketchup, pasta shapes & seasoning. Cover and leave to simmer. When the pasta is soft, it is ready to serve. Simples. Due to my sore throat I served this with super squidgy soft white bread (another guilty pleasure!).