look around: Vegetarian Couscous

I. Love. Couscous. It seems like such a simple thing, but it always adds so much to a meal. While it is so great on it's own, I'm always trying to find ways to spice it up and bring it into its much-deserved spotlight rather than leaving it as a measly side dish. Unfortunately, I'm not as good at improvising with cooking as I am with baking so I've had a lot of failed attempts (my apologies to my friends and family who have been victims of this...and to the couscous I've ruined). Last night, however, I was feeling ambitious and went for a new strategy...which actually worked?...and was really good? Yeah. Weird. Anyways, here's my recipe for Vegetarian Couscous!

Quick side note: I had just got back from a run when I made this so I wasn't really feeling like doing a ton of dishes. Because of this, I didn't actually measure any of the ingredients used-the following are plain guess-timates.

Ingredients

2/3 box of couscous

1 cube of vegetable bouillon plus 2 cups boiling water

2 tablespoons olive oil

ground cumin, to taste (I used a lot)

1/2 roma tomato, cubed

2/3 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup frozen spinach

Directions

1. Pour 2/3 box of dry couscous in a large bowl.

2. Boil 2 cups of water and add 1 cube of vegetable bouillon. Stir until cube is completely dissolved.

3. Once bouillon cube is completely dissolved, add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Continue stirring while you add ground cumin. I wouldn't add too much to begin with-you can always add more later! :)

4. Stir in chickpeas and tomato. Let the mixture sit for a 2-3 minutes while you struggle to break off some frozen spinach.

5. Stir in the frozen spinach. I didn't defrost the spinach beforehand because the boiling mixture broke it down almost immediately. That and defrosting actually requires planning ahead.

6. Once spinach is cooked and well incorporated, pour the boiling mixture over your dry couscous. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 10 minutes.