Sunday, August 28, 2005

pink and green pilaf

This makes about 3 "side" servings, or 2 main course servings. You could increase the amount of green peas if you want more protein in the thing, too!

1. Plop a little olive oil in a medium saucepot and heat on medium heat. Add most of a green pepper, finely chopped, half a medium onion, finely chopped, freshly minced garlic if you have it (or use garlic powder like I did -- tragedy! I have been out of fresh garlic for almost a week now, and am slowly becoming culinarily depressed.) Saute this a few minutes just until the veg start to turn translucent.
2. Add half a cup of whole wheat couscous (uncooked) to the pot. Stir and cook a few minutes, until the couscous is lightly toasted.
3. Stir in half a cup of frozen green peas, and nearly a cup of liquid (I used tomato juice I had drained out of a can of diced tomatoes last week, plus enough water to equal about 7 ounces,) the juice of one lemon, and salt (if your liquid is not salted.)
4. Bring this all to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat, and simmer 2 minutes. Remove the pilaf from the heat and let stand 5 minutes. Fluff the pilaf with a fork before serving. (I suggest garnishing the pilaf with a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Yum.)

Now obviously, if you use some other sort of liquid like broth instead of the tomato juice, your pilaf will not be pink. So you'll have to come up with your own catchy name, I guess!

No comments: