Moroccan Red Lentil Stew With Couscous, and Andre Rieu on my telly again.

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Last night's dinner was Moroccan Red Lentil stew with couscous. This was something I hadn't tried before so it was kind of an experiment, and I was quite looking forward to it. Usually in the cookbooks they put that it serves more than one person so I took this into account and reduced the amount of all the ingredients by half. I put out all the ingredients before hand ready. I used the multicoloured measuring cups that I got from Tesco the other week. Most of the ingredients went in little plastic pots that had once been little dessert pots from Tesco. We keep them after the dessert has been eaten exactly for this reason. All except the lemon zest. First I put out the frozen items that needed to thaw, onion, butternut squash and cauliflower florets. Then I grated some lemon zest into a bowl. Then I cut up carrots, and 2 cloves of garlic. I put out some herbs, coriander, cumin, turmeric and cinnamon in one pot and ginger in another. And I put out the lentils and the couscous. I timed everything so that everything would be finished together and nothing would go cold. I warmed up some oil in a pan and added the ginger, sauted that for a couple of minutes, then the vegetables went in. While the vegetables were doing I did the lentils. They both then simmered for about 20 minutes. Then I put the lentils in with the vegetables to do for a few more minutes while I did the couscous in the same pan the lentils had been in. I served out the vegetables and lentils first and then put the couscous on the side. I added parsley for garnish. But, there was a bit too much couscous. I had already halved it from the amount in the recipe, but I guess I'm going to have to halve it again next week. I've noted that down anyway. But it was delicious! I loved it, and it was definitely worth the wait. It was very filling, and I couldn't eat all that couscous, but it was lovely. Also last night Andre Rieu was on twice on Sky Arts, at 8:00pm and 9:00pm. The 8:00pm one was called California Dreaming, and in that one, one of the sopranos, Carmen, was pregnent. The second one at 9:00pm was a brand new episode called There's No Place Like Home and it was all about the concerts that he does on the Vrijthof square in Andre Rieu's home town of Maastricht. In this episode another one of his sopranos was pregnant! In both episodes they showed you how they adjusted the dresses to accommodate the growing baby bumps. And both episodes showed us a picture of each baby when they were born! Also in the second episode they were celebrating 25 years since Andre Rieu recorded The Second Waltz and it became a hit. So he had The Maastricht Dance Company to come on and dance to it in beautiful Cinderella type light blue dresses. First they showed you the practice, and then as it actually happened on the night on the Vrijthof in Maastricht! All in all it was a great day.