Well-written blogs are all alike. Every poorly-written blog is poorly-written in its own way.

And Couscoussou is, without question, destined to be badly- and irregularly-written in a quite original way.

Couscoussou is the old French name for cous cous and I liked it as a blog title because it melded the North African and French cuisine I love. (Plus it's just a generally very pretty word.) And I had originally intended to start things off with my favourite couscous dish as would be appropriate, but that just ain't happening today. I've been given two days off in lieu for having been pounded with some very long hours over the last few weeks - I'm just about to head out to check out Burning Books, which sells 2nd hand Japanese books, then I'm off to Carlton to get my NSW drivers licence transferred to Victoria, then I'm heading to the markets to get some snapper for a pilaf which I'm making for dinner.

As delicious compensation for absence of cous cous from opening post, I thought I'd start off proceedings with my mother's recipe for Corn Cakes with Roasted Tomatoes, which I made a couple of Sundays ago when the first thing Fat Boy said upon opening his eyes was "can you make those corn cakes your mum does?". Which earnt him serious brownie points in the good-boyfriend stakes.



Corn Cakes with Roasted Tomatoes a la Mere (serves 2, generously)

Mix together:
4 beaten eggs
2/3 cup flour
tin corn kernels, drained
one crumbled chicken stock cube
1 tsp mixed dried herbs
salt & pepper to taste
chopped shallots

This should be a very thick batter which is not at all runny - the idea is that you can put a blob of it in the pan and it won't run all over the place.

Halve 4 roma tomates, place cut-side-up in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic and sprinkle with salt, pepper and a little brown sugar. Roast in a medium oven for 25 min or until soft, squishy and caramelised on top.

Shallow fry large spoonfuls of the batter in butter until golden and cooked through - note that the density of the batter means that you have to cook them longer at a lower heat than you would normal pancakes.

Serve corncakes piled on plates topped with roasted romatoes and shredded basil. Orange juice, coffee and crossword on the side.