Yet another last minute ingeniunity… LOL! I was inspired by a dish from Danielle of Mayple Syrup and Poutine made at our last cooking club meeting (the theme was Arabian Nights, hosted by Amarjot). Her contribution was a side dish made with roasted cherry tomatoes and Israeli couscous. I did not have any Israeli couscous handy, so I made my modified version with wholewheat couscous instead.
This dish paired nicely with breaded chicken cutlets from Quorn to complete my semi-homemade dinner.
I made too much couscous, so there will be extra for me tomorrow for lunch/dinner. Anyhow, I really should have made 1 cup of couscous for this dish. Also, it would had been nice to add some chopped cilantro and roasted pine nuts as well. O’ well…
Ingredients
- 1 cup wholewheat couscous
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut lengthwise
- 1 sweet bell pepper (red, yellow or orange), julienned
- 7oz pitted kalamata olives
- 1/3 cup roasted pine nuts (optional)
- 1/4 chopped red onions (optional)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice (more if desired)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- A pinch of paprika
- A few cracks of Trader Joe’s Lemon Pepper or grind of 1 lemon (optional)
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Cook couscous according to package instructions using vegetable broth instead of water.
- Toss cut tomatoes and bell pepper with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven at 400F degree for about 20-30mins or until semi-charred. Stir the tomatoes and bell peppers once or twice while in the oven.
- Once couscous, tomatoes and bell peppers are ready, toss all the remaining ingredients in a mixing bowl. Drizzle more olive oil if mixture is too dry.
