Diabetes / Food / Fun / Personal History

Couscous & Quinoa Salads

bgibson135

I have made a quinoa salad before and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. But, it wasn’t something that I included in my regular foods rotation.

This Couscous Salad looked good and I could either create it as is, or modify it to my liking:

I think the basic ingredients shown above include:

  • couscous
  • seedless cucumber
  • tomatoes
  • walnuts
  • raisins
  • coarsely chopped fresh herbs ( any combination of )
    • fresh parsley
    • cilantro
    • basil
    • dill
    • mint
  • S&P

And the dressing was something simple like:

  • lemon juice
  • Dijon mustard
  • honey

I would probably substitute Agave Nectar for the honey and have already.

Oh my! The above Couscous Salad was delicious. I did add some olives but I don’t think they added anything to the overall flavor. I had this salad with baked tilapia, which was very good, again. The panko breading is “spot on,” and adding the Spicy Chili Crisp to the fish just highlights the coolness of the salad. But, I also tried a variation on the salad by using the Jalapeno Lime Dressing which I had tried some time ago. This dressing is much more savory.

The couscous took about 10 minutes to cook. A cup and a half of water brought to a boil, then add a cup of couscous and half teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil again and then lower heat to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes. While I was preparing the couscous, I chopped up some English cucumber, Campari tomatoes, sweet onion, chopped cilantro and added walnut pieces and raisins and S&P. When the couscous was done, I added it warm to the other ingredients and then in this case put some of the mixture on two different plates. On the one I used the suggested dressing and on the other the Jalapeno Lime dressing. *Forgot, but I couldn’t find the fresh garlic so I used the powdered garlic for the JL dressing. I think I still have enough salad for another meal.

As I was reading I asked myself what category couscous would be put under and the AI suggested that couscous was like pasta, a small pasta also like orzo. And in reading the recipe I think I saw that the chef suggested that you could also use small pasta (maybe pasta shells) instead of the couscous.

I might also add the following, which I consider as having Mediterranean influence: Sweet Onion, Tomato, Sweet Bell Pepper and flavor with vinegar, cumin and turmeric. And I think I’ve also added olives to this mix. The turmeric gives a strong acrid taste. I’ve also added sweetener to this. I think I also added turmeric to some dill pickles.