what to do with couscous

[Titania]

need inspiration please??? I dont like peppers and dh doesnt like spicy stuff and neither of us like anything creamy. We bought a bag of it the other day in a mad mometn thinking we should be healthy (conveniently forgetting about the crisps and dips and chocolate that we hiding in the bottom of the trolley.....not WHO put them in there?!?! ) TIA ladies

My boys like it mixed up with bits of broccoli, cheese, tuna, whatever, not v authentic but healthy

the salad recipe is wonderful

also the couscous crust for salmon

or goes really well with lamb

I was also going to say you can do it with lamb

or completely inauthentically with tuna and chickpeas

if you think of it as being like a cereal thing like rice, but more filling, you can do it with anything you can do rice with IYSWIM

we usually do ours with lemon juice, olive oil, tomato, parsley, cucmber.

However if you are serving it instead of rice with say chilli, just add a knob of butter and some pepper

It's great with grilled tuna (or any grilled fish), chicken etc. Try salmon poached in a bit of lemon, butter, glug of white wine, serve with couscous and a big crunchy salad - yumyum.

we'll convert you to couscous yet

it's cheap
it's filling
it keeps forever
and is easy to cook

what more could you want

erm.....a meal that cooks itself cos I'm too tired?!?!?

I like Annabel Karmel's chicken with couscous - one of ds1's favourites for lunch (and we managed to wean him off supernoodles in favour of it, so it must be good!)

Ingredients
15g butter
25g chopped onion
25g frozen peas
175ml chicken stock
65g quick-cooking couscous
50g diced cooked chicken

Melt the butter in a saucepan and sauté the onion until softened but not coloured. Stir in the frozen peas, pour over the stock, bring to the boil and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the couscous, remove from the heat, cover and set aside for 6 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork and mix in the diced chicken.

that's called - a takeaway - or McD's drive thru!

the salmon thing sounds great....apart from the fact I am allergic to it

If you've got left over veg, make up the couscous with veg stock (cube is fine) instead of water and add the left over vegetables. It's nice!

Lets get this on the right thread this time then....

I cook diced chicken in stock with garlic, add some frozen mixed veg and when that's done chuck in the cous cous. Serve it up garnished with crispy bacon bits. yum!

phew!

Cook it (pour boiling water over it, leave to stand - is there anything easier to cook?!), then fry it with a bit of onion and chopped apricot. Lovely with lamb, as has been said already

I also do it for lunch, cooked with tomato, onion, coriander and a bit of cheese. Yum!

I mix it up with a lot of things, particularly home made spaghetti. Mine is always runny and the cous cous thickens it up.

Also mix it up with left over chicken and veggies and heat it all up into a mush. DS loves it.

use it as a coating instead of breadcrumbs for things like homemade chicken gougons etc.

Cous cous is my daughter's favourite meal, she has it in her lunch box all the time. She calls it dinner custard!

I tend to use all my leftovers and cook them up and add them to cous cous. Today she has taken it with a sauce made from onion fried in butter slowly until really soft and have added baby tomatoes tuna and passata and carrots. Added a dash of balsamic vinegar and she loves it.

Also very good with ratatouille or anything really with a sauce.

Dd also loves it with stewing beef cooked in the slow cooker with onions and good stock with a mixture of whatever beens I have in the cupboard and passata. We also add paprika , but you could miss that out.

Another fave is lamb again cooked slowly in stock with apricots, raisins and paprike - but i am sure you could miss the paprika out. Sometimes I swap the apricots for prunes,I also do a verison of this with chicken.

I tend to prefer couscous if it has olive oil added to it.
Dd also loves Annabel Karmel's cherub couscous.