Couscous bake.

This is one of Angelata's specialties - and a favourite with the vegans of our system. The only problem, says Angelata, is that people keep adding fish and chicken pieces to it!

I want to say hello, but I feel a little shy. I have a bad reputation in this system because I'm not particularly likable. It makes me sad sometimes that Gray doesn't like me much, and I feel guilty about the way I sneakily get attention and love from him, coming in under the radar, you know, when he's with someone he does like. I hope that one day we'll be friends. Anyway, I did a lot of the cooking when we travelled around Australia because we travelled with my friend Andrew who is also a vegan. Since we moved to Bugsplat the vegans in our system have lost a lot of power and I rarely cook any more, but this dish is one I invented one night here. Unfortunately, we often have it with fish pieces and chicken, but I prefer it when we follow the original idea using big pieces of zuchinni that provide lots of natural juice to the dish. Here's the recipe - or rather - here's my ramble about how I make it.

An onion is quartered and split along it's natural lines so as to form petal-like flakes one layer of onion thick. These are spread out as the base in a baking dish. The dish I use is glass and it works well. Tomato and mushroom and capsicum are likewise cut into bite size pieces. Generous drizzles of olive oil are added at this stage as well as rosemary, thymne, dried chilli flakes, and black pepper; and then the dish is tossed with a fork. Big pieces of zuchinni are added to the top - they will retain their shape and bleed their juice steadily. We slice them diagonally so they are about 1.4cm thick and 10 - 12 cm long and 6-7cm wide. If you have baby zuchinni you can have them whole, just top and tailed and if you have smallish ones they can be halved along the length. After 40 minutes at 180 degrees we take it out and check that the tomato has disintergrated and that there is enough juice to add the couscous. It depends somewhat on the zuchinni. There should be an inch deep of juice or more. If there's not enough we add a small quantity of white wine and return it to the oven for a few minutes before adding the couscous. The couscous needs just enough juice to swell, no more. It is a matter of experienced judgement. I'm not a cook who follows recipes. We return it to the oven for another five minutes or so and then check it again.
If it looks ready, it's done, I say.
Thank you for reading.