Chicken & Mango Couscous Salad

I am pleased to announce that warm salad season has arrived, which is awesome, because I *love* warm salads. It’s so much fun getting stuff, shoving it in a bowl, then getting some more stuff, chucking that in, then wandering away for a bit, then doing another bit, and it doesn’t matter if the first bit gets cold because that’s the point of the dish. Brilliant.

Chicken & Mango Couscous Salad
Serves 2-3 (there’s at least two dinners and a lunch in this.)

2 chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
3/4 cup couscous
1 red onion, cut into wedges
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1″ fresh root ginger, sliced
1 tin mango, drained and chopped
handful baby corn
handful mangetout
handful mint, chopped

Put the chicken in a casserole dish with a little oil and chilli. Stick in the oven at 180C and ignore for a bit. Make up the couscous… place in a large bowl with 1.5 cups boiling water, cover and leave. When the chicken’s been going for about ten minutes, add the onion, garlic, ginger, chuck around a bit and put back in for ten minutes. Once the chicken is done all the way through, add the mango, corn and mangetout and warm through in the oven. Stir the mint into the now fluffy couscous, then tip everything from the casserole into the couscous bowl, stir and serve.

Equally, you could stir-fry the chicken, which would probably be faster and more energy conscious.

Baking the blues away.

That’s not a football reference. In case you were worried.

I was hit by a sudden attack of the lonelies last night. In these situations nothing cheers me up more than baking – and even this baking took until this morning to fully take effect. Nice biscuits though. I shall share*.

Ginger Biscuits
Makes a tray of 12, which is 1 serving for a grumpy female.

4oz self-raising flour
2oz butter/marg
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2oz soft brown sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1/2 tsp water**

Rub the butter into the flour, soda and ginger. Add the sugar, syrup and water and mix well. Roll into walnut-sized balls, place on a tray with room to spread and flatten. Bake for ten minutes. Leave them on the tray to cool.

*The recipe. Not the biscuits. I ate all them pretty quickly.
**The original recipe didn’t call for the water, but it’s so hard to mix it nearly made me cry. Add the water.