Chicken, Squash and Chickpea Traybake

I fancied making something quick and simple for tea tonight, and something that would provide a simple lunch for tomorrow into the bargain. This certainly fitted the bill.

Serves two for supper and two for lunch the following day.

Ingredients

300g of diced Chicken Breasts

1 Large Butternut Squash peeled, de-seeded and chopped into 1cm dice

1 Green Pepper chopped into 2cm chunks

1 400g can of Chickpeas, drained

Handful of Cherry Tomatoes or 3 larger tomatoes, diced

1 medium sized onion (red would be best) sliced into half-rounds

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 sprigs of rosemary

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

Salt and Pepper

Method

Put everything into a roasting tray, as large as possible you want to have everything in a single layer if possible.

Put roasting tray into an over 180C for 40 minutes, give everything a toss and turn after 20 minutes.

Serve with a minty yoghurt dressing, or just lemon juice. A green salad would be a nice addition as well.

Goat and Chickpea Stew

The second in a series of recipes invented to use up a small glut of under ripe tomatoes from the garden. In this case we had had a very tasty half-leg of goat slow roasted after being rubbed with a paste of garlic, pepper and rosemary and had some left over. Goat is like lean lamb and I could have made a curry, or shredded it for wraps but instead decided on this ragu which was very nice with saffron rice.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

A generous pile of left over roast goat (or lamb or beef) cubed.

1 400g can of chickpeas, drained

250g of unripe tomatoes (you could use ripe ones but you would then need the juice of a lemon at the end to balance the flavours) diced.

2 medium onions thinly sliced into half moon rings

2 garlic cloves crushed

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 stick of cinnamon 

500ml of stock (I used mushroom as that was the cube that came to hand)

Method

Preheat the over to 160c

Fry the onions and garlic in a splash of oil in a over proof casserole dish. A the tomatoes and fry for a few minutes. Add the cubed meat and fry for a few more minutes. Then add the spices, the chickpeas and the stock. Bring to the boil, cover the casserole with foil. This will keep the steam in. Put in the oven and bake for an hour and a half.