The first recipe

I imagine many of the posts on this blog will be recipes. I'll try to keep them as seasonal as possible, however, it's likely to be a run down of what I'm eating, what I've eaten the night before, or what I'm going to eat for my evening meal that night.

Right now I'm eating leftovers from the night before last when my dad came over for dinner. It was a bit of a feast... we had Merguez sausages with roast vegetable cous cous, grilled haloumi, yoghurt dressing, plus greek salad and bean salad on the side. Desert was English strawberries and high-end ice cream, so all in all, a damn fine meal for a warm summer evening. Particularly washed down with a few cold Coronas.

Roast vegetable cous cous with grilled haloumi and yoghurt dressing

I had some of the cous cous, haloumi and dressing left over from the meal, so that is lunch today. It's a great accompaniment to merguez sausages, which you'll be able to get in any decent butcher. It's so simple you don't need a recipe really, but here's what you'll need and what I did:

A cup full / big handful / half a mug full of cous cous per person (I guess about 100g?)
An aubergine
A red pepper
2 courgettes
A dozen cherry tomatoes
A small bunch parsley (optional)
The juice of 1 medium lemon
Olive oil
salt and pepper

A block of haloumi cheese

Half a large pot of non-flavoured bio yogurt
Parsley
Mint
the juice & zest of one lime
Salt and pepper

Chop all the veg (except tomatoes) into large chunks, and roast in for 20mins at 180c.
Meanwhile, chop parsley and herbs, zest & juice lime and add to the yoghurt. Season.

Pre-heat grill or grill pan. Slice haloumi into o.5 cm slices, and toss them in a little olive oil in a mixing bowl. Grill for 3 mins on each side.

Cook cous cous as instructed (I cover it with boiling water, then leave it for five mins before 'fluffing it up' with a fork). Halve the tomatoes, then add them, along with the roast veg to the cous cous. Add the lemon juice, a few decent glugs of olive oil, the parsley and season well.

Serve with warm pitta bread and grilled merguez sausages for a main meal, or on their own as a light lunch.

Mmmm.

*I'm not very good at measuring stuff... But with this sort of thing, you can't go wrong.

**I also have a picture of my lunch which I'm going to add here if I get around to it... If it looks half eaten, that's because I was hungry and forgot to take a pic before I dug in.