couscous recipes – Twice as Tasty

My garden is bountiful so far this year, and many of my home-cooked meals begin with me spreading out my harvest on the counter and chopping up a little of everything for an impromptu, no-recipe vegetable sauté, salad, or pasta meal. But when I’m not making dinner at home these days, I’m usually making it aboard our sailboat, the Blue Mule, where my range of options becomes more limited. One of the beauties of the recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon is that you can approach it as garden-to-table meal or as a pantry-focused one that fits neatly in a cooler and kitchen box on the water or in a campground.

As I teach in my Fine Dining: Front Country workshop, the key to making such a veggie-heavy meal in the galley or at the campsite is to choose vegetables that travel well. Whole carrots, onions, and garlic can tumble around as the boat surfs waves or the car bounces down gravel roads, and they’ll still look and taste great at dinnertime. I pack small zucchini, so I don’t have a partial one left with an exposed cut edge that’s more susceptible to damage. I also tuck zukes and other tender vegetables into a plastic storage box that fits inside my ice chest and minimizes their bumping and bruising—and their direct exposure to melting ice.
Learn to make Chickpea Vegetable Skillet with Couscous and Feta

Once I accepted that I was never going to justify housing a giant couscoussière in my tiny Montana kitchen and using its vastness, sized for the average Moroccan family, to feed my household of two, instant couscous became a staple grain not just at home but for lakeside picnics and onboard dinners. We recently wrapped up a two-week sailing adventure aboard The Blue Mule in the San Juan and Gulf Islands, and the couscous recipes I’ve been sharing in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon were part of our cruising menu.

The little grains cook so well in just-boiled water that I keep a collapsible silicone container with a tightly sealing lid in my galley box. I pour the couscous into it, add a pat of butter and sprinkling of cinnamon and salt, and then pour JetBoil-heated water on top and seal the container. For dinner before an evening sail on Flathead Lake, I use the same technique but boil the water on my kitchen stove and take it to the lake in a thermos.
Learn to make Chickpea and Vegetable Couscous Salad with Pour-Over Cinnamon Couscous