Simple Couscous Salad

Going forward, I'll make an effort to highlight easy meal options for the busy parents. I will add keep adding to this list, which you can access by clicking on the 'Kid-friendly' label.

To give you an idea of what goes on in my kitchen, here is what I cooked this week:

Monday - Thai red curry with sauteed tofu and mixed vegetables. I bought all natural (as natural as it can get) red curry paste from the store. This dish was hardly any work after that. All I had to do was bring a can of coconut milk and red curry paste to a boil, add sauteed tofu and mixed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, red and yellow peppers, a couple of red radish) and cook for 3-4 minutes. Lots of chopped cilantro for garnishing, and it tasted great with some leftover peas pulao from the night before. 

My daughter ate cooked carrots, radish, peppers, and a little bit of tofu from the curry. 

Tuesday - Avocado and roasted red bell pepper grilled sandwich on multi-grain bread. Avocado is so creamy by itself, I didn't have to add any cheese. The girl ate avocado slices from my sandwich. 

Wednesday - Couscous salad with cucumber, tomato, and cilantro. Baby girl loved this couscous salad!

Thursday - Asian style salad with mixed greens, shredded carrots and broccoli (using leftover broccoli and carrots from Thai curry), tangerine, and peanut dressing. None of the ingredients were good for the baby - she ate some pear and avocado. 

Friday - Simple cabbage sabji with roti. Then we went out for dinner to kick off the weekend. Shreya loves eating fresh roti.

Saturday - Husband made a delicious pizza with kale pesto base, lots of veggies and cheese on top. Baby girl enjoyed picking out spinach off the top. 

I make variations of the couscous salad every time. And it always tastes great. This is the basic Mediterranean style salad to which you can add many other things. In addition to cucumber and tomato, you can have olives, black beans or chickpeas, diced peppers, diced zucchini, feta cheese, chopped spinach or basil etc. The simplest version is great as a light meal. Or you can eat it with a vegetable and beans stew or lentil soup. 

Couscous Salad with Cucumber & Tomato

Ingredients:

1 Cup uncooked couscous 

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 Small cucumber - diced (big or small depending on how you liked it)

1 Small tomato - diced

2 Tablespoons lemon juice 

Chopped cilantro for garnishing

Salt & pepper to taste

• Cook couscous according to the package instructions. Add olive oil and salt while cooking it. 
• Add pepper just before taking couscous off the heat. Take it out into a flat bowl, and fluff it up by running a fork through the couscous gently. 
• Once couscous cools down a little, add diced cucumber and tomato, sprinkle lemon juice, and mix well. 
• Garnish with cilantro. You can use your favorite herb, such as basil or parsley. 

Persian cucumbers taste the best in this recipe. You can use halved cherry tomatoes instead of regular tomatoes. They are bursting with juices and make the salad look pretty. Some toasted pine nuts or slivered almonds on top would be great for crunch. There, I just gave you a whole bunch of different permutations-combinations.

Lunch Club

Once every month or month and a half, a group of my colleagues and I get away from the cubicles at noon, take over one of the conference rooms, and instead of discussing statistical theories, enjoy delicious foods prepared by each other. We have a fun little Lunch Club, which has revealed many great cooks in the group. I can't tell you what feasts these gatherings turn into - we always struggle to get back to work while in food coma! It's nice not to worry about work for some time and talk about our lives outside of the office.

For this month's potluck, I made a simple make-ahead dish. It saved me the hassle of cooking early in the morning and worrying about how it would taste after reheating. A quick, tasty couscous salad which can be made ahead and served chilled.

Couscous, which is semolina flour rolled into little pearls, is softer and fluffier when cooked than semolina itself. I love all sorts of pilafs made with couscous, but my latest fad has been a cold salad with Mediterranean essentials and cranberries! I've eaten variants of this salad at many restaurants. This dish hardly requires any cooking skills; the only somewhat challenging part being the actual cooking of couscous. To make sure it doesn't become too clumpy and dense, I add a dash of oil to it while cooking. Also, it helps to be conservative with the amount of water. You can always add some warm water if the couscous is not cooked completely. And if you can help it, don't turn couscous vigorously - cooking in a non-stick pot on medium heat will help.

**Please note that the measurements in the recipe below are approximate. You can add as many or as little of the veggies/beans as you like.

