Friday 27 December 2013

Grilled Vegetables and Couscous with Tahini Yoghurt Sauce

Dish: Grilled Vegetables and Couscous with Tahini Yoghurt Sauce

Difficulty: Easy

Utensils Used: Peppercorn power drill

Cock Ups: Errr lol

Recipe Book: 200 Veggie Feasts (Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook)

Cooking: Christmas has been good for the Disaster Kitchen. Along with a new recipe book from my sister, my mother won this bizarre gadget:


Yes, a kitchen POWER DRILL. Knowing my kitchen proclivities, this is just about the perfect christmas gift.


The set includes an actual working power drill with drill bits for screwing and drilling. And two extract attachments to uncork wine bottles and grind peppercorns.


So I popped my new toy on charge and started looking through my new recipe book. The Boyfriend wanted something healthy, so I picked grilled veg and couscous. When I called him to let him know, he let me know that the 'couscous better not taste of fluff' otherwise he wouldn't be impressed. I'd forgotten that the Boyfriend isn't keen on couscous.


No matter, though, for as I was lining up my ingredients that I just bought, I realised that I'd forgotten to buy the couscous. 'Rice instead?' I said to the Boyfriend and he accepted.


Cut one aubergine, two courgettes and two red peppers into large chunks and stir with some olive oil. The recipe then says 'heat up a ridged griddle pan.' I figured I'd use my George Forman grill, but there were too many veg, and it would have taken ages. So I just put them in a roasting tray and roasted them.


Next up was the tahini yoghurt. I have no clue what tahini is, and I couldn't find it in the supermarket, so I decided to improvise. I stirred a bit of chilli powder into a few spoonfuls of greek style yoghurt, then it was time to try my drill. The following sequence of photos shows you exactly how well that went...




I did eventually realise that you had to hold on to the grinder while the drill turned the mechanism, otherwise it just spun off.


I microwaved some rice.


Then stirred in the veg when it was done. Serve with a squeeze of fresh lemon.


Washing Up Required: Very little.




Result: My vegetables weren't grilled, my couscous was rice and my tahini yoghurt sauce was not tahini. But it looked pretty tasty all the same.


Taste Test: The vegetables were well cooked and went well with the rice (though I think it would have been better with couscous) and the made up yoghurt sauce was surprisingly nice too. The Boyfriend declared it very nice, but lamented the lack of a steak to go with it.

Overall Result: Quick, easy and tasty, though I do agree about the steak thing. Just... not a steak.

Grilled Vegetables and Couscous with Tahini Yoghurt Sauce. Sort of.