Sausages with Chakchouka (plus a peculiar deconstructed banoffee pie)

This is a super-quick post to tell you about an easy, wintery mid-week supper.

It was inspired by something in Rick Stein's lovely Mediterranean Escapes book - a recipe for a Moroccan dish called Chakchouka. Chakchouka is a little warm salad-y dish that would probably be served with some nice flatbread but tonight I used it as a saucy foil for some spicy sausages and basmati rice.

Spicy sausages with Chakchouka 

4/6 sausages for 2 - depends how peckish you are! 

2 peppers (Rick says green but I only had red)

3 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

Half teaspoon cayenne

1.5 teaspoons cumin

A handful of good cherry tomatoes or a tin of tomatoes if you can't find any tasty fresh ones

Bunch of coriander roughly chopped

Oil for frying

Blacken the peppers on the hob top (extractor fan useful here). Get the sausages into the oven on a medium heat. Crush the garlic and fry off in a little olive oil. After a minute add the cumin, cayenne and paprika and fry for a minute or two. Add the tomatoes and simmer on a low heat so the tomatoes break down a little. Run the peppers under the tap rubbing away the blackened skin. Roughly chop the peppers and add into the tomato mixture along with the coriander. Simmer on a low heat for another 10 minutes.

When your sausages are crusty and delicious take them out of the oven and slice diagonally. Serve on a pile of fluffy basmati with a heap of the Chakchouka.

PS. I also made a slightly weird pudding tonight - I had some old bananas to use up so I thought I'd try a sort of rudimentary deconstructed Banoffee Pie...I just crumbled a couple of digestive biscuits into a bowl and then topped it with spoonfuls of marscapone, a shamefully ready-made caramel sauce and a sliced banana.

As the Russian Meerkat would say..."simples".

And actually really tasty.