Moroccan-Inspired Chicken Dish with Couscous

I decided to make this recipe one evening when I was sick of studying and wanted to make an actual dinner for myself. The past few days I had only made easy dinners because I wasn't really felling inspired, but yesterday I looked through my cupboard and found all these good ingredients for my dish. I have always loved Northern African cuisine so I found some recipes online and added some of my own things.
Now, this is only Moroccan inspired because I don't actually have all the things required to make a real Moroccan dish, like a Tajin, but bear with me.

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken thighs, skinned
• 1/2 can of chickpeas, drain and rinse
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• handful of dried apricots, cut up into medium-sized pieces
• 100 g couscous
• 250 ml chicken broth
• juice from half a lime/lemon
• Spices: (I don´t know the amounts for each seeing as I just did it on my own.)
• ground cumin
• ground cinnamon
• ground cardamom (I only had seeds, but used my mortar to fix that)
• salt
• black pepper
• red pepper

Directions:

1. Mix all your spices in a mortar and crush/blend well. Put your chicken thighs in a bowl and rub the spices mixture on them. It´s better if the thighs are skinned so that the meat can soak up the flavors.
2. Heat some olive oil in a pan on medium-high heat, add the thighs and cook 3 minutes on each side.
3. Add chickpeas and tomatoes, let it cook together for 5 minutes.
4. Add the broth and apricots, bring to a boil. The cover with a lid, reduce heat and let simmer for 10-15 minutes depending on the size of the chicken.
5. Prepare the couscous from the instructions on the pack.
6. Add the lime or lemon juice to the pan.

Bon Appétit!

Indian Vegetable Stew

I don´t know what it is with stews and soups lately, but I just seems to love them. They are easy to make, taste wonderful on a cold winter day , and they are something I am not used to eating days on end (like chicken). For this one, you might need to set off some more time than usual for my recipes, so set aside about 1 hour to prepare. You can always do something else productive while waiting for it to finish cooking. The reason I have all the spiced required for this dish is because my parents went to Dubai and brought back an amazing bag with 10 spices that can be quite tricky to find some places (read Poland).
I have already halved the recipe, but it should be enough for 2-3 servings, or lovely leftovers.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion (you can add one more half, but this was all I had)
• 2 garlic cloves
• Potatoes, washed and quartered (it´s hard to give you an exact amount, I used what I had in the fridge. See the photo)
• 2 dl water 
• half a can of chickpeas
• a can of chopped tomatoes
• About  200 g baby carrots, chopped (again, difficult to give you an exact amount)
• low fat plain yoghurt for serving (optional)
• Spices (the amounts are for a not very spicy stew, if you want more spice, just add what you like)

• 1/2 ts cumin seeds
• 1/2 ts ground cumin
• 1/4 ts ground cinnamon
• 1/2 ts ground coriander
• a pinch of cardamom (I only had pods, so I used a couple of them and crushed them)
• a pinch of cayenne pepper 
• a pinch of salt.

Directions

1. Put the olive oil in a hot pan and add the chopped the onion, let them brown for a bit (about 2 minutes) and then add the crushed garlic. Let all this brown for about 3 minutes.
2. Crush all your spices together in a mortar if you have one. Add to the pan and let simmer for a short while.
3. Add the water, potatoes and salt. Make sure the water covers the potatoes. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes,
4. Add the chickpeas, tomatoes and carrots, stir. Bring to a simmer, cover and reduce heat.  Stir occasionally and add water if needed.Let cook for about 30-35 minutes or until carrots and potatoes are cooked through.
5. Serve with yoghurt if desired.

Bon Appétit!