14 June - chickpeas with tomatoes and harissa

It was a lovely sunny day today, so both lunch and dinner were al fresco - hooray! It was a quick lunchtime favourite; peas and pancetta with linguine. Unfortunately, I wasn't really concentrating and undercooked the pasta.

This evening's dinner was from Sunday's Observer magazine; Nigel Slater's chickpeas with tomatoes and harissa. I roasted 8 medium tomatoes cut into 6 pieces each with a red pepper chopped into large chunks mixed with some olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar and a pinch of cumin seeds at about 200C. I left them to cook while I was on the phone and when I went back to check after nearly an hour, they were a bit charred around the edges - oops! I picked out some of the very blackened bits of skin and tipped the lot into a pan, added a splash more olive oil, a teaspoon of harissa paste and the chopped rind of preserved lemon and let it heat through. Meanwhile I cooked up some giant couscous that I came across in the supermarket the other day. Finally, I stirred some whole basil leaves into the chickpea mix. The stew was really tasty - the lemon and harissa really gave it a tang. I was a bit less convinced about the giant couscous; rather back to that frogspawn feel again!