Cheap and Tasty Couscous with Roasted Vegetables

Couscous is amazingly cheap and extremely easy to make, you can keep a spare pack of uncooked couscous in the cupboard ready for those days when you are stone broke!

Couscous with Roasted Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 cup Couscous
1 + half cups water
1 red onion
1 sweet potato
2 carrots
2 small parsnips
1 clove garlic
Salt and Pepper
1 vegetable stock cube
1tbs oil

Method:

Dice the sweet potato, carrots and parsnips into small pieces, around 1 to 2 cm squared and cut the red onion into strips. Crush the garlic and throw it into a big bowl with the diced potato, carrots and parsnip. Add a small amount of salt and pepper, 1 tbs of oil and mix so everything gets coated in oil. Pour contents into a big baking tray and roast for around 20 minutes, turning half way through - add as much time as you need so that the vegetables turn a nice golden brown colour.

While your vegetables are roasting you can prepare the couscous. The general rule of thumb is 1 part couscous to 1 and half parts water. 

Add the water to your saucepan and throw in a vegetable stock cube (can use a chicken stock cube if you prefer) or half depending on how much you are making. Add your dry couscous, and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. When the liquid is boiling turn the hob down so that it simmers, put the lid on and leave simmering for 5 minutes. Take off the heat, leave the lid on and put it to one side for 5 minutes - no peaking!

When you have waited 5 minutes remove the lid and fluff up the couscous with a fork, you can add a small amount of butter for taste. Throw in your roasted vegetables, give it a quick stir and enjoy!

I am slightly addicted to this recipe, it's tasty, really easy to make and relatively cheap. To make sure you don't waste any fresh veg by it going out of date a good idea is to dice and roast it for half the time, let it cool and put it into freezer bags/boxes and freeze. When needed you can either defrost and heat in the microwave or roast it for half the amount of time. Couscous is best made fresh, do not freeze couscous. You can however refrigerate couscous and it's delicious eaten cold the next day.