Monday night was the first challenge – will the recipe I selected be liked by the family?

Spicy and Sweet Chicken and Couscous Pot with Minty Cilantro Sauce

One of the main ingredients in this dish was one I have only eaten once and have never cooked/prepared – couscous.  I was also curious to find out how Zander would react to this weird looking food.

The recipe was fairly easy to prepare but I was still curious about how the couscous would turn out.  I diced the chicken and sauteed it in some lovely fragrant spices.  Added onion and red pepper slices and let everything cook.  Finally, I added the mango chutney broth and couscous, covered the pan and let it cook.  While this finished cooking, I made the cilantro sauce.  This was fairly easy to make but I didn’t have any mint – so instead of having minty cilantro sauce, we just had cilantro sauce.  The kitchen timer went off and it was time to see how the dish turned out.  While the dish looked boring (all ingredients were white or brown except for the red pepper) the flavors were exciting.

The outcome  – great success!  Dinner wasn’t too spicey and everyone loved it.  It did take me a little longer than 30 minutes to prepare the dish but I think it was because I decided to start prepping food for later in the week.