Lunchtime: unequivocally the best part of the day. But could it be better? Yes sir, it can. You don’t have to spend gobs of money going out, but you also shouldn’t be packing the same peanut butter sandwich year in and year out; there is a middle way. The path to becoming a lunch box buddha isn’t so hard. All you need is a good balance of inspiration and improvisation. Every week, we’ll make one or two packable recipes so that you have something new to fill your lunch box and your stomach.
Before we dive into the food portion of this week’s lunchbox adventure, I want to take a minute to talk some more about rain. Knowing how much I hate rain and how much I love language, one of my co-workers sent me a link to a website about all the Galician words for and about rain. You know how They say Eskimos have thousands of words for snow? (They’re wrong, by the way.) Well, Galicians aren’t so far off. Por ejemplo, they have 75 nouns for rain (38 of which refer to this special kind of obnoxious, thin drizzle that’s particular to here) and 33 different verbs.
But enough with the rain talk! It’s been glorious here for the past week and I’ve never been so happy to see then sun. This week we’re making couscous, a food I’ve never had before because I can be a little stubborn about food. Somewhere along the way, I’d gotten it into my head that I don’t like couscous (honestly, this is a really confusing thought to me because there are few things I enjoy eating more than pasta). But when my friend brought a couscous salad to a barbecue we had last weekend, I knew it was something I had to at least try. Lo and behold, it was delicious. I now bring you her no-fail recipe for couscous.
Tomato and Feta Couscous
via my friend, Julia
Ingredients:
500g couscous
500g water
salt
pepper
paprika
1 container of cherry tomatoes
2 stems of parsley
4 cloves of garlic
50g of feta cheese
olive oil
1/4 – 1/2 of a lemon
Instructions:
1. Bring the water to a boil, remove it from the heat and immediately add the couscous. It’s exactly that easy to make. Since it takes almost no time for the water to boil, you’ll want to measure out the couscous as soon as you put the water on the stove so that you don’t rush around trying to get exactly 500g when it starts bubbling.
2. Stir in the salt, pepper and paprika to your taste. I use roughly 1 t of each.
3. Grate, mince or chop the garlic and add it to the couscous.
4. Chop the tomatoes and parsley and add them to the couscous.
5. Crumble the feta cheese and throw it in.
6. Add olive oil and lemon juice to taste (I do about 2 T of olive oil and 1 T of lemon juice) and stir everything together.
+Storage and eating: Couscous is as ridiculously easy to save as it is to make. Store it in a sealed container in the fridge and you’ll be good for at least a week. The only negative is that I find that the couscous tends to get a little dry after a while, so I add a little extra olive oil when I get to work and it’s like new. This salad is also incredible topped with sweet potato falafel.
I love couscous salad! It really is the easiest thing to make. I usually make it with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, feta, chick peas, cumin, dried mint, coriander (as in coriander seeds, not cilantro) and lemon juice, but your recipe sounds very tasty too!
It’s pretty good with coriander (as in cilantro) too :P
I second this thing with cumin. Damn delicious.
Also, you can cook couscous in stuff like orange juice and chicken stock if you want some more flavah.
…and if you add some raisins and roasted red pepper you end up with my favourite supper during summertime. (I’d recommend using fresh mint if you can get your hands on it.)
This sounds amazing. I think I know what I’m getting at the grocery store this week.
I have made something very similar many time. I usually add some chick peas, black olives and asparagus too – but I like a lot of ‘stuff’ and I eat it as a warm meal. I’m going to try adding the lemon! Yum yum
This is even better with the addition of spring onions, cucumber and mint.
Couscous…the food so nice they named it twice! This recipe sounds delicious.
My newest meal is couscous, with lots of fried veg – leeks, pepper, olives, tomatoes and courgette normally. It’s so easy to make, and reheats really well so I make lots and eat it two days in a row.
I’ll totally be having couscous salad in the summer, especially eaten outside, with a cold glass of white wine.