The other day I was bored (read procrastinating) at work and I started Googling Moroccan recipes, twenty minutes later I decided that for the dinner party we were throwing on Saturday I just HAD to go Moroccan.
While I had already mastered the chicken tagine, I decided to make it again as a) its crazy easy, and b) I had all of the ingredients I needed. I did decide to add golden raisins to the boiling chicken stock when I made the couscous. Which was super tasty and a really easy way to make the couscous fancy.
I had thought about also making a chicken pastilla, which is one of my most favorite Moroccan dishes with the layers of chicken and phyllo and almonds, topped with powered sugar. However on Saturday we had a ton going on and the thought of making it was stressing me out. So I skipped it.
Instead I made a collection of small moroccan salads, which were all fresh and delicious. I started with a quick tomato salad as I had heirloom cherry tomatoes going bad in the fridge. I cut them into quarters and discarded the seeds. Then I tossed with the juice of one lemon and a little salt and pepper.
I then made another cold salad of 6 sliced Persian cucumbers which were tossed with; 4 tablespoons of sugar, 4 tablespoons of vinegar, 4 tablespoons of olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon of thyme and marjoram.
I then did two hot salads, one with carrots and one with eggplant. While I tweaked the recipes for the tomato and cucumbers salads (mostly because I lacked a few ingredients for each) , I was able to follow recipes for the other two perfectly. Both were super delicious and could be made along side any dish to make it a little fancier.
While I spent a lot of time chopping veggies none of these recipes took very much time, and you could absolutely prep ahead of time and then throw it all together and look like a total domestic goddess (which is generally how I like people to see me!)