Roasted Vegetable Couscous
Couscous is one of those controversial dishes between the sexes. Women love it, men fear it. But the following recipe is one size fits all. Women adore it and men actually love it, it’s a proper manly grain dish. You can use any of the derivatives including wholegrain, spelt, rice and maize couscous.
Roasted vegetable couscous
1 500g packet of couscous
1 red, green and yellow pepper
2 large carrots
2 red onions
1 courgette
Bouillon powder1 x head of garlic
olive oil, salt and pepper
What you do:
Cut the veg into bite size chunks, now please show a little finesse here. Not door-stops, slice into appealing shapes. Separate the cloves of garlic, nick the skin and throw into the roasting dish with the veg. Coat the lot in olive oil, don’t be shy as you can use any flavoursome excess for the dressing, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast at 200 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until the edges are browning.
Take out the garlic cloves and slip off the skins, a tongs will stop that painful burning feeling you are now experiencing in your fingertips……. Put the resulting garlic paste in your dressing bowl/jam jar. At this point make your couscous. Add 1 pint/ 600 ml of BOILING water with the appropriate amount of stock powder/cube dissolved in it, OR 1 pint/ 600 ml of boiling homemade vegetable stock (Hi Martha) to the couscous, stir briefly and cover with a tea towel. Stand for 5 minutes, fluff with a fork and then add the roasted veg.
Make your dressing by adding the following to your awaiting garlic paste, then throwing into the couscous and mixing through…
Asian style:
Chopped fresh coriander
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
5 tablespoons of sunflower oil
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 teaspoon of honey
Optional extras: roasted cashew nuts or roasted sesame seeds, extra coriander, more dressing
Mediterranean style:
Chopped fresh basil
4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of sugar or more to taste
optional extras: roasted pine nuts, extra basil, extra dressing.
Enjoy!
