Recipe: Endo-Friendly Moroccan Chicken & Lemon Cous-Cous

As some of you will know each week we make a meal plan so that we can keep our food costs down and also get everything in one shop rather than going to and fro all week for things we need.
Monday is meal plan & shopping day, so I usually spend the better part of the morning doing a quick inventory of the freezer and cupboards to see what we've got, then coming up with meals for the week. Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays tend to be my favourite days to cook something new as those are my days off and I can generally spend more time preparing an exciting meal.

Since starting the Endo Diet food has lost some of its appeal to us, which is a little depressing. As much as I enjoyed being inventive at first, trying to come up with exciting new ways to present what is essentially chicken or turkey and veg has become a bit of a chore. So yesterday I made an extra effort to come up with meals that sounded full of flavour and was really quite pleased with myself when I fell upon a recipe for Moroccan Chicken & Lemon Cous-Cous! Not only did it sound delicious, it was also an opportunity to attempt cooking with bone-in chicken thighs. For those who don't know me that well, I have never even eaten food with bones in before unless it was a surprise and in all occassions I stopped eating as soon as I found out. Something about it freaks me out. But in the name of money saving and on a quest for flavourful foods, I took a deep breath and jumped right in to this new experiment.

I had a little waver upon seeing them at the shop and another upon seeing the bones at first at home, but after seeing the price I pushed through. £4 got us 1.1kg of chicken thighs! To put that into context; the packets of 450g of chicken breast are also £4, so we got almost 3 times the meat for the same price. So on the back of last nights' success, I've been convinced to try AFC (Ami Fried Chicken!) using chicken wings or drumsticks in future. I'm a bone-in convert...for chicken at least!

And so on to the recipe...

Serves: 2-4

Ingredients:

4-8 Bone-in Chicken Thighs

2-4tsp Turmeric

1-2tbsp Garam Masala

Pinch of Salt

Sunflower Oil

1 Onion, finely sliced

1-2 Garlic Cloves, finely sliced

500ml Chicken Stock

Juice from 1 Lemon

125-250g Gluten Free Cous Cous

Parsley to garnish

Method:

1. Heat some oil in a large pan, coat the chicken thighs in half the spices and place skin-down in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn and cook for another 2 minutes before removing them from the pan.

2. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and fry until golden.

3. Add in the remaining spices and cook for another minute. (I forgot to do this bit and it still turned out yummy!)

4. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil, before placing the chicken back in the pan skin side up.

5. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer for 35-40 minutes. (I didn't cover it and the stock concentrated down nicely, but I did have to add more water in later for the cous cous to cook.)

6. Remove the chicken and take the pan off the heat.

7. Stir in the lemon juice a cous-cous, topping up water if necessary, then leave to stand for 5 minutes/until the cous cous is cooked through.

8. Fluff through the cous cous and place the chicken back on top.

9. Garnish with parsley and serve!

I forgot to take a picture of our meal last night so this picture is taken from the recipe!