Couscous Salad With Cranberries

Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups dry couscous - the smaller variety
Vegetable stock - optional
3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Small garlic cloves - minced
1 Small Persian cucumber - finely chopped
1 Small tomato - finely chopped
2 Scallions - thinly sliced
1/2 Cup cooked chickpeas
1/4 Cup dried cranberries and toasted almonds
2 Sprigs of basil - julienned
Juice from 1 lime
Salt & freshly cracked pepper to taste

• Cook couscous according to package instructions. For a more full bodied flavor, use half vegetable stock and half water in cooking. Also, salt it while cooking so it mixes more evenly. 
• Heat oil in a pot and add minced garlic and saute for a minute until golden brown. Add cooked couscous and turn gently. Then turn off the heat.
• Add all the veggies, chickpeas, cranberries, almonds and basil. Sprinkle juice from one lime, and season with cracked pepper to taste.
• Use a fork to mix everything together. This will fluff up the couscous while making sure it doesn't break.

You can dress up the salad with feta cheese. I find it very satisfying the way it is. The salad is not too heavy, but doesn't make you hungry just few minutes after eating it. My favorite part of the dish are cranberries that soak up lemon juice and excess moisture and become plump. Alternatively, you can add raisins or chopped dried apricots for that sweet, chewy bite. 

Blog Hopping

The blogging community has opened up a world of culinary possibilites. I bookmark about a dozen recipes every day and at least try to use an interesting technique, a new ingredient or get inspiration from them even if I can't go through them all. There are way too many awesome recipes to try and way too many great cooks to get to know for one lifetime. But the first blogger I came across about 5 years back while looking for Imperial Cold Drink House, and quickly realized the popularity of, was Nupur of One Hot Stove. Nupur is hugely popular in the blogging community, and it is very well deserved. She always has some delicious recipes and useful tips for her readers. And there are few who can write as beautifully as she does.

Her latest post talks about the mighty machines in our kitchen - food processors. It made me fall in love with the Ronald food processor my parents gifted me all over again. I can't thank this little helper of mine enough for making my life easier. I use it to knead dough when I have a large group of people to feed, make soups, chutneys, idly-dosa batters and a zillion other things. It was time to show it some love by making Nupur's red bell pepper pesto. What a fantastic recipe! I have used roasted red bell peppers in wraps, hummus, eggplant dips etc., but have never tried pesto with it. Coincidentally, I had also picked up a bunch of red bell peppers on sale from Sprouts the other day. Nupur's post came at the right time. With whatever substitutable ingredients on my hand, I made the pesto today. There was a fresh spring of basil in the garden - totally meant for pesto. The only nuts available in my pantry were almonds. They don't have an overpowering taste and blended in just perfectly. Husbby is raving about this pesto and I'm really pleased with the outcome as well. I'll surely be making this for a potluck or a party!

Updated image : I made this pesto without tomato and I think I like this better. 

Roasted Bell Pepper - Basil Pesto

Ingredients:
2 Large red bell peppers - roasted, peeled and seeded
1/2 Tomato (optional)
2 Garlic cloves
1/2 Cup almonds (you can also use a mix of almonds and cashews)
Basil - handful of leaves
1 Teaspoon paprika or to taste
Salt to taste

• Roast bell peppers using the technique I've mentioned here. Or simply use the bottled ones.
• Grind all the ingredients into a fine pesto. I omitted olive oil completely. The pesto tasted just perfect without it, but go ahead and add it if you like the taste. I didn't have any jalapeno. Paprika was a good substitute for smoky heat. 

We enjoyed the pesto with some chips. I'll probably be spreading the leftovers over a slice of bread tomorrow. 

Hors d'œuvre

My healthy eating habits have taken a back seat since getting married. Both of us tend to binge on food since my hubby has a personal chef now and I, a personal guinea pig ;). A can of pitted black olives, meant for healthy sandwiches and salads, had been sitting in a corner in my pantry and it was about time I gave it a happy ending. And happy it sure was. I had fallen in love with tapenade after trying it at a local beach-side restaurant. The beautiful view of the ocean may have added to the taste, but this salty-savory hors d'oeuvre holds its own. Tapenade is a Mediterranean condiment/spread with crushed olives, capers and olive oil. The dish I tried was a sandwich which used tapenade just as a spead, but I made a sandwich using just that. This is a great spread for garlic bread, wheat crackers or even pizzas!



