Summer Slow Cooker recipe on a rainy Tuesday…

I had a quick look in my fridge on this rainy day in July & spied some chicken thighs, (although not as many as I had hoped, as my middle son had cooked some for his bait this week) a few stray veg & a jar of Rose Harissa, in addition to this there were larder staples of tinned tomatoes, garlic, onion & a packet of cooked puy lentils. ‘There’s a tasty meal here’ I thought! Out with the slow cooker, taking the opportunity to chuck it all in a pan then leave for later is something I have grown to appreciate over the years with a busy family, I had a short gap between the school run & football. So it went a bit like this…

Moroccan Harissa Chicken & Lentils

Ingredients:

1 x Onion roughly chopped

3 x Garlic cloves roughly chopped

2 x carrots sliced- optional

2 x celery sticks chopped- optional

1 x Good tablespoon Rose Harissa (I used Bezalu)

4 x Chicken thighs fillets (no bone or skin)/ or breast your choice

1 x 400g Can Chopped Tomatoes/ or pasata

1 x 250g Pouch of Puy Lentils (I used Merchant Gourmet)/ or dried green lentils

Sea salt & Black pepper

Additional to taste or to your liking- Lemon juice/ chopped dried apricots/ chickpeas…to make this plant based just omit the chicken, really tasty without.

Method:

I have a slow cooker with an insert pan which allows me to start on the hob, if it didn’t I wouldn’t be bothered, totally chuck everything in and just close the lid, as I had a few minutes spare I put the pan onto a moderate heat with a little coconut oil & in went the onion, garlic, carrots & celery as I chopped, then a little sea salt & a grind of black pepper with the harissa. Lastly I transferred to the slow cooker, popped in the can of tomatoes with a little extra water (swilled the can out maybe about half full)

Cooked on:

Low- 6hrs

Medium- 4hrs

High-2-3hrs

I served this with some crusty sourdough which was hanging around but equally thought it would be good with a baked or mashed sweet potato. If you try it let me know…