Baked couscous with chicken and spices

As I'm now into "due date territory" this week's menu planning revolved around things that were pretty easy to make, specifically so that they could be done either whilst heavily pregnant or with a newborn in the house. 

I picked up my copy of Nigel Slater's Real Cooking
to look up a particular pasta recipe that we've done a few times now and whilst I had it out I managed to find a few others that looked simple enough – one being baked couscous with chicken and spices. What appealed about this recipe is that while there is a little bit of preparation most of the cooking is very hands off, meaning that it could take care of itself in the oven whilst we got Little Miss C to bed.

The chicken is tossed in a mixture of crushed garlic cloves, olive oil, chilli flakes, ground cinnamon and curry powder and then left for twenty minutes before being baked in the oven. The couscous is soaked, some sultanas mixed in and that it too is baked in the oven. The two are combined just before the end and then served with some chopped fresh mint leaves sprinkled over the top. 

Despite all that time in the oven the dish managed to retain a good amount of moisture and the chicken wasn't at all dry as I feared it might be. There was also a good amount of kick in the spices without it being overpowering at all. We served it with some tapas style chargrilled vegetables in oil that has been leftover from a weekend meal and the combination worked really well.

I've definitely flagged this recipe as one to do again, especially if we want something that doesn't involve much preparation or hands-on cooking. It may well appear again in my meal planning once Baby C is here.