Tapenade Sandwich

Olive shaped tapenade

Black Olive Tapenade

Ingredients
1 6oz. Can pitted black olives
2-3 Teaspoons capers
1 Clove garlic
2 Teaspoons dried parsley - use fresh if you have it
1/2 - 1 Teaspoons red chili flakes
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

• Wash and drain the olives
• Toss the olives, capers, garlic, parsley and red chili flakes in the mortar and crush/pound well adding a little bit of olive oil in between. The olives start secreting oil as you crush them so I went easy on OO. Crush it as fine as you like.
• Capers are salty so I didn't find any need to add salt.
• I used white sandwich bread to make a tapenade sandwich and grilled it, choose your favorite.
• You can make this in the food processor as well, but I personally like the taste developed by getting all the oils out in the mortar.

This dish can be made with all sorts of olives. You can get creative and add your favorite herbs. This made for a tasty evening snack!

Med-ley

My husband and I recently visited a new Mediterranean restaurant after reading outstanding reviews online. We were really excited to go there but were hugely disappointed in the food. It's rare that you get bad hummus in a Mediterranean restaurant. So to make up for the bad experience, I decided to cook my own Mediterranean Dinner! So here I'm presenting you with two recipes.

I've made hummus many times before but never with roasted garlic. And I must say, I made a pretty kick-ass hummus compared to the one we had in the restaurant. Now, there's a story as to why I am mentioning that restaurant but I won't get into it now. Let's just say, I had to please my own ego! Nevertheless, I love hummus and this one came out pretty well.

Roasted Garlic & Sun-dried Tomatoes Hummus

Ingredients:

1 Can (~16 oz.) garbanzo beans – cooked

2 Tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste)

2-2 ½ Tablespoons olive oil

1 Garlic head (whole bulb)

Sundried tomatoes (I used about 15 dried tomato halves)

Paprika or red chili powder per taste

Splash of lemon juice

Salt to taste

Water as necessary

• Roast 1 small to medium sized garlic head. You can use a traditional oven to roast the garlic, but I just used one of those lean meat grills instead and it did a great job. To roast, peal the outer layer of the garlic leaving a thin layer of skin on. Cut the top off the garlic so the cloves are exposed. Brush a little bit of oil and roast the garlic until brown and soft. The roasted garlic is very aromatic and not as pungent as the raw one. Once cooled down, peel the cloves.
• Drain the garbanzo beans from the can. I always wash the canned beans to get rid of all the extra sodium.
• Toss all the ingredients except for lemon juice in a blender/food processor. Add about ¼ cup of water and blend until you have a smooth paste. I left it a bit grainy because that’s how my husband likes it. You may need to add a little more water if the paste is too thick and difficult to blend.
• Add a splash of lemon juice, just enough to bring out the sourness of the tomatoes, and mix well.
• Sprinkle a pinch of paprika for presentation and serve with your favorite pita bread. 

I made my own version of couscous taking inspiration from some classic recipes I've tried before.

Lemon-Spinach Couscous

Ingredients:

1 Cups original(plain) couscous

1 Cup fresh chopped spinach

3 Cloves of crushed garlic

¼ Cup finely chopped onion

1 ½ - 2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1/2 Cup finely chopped cucumber

Red chili powder to taste

Salt to taste

• Cook couscous according to the instructions on the box. It cooks pretty quickly.
• In a pan, heat oil and sauté chopped onion and garlic cloves until golden brown.
• Add spinach and sauté for a couple of minutes on medium heat.
• Season with some red chili powder and salt. It helps to season before adding the couscous so the seasoning is distributed evenly.
• Add couscous, sprinkle lemon juice, mix and cook together for 3-4 minutes on low heat.
• Turn off the heat and add cucumber to the dish. The cucumber should not cook but the heat from the couscous will soften it just a bit. Cucumber was a random addition because I had a small piece I wanted to finish. It tasted amazing! It paired well with the refreshing lemon juice and added a nice crunchy bite.

This dinner turned out well. We ended up eating more than we needed to..it might have had something to do with one whole bottle of wine we finished but that’s another story :D.