Full of Eastern Promise...

This weekend we had a dinner guest from Malaysia- used to spicy food. She has been eating mainly vegetarian food in the UK, as she should only eat halal meat otherwise.

I have a good repertoire of vegetarian recipes- family members will know why!- but I feared they might be rather bland for our guest's tastes- pizzas, pasta, quiches, salads and so on.

I opted to make spiced lamb patties (my local Asda providing halal lamb sausages) with a couscous and chickpea salad, flatbreads and a vegetable tagine. This also gave me the chance to use some of the dinky mini-tagines and mini soupieres that I buy (or am given) at any opportunity for accompaniments to the dish too.

To make the lamb patties I took the sausages from their skins and then followed my burger recipe- see February- but substituted ras el-hanout ( moroccan tagine spices) for the Worcestershire sauce. (These were so delicious, they all disappeared before I could take a photo!

The vegetable stew was made from whatever was to hand in the fridge- courgettes, leftover green beans, leftover baked beans (yes really!), shallots, tinned tomatoes, lots of ras el-hanout paste spices and chilli. All cooked for 4-5 hours in the slow cooker-mmmm!

And the leftovers made a delicious vegetable lasagne and a pasta lunchbox for me!