The Run Up to Christmas - 6 days to Christmas
So the race is on up to Christmas. In my case the race is on to empty the fridge before the shopping arrives in 2 days time, on which I have managed to buy an extraordinary amount of food and enough Gin to probably last the year (my mum pointed out that we already had 2 bottles, I don't think she's realised I'm planning on taking some up to Uni….) So dinner today will have to be eating up, an experimental creation. My mother rather unhelpfully made about 5 times too much couscous for a dinner party on wednesday (I wasn't there, couldn't be helped) so that is the focus point around which this meal is based. Poking around in the fridge I find some left over tinned tomatoes, half a packet of feta cheese and some Ferraro Rocher chocolates. Poking around in the freezer I found a packet of puff pastry. Leaving the chocolates for later, I decided to make a puff pastry couscous pie. Not only does this use up the majority of my ingredients, but also wins me bonus points for health and environment, it being a vegetarian dish.
So I made a thick chutney using the chopped tomatoes. Boiling them down to a thick constancy with 2 large tbsp of sugar, a large pinch of salt, some ground coriander seeds, a splash of white wine vinegar and for some christmassy warmth some ground cloves. Putting that aside to cool, I toasted about 5 blanched whole almonds I found in the cupboard (using up another thing) and stirred fresh parsley (I say fresh it was frozen fresh….) through my mothers couscous which seemed to contain pumpkin seeds, though I couldn't tell you what else. Laying out my sheet of puff, I spread a little chutney on one half, topped with a good mound of couscous, scattered over the almonds and some pitted black olives and finished with chunks of feta. I brushed the edges with egg wash, folded over the other half of puff and then painted the whole thing with egg wash. All it needed was to bake in the oven at 200OC for 15-20mins until golden brown.
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