Food Friday: Couscous Patties x Ratatouille

Do you know these days, when you come home and just want to chop and cook? Yeah, that was Monday night when I came home from work and was lusting after burgers. You'd say: How, you've just had some last friday! Well, yeah, but I was lusting after VEGETABLE burgers, the ones, which a good-friend's-mum made out of millet. This time I didn't have millet, so I did some with couscous. 

Sitting in the kitchen and talking to a friend I've just started chopping up some vegetables and the night ended up having friends over who stayed and a big meal with more additions like ratatouille and stir-fried chicken. Haha, I felt like a mum feeding all her kids, but why not? Cooking is just so much fun for me, I want to share with everyone :) Click for the recipe!

Ingredients:

For the patties you'll need:
Couscous x 3 small cups
Carrots x 2, zucchini x1 , onion x 1,
Eggs x2
Oats
Salt, pepper and herbs.
Optional: sunflower seeds, soy yogurt

Cook the couscous (I never follow the instructions, I always do 1 cup couscous to 2 cups hot water and let it sit, I'd do it with millet, quinoa and rice as well), cut up all the vegetables in really really tiny slices or pieces. Add everything together and mix. Mix in one egg for stickiness or do it with soy yogurt. I did both to just try out, I think next time I'll do it without eggs. It's actually vegan then! Plus for a healthy meal!

Shape some burgers out of the vegetable and couscous 'dough'. 
Tip: Do flat ones because then they'll fry faster in the pan. You do not want to have raw egg in your patties ;-) 

Fry the burgers with some canola oil in the pan, maybe 10 minutes, not longer. Due to the fact that I do not like fried food as much because it's just super fatty, I try to do at least as possible. Then put the burgers in the oven and let them finish cooking in there at about 200°C (380°F) for another 10minutes or so? Just try it out! 

For the ratatouille you'll need:
Canned tomatoes x 1
Leeks
Onion
Broccoli
Peppers or just any vegetable you like.

Set up a pot, pour in some oil, heat up some onions, add half a cup of water and then let the vegetables cook a bit. Step by step of course ;-) When the vegetables are cooked a bit, add the canned tomatoes and season everything up! 

For the chicken:
Canola oil,
pumpkin seeds,
cut up chicken pieces.

I'd say heat up the oil, stir the seeds a bit, stir-fry the chicken in the pan and add seasoning like pepper, salt and spice up with paprika and herbs.

There you go, you'll have a whole meal with vegetables, carbs and proteins. I'd say pretty healthy, huh? My friends enjoyed it a lot and I think it was pretty good as well!

Note: Some of these recipes, I did it the first time, haha =D So that's why my descriptions are not as detailed like other recipes in which they'd say: add 10g of this and that.. Just use your taste buds, guts, your senses, your intuition or whatsoever! 

And always:

Have fun cooking! ♥