This is the last dinner I will make for a while because I leave for camp on Saturday (I will be away at camp for 5 weeks and then away for another 2 weeks travelling with my family in Switzerland…but I will try to at least review some Swiss restaurants for the website.)

Anyway because Max is still away at camp, I made a dish that I love but he dislikes: Pearl Couscous with Chicken and Peas. It reminds me of making paella because even though there are a lot of steps, it’s pretty simple.  Because there are so many steps, its important to get all the ingredients chopped and ready to go before you start cooking.  This is called mise en place (that means “putting everything in its place”).  The ingredients are chopped garlic, chopped onions, quartered plum tomatoes, saffron, chicken, peas, chicken broth, white wine (optional), couscous and lemon zest.  So I chopped everything that needed to be chopped and measured everything out.

Then I sauteeed the pearl couscous in a pan with olive oil until it was light brown. (The olive oil I used is really good: its home made from Greece! A patient of my dad gave it to him and I love cooking with it.) So after I removed the couscous, I browned the chicken.  Then I had to take the chicken out and add onions, garlic, tomatoes and saffron.   That all had to cook until the tomatoes were soft — I added a little white wine so the onions wouldn’t burn.  Then the chicken, chicken broth and couscous went back in and simmered on low till the couscous had soaked up all the chicken broth.  At the very end I stirred in frozen peas.  Delish!

For dessert we just had chocolate chip cookies.  I had made them the day before but saved some cookie dough so we could have warm ones today.  There is nothing better than a warm chocolate chip cookie!