Vegan Recipe – Moroccan Dinner

You may recall that, while in Paris this June, we dined at a little place called Au Bon Couscous near Notre Dame.

Au Bon Couscous

We enjoyed that meal so much that we hoped to figure out how to recreate it.  I got some plain couscous from the bulk section at Sprouts and looked up a Moroccan Stew to accompany it.  I still think the recipe needs some tweaking (theirs was more broth and a little thicker), but this is pretty damn close.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of crushed garlic
1 large carrot, diced (I used two)
1 large red pepper, chopped (I may also add a poblano pepper next time)
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp ground cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground turmeric
1-1/2 cup vegetable stock (I might make it 2 or more cups for more broth next time)
1 cup chopped tomato, canned or fresh (I used a portion of a can to get one cup, but next time I may just add the whole can for added broth)
2 cups cooked chickpeas (I didn’t know what they meant by cooked, so I sprayed a pan with olive oil cooking spray and lightly fried them in it until they were slightly browned.)
1 medium chopped zucchini (I didn’t have any!)
½ cup black olives (I used sliced)
approx. 1 tbsp lemon juice
salt to taste

Directions:

1.  In a good size Dutch oven (I used my Martha Stewart cast iron casserole pot) fry the onion, garlic, carrot, pepper and celery in the olive oil for 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Add all the dry spices and stir-fry this for 1 minute more.
3. To this add the stock and the tomatoes; simmer for 10-15 minutes.
4. Then add the chickpeas, zucchini and the olives, bring to a simmer, cover and cook until the zucchini is cooked, probably another 10-15 minutes.  Add lemon juice, taste, and serve.

Yummy!

I let mine simmer much longer than this suggests, hoping that the flavors would meld a little better.  Plus, Eric wasn’t home yet, so I wanted to keep it warm.

We spooned in a little Lee Kum Kee brand Chili Garlic Sauce to taste when we served ourselves and it added some yummy spiciness to the dish.

With Chili Garlic Sauce mixed in

This would be a great dish for the cold months, but maybe not the best to have right now while we are having a triple-digit heat wave in Southern California.  It is really simple to make and yields a lot, but would be easy to double and freeze for the future.  I imagine that this would be a good dish to serve many people because they could choose the portion sizes of each ingredient to their individual taste.

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