recipe | CurlyhairRach

This recipe is perfect for people with many different dietary requirements as it is vegan, gluten free and raw.
It only takes about 10 minutes to prepare with a further 3-4 hours setting time in the freezer so is perfect for when you have guests.
As you will see from the recipe it contains almonds and coconut so is sadly no good for those with nut allergies

It is adapted from a recipe that can be found here

Ingredients

1/2 cup unblanched almonds
1/2 cup Medjool dates
2 large ripe bananas
juice of 1 & 1/2 lemons
3 Tbsp coconut oil

Method

Line a small freezer-proof dish with baking paper.

Remove the stalky top bits from the dates and de-pit them. The easiest way to do this is to slice them lengthways after which you can pull out the pit.

dates n pits — De-pitted dates to the left, Pits top right, Stalky bits bottom right

Blend the almonds until fairly fine, then add the dates and blend again.
Tip the mixture into a bowl.

bowls — Left – unstirred mixture, Right – stirred mixture

You may find that you need to give the mixture a quick stir in the bowl – my blender left quite a bit of almond at the bottom that was unmixed with the dates.

Squeeze the mixture in a kneading fashion to form a rough dough – it won’t be a smooth dough like bread as there is no real liquid, but as long as it mostly holds together it will be fine.

Press the mixture into the bottom of the dish.

Now blend the remaining ingredients to a thick sauce-like consistency.
Pour/spoon the mixture over the base

Put the dish in the freezer for approximately 3 hours to set.

Remove from the freezer and slice to serve.

Any that is leftover can be stored in the freezer, but this recipe makes only a fairly small amount so you will probably get through it quite quickly.

One quick note – make sure that when you blend the topping your blender base hasn’t come loose or you can end up with a real mess!

Sadly rather than pouring the topping it was more a case of desperately try and save what you can by any means possible!

Happy not-baking!
R

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I’m slightly sad that my first recipe post isn’t going to be vegan or even vegetarian as that is definitely the type of food I wanted to focus on.
That being said, I am no longer a vegetarian which is something I will go into at length in a later post, and as an omnivore I do want to share with you all the great recipes that I find and/or invent.

This is a favourite of mine as chicken thighs are cheap to buy and it doesn’t require anything else that I wouldn’t already have in the house or garden.

Before I start on the recipe, a couple of common sense safety notes if you’ll indulge me:

Always be careful when handling raw chicken and wash hands and utensils thoroughly
Turmeric stains like a dye, worse to be honest. Rinse it off anything as soon as possible or spend hours bleaching later.

Recipe adapted from one by Barney Desmazery, found on the BBC Good Food website. http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/

Ingredients

4 skin on, bone in Chicken thighs
2 tsp Turmeric
1 Tbsp Garam Masala
Pinch of ground salt.
2 Tbsp Sunflower oil
2 large or 3 small Red onions, thinly sliced
4 Garlic cloves, thinly sliced
500ml Chicken stock
Handful flat leaf parsley – chopped. (if you use curly just use less as the flavour is more intense)
Zest & juice of 1 large or 2 small lemons (unwaxed)
250g Couscous

As you will see I’ve used a pack of thighs and drumsticks. This was cheaper than 4 thighs in separate packs and works fine. I wouldn’t recommend using only drumsticks though as the meat is more tender and flavourful on thighs.

Method

Take half of the spices and toss the chicken in them to coat well. It won’t seem like a lot of spice, but it goes a long way.
Heat half the oil in a large flat bottomed pan and fry the chicken, skin side down for approx 10 mins at a medium to high heat.
Turn over and fry for a further 2 minutes before removing to a plate.
I was cooking rather too much chicken for the size of my pan. If you find yourself in a similar situation spin the pieces round at about 5 minutes so the outside edges get cooked too.
Add the rest of the oil to the pan, along with the garlic and onions. Fry gently for about 8 minutes
Left – onions going into pan. Right – onions after 8 minutes
Stir in the rest of the spice and add the stock. Bring the stock up to the boil and then add the chicken, skin side up

Cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes
Once the chicken is cooked, boil a kettle and remove the chicken onto a plate.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the lemon juice and the couscous. If the liquid in the pan doesn’t cover the couscous then add some more from the kettle – I didn’t need to this time.
Cover the pan and leave for about 5 minutes for the couscous to cook. If you are using wholewheat couscous you will need to leave it for more like 10 minutes and keep it on a low heat.
Once the couscous has absorbed all the water and is cooked, fluff in half of the lemon zest and half of the chopped parsley.
Serve the couscous topped with the chicken thighs. Garnish with the remainder of the zest & parsley.
Finshed Meal