Couscous Meals

Couscous is a North African which just has been added to my menu recently. It is normally served with vegetables and meat, most specifically lamb but the three times that I have made it so far I have not served it with meat. Like East Indian and Chinese food it has lots of vegetables in it but of course they are all cooked and we know that cooked vegetable is not as good as raw vegetables  i. e. Salads. My daily vegetable consumption is focused on raw, fresh ones which have been combined in different shapes of salads as well as fresh fruit which very hard to come by in Canada but I also added this meal to my listing because it's healthy, delicious and a variety to Persian food that we rarely. I say rarely because Persian food preparation requires skills, patience and good ingredients. We do have the first two but lack the last one. The issue with Persian food is being fattening and source of Cholesterol, Uric Acid and other harmful substances.

Anyway this one here is the third meal that I have made and the most complicated one(!) and I have to say that it takes longer to be prepared to the other two that I had made and in the picture one ingredient is missing  and that is Feta Cheese. I  guess it is add to complete the nutritional value of them. They probably added it to provide Protein but I believe it could be skipped because Lentil does the same without the harmful parts but because I never intend to alter the recipe I keep it here.

So for Couscous Grilled Vegetable-Lentil Salad you will need:
1- 2 cloves Garlic.
2- 3/4 teaspoon Salt.
3- 1/3 cup Olive Oil.
4- 3 table spoon Lemon Juice.
5- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Cumin.
6- 1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander.
7- 2 medium size Zucchinis.
8- 2 Portobello Mushrooms.
9- 1 sweet Read Pepper.
10- 1 Yellow Pepper.
11- 1/2 cup Lentil.
12- 1 cup Whole Wheat Couscous.
13- 1/3 cup minced fresh coriander (Cilantro)
14- 1/3 cup crumbled Feta Cheese.

This is how you make it:

Finely mince the garlic and rub it to the salt and make a smooth paste. It requires patience. Use a teaspoon or on a plate for that. Combine Oil, Garlic Paste, Coriander and Cumin with Lemon Juice and let them stand. Cut the vegetables to the desired size and brush them with the oil mixture and grill them or fry them until tender. Cook Lentil separately and then bring 1 cup of water to boil, add couscous and cover, remove from heat and let stand until all the water is absorbed. Mince fresh Coriander (Cilantro) and mix the grilled or fried vegetable with Couscous, Lentil, crumbled Feta Cheese and add it to at the end. This salad could be served cold. That's how mostly salads are served but you might want to warm it up and eat.

(Photo: Top, the salad with missing feta cheese but I added later. You could say they are not seen in the photo! Below, min ingredients. Lentil and cheese are not seen here as well as the herbs)