Cous Cous Anyone?

A very long time ago, my husband began buying pre-prepared cous-cous at Trader Joe's. He was taking it to work for lunch everyday, despite his co-workers teasing him relentlessly. "Is that all you eat for lunch?" they would say. "Pretty much," he would reply.

My daughter overheard him tell his cous-cous story and she told him he should have me make it for him. "It's so cheap to make, Mom", she said, "and so easy." I thought I was doing well to go to the store and buy him the ready made kind, but then after giving it some thought, I decided to try. Wow! It couldn't have been simpler, and much better than the store bought kind, if I do say so myself.

If you can't eat wheat, you can subsitute the cous-cous with Quinoa.

All you do is add one cup of lemon juice to one cup of chicken broth and six tablespoons of olive oil and bring it to a boil, add two cups of dry cous-cous to the boiling liquid, turn the flame off, cover with a lid and let sit for 5 minutes. That's right, just five minutes and it's done. Then the fun part begins. You can literally add everything you like, except the kitchen sink.


I like to rinse canned black beans in a strainer and canned corn, as well, and add it to the cooked cous-cous. I chop red, yellow & orange peppers (one of each) and add them next. I add a small jar of sun dried tomatoes, drained, some chopped red onions, chopped basil, one cup of cherry tomatoes cut in half and salt & pepper for added flavor. Subsituting basil with cilantro is also very good.

This big bowl of cous-cous will feed my husband lunch for a week. Best of all, he loves it and brags about me to his co-workers when they tease him about eating cous-cous everyday.