A little while ago I was contacted by Co-op food and set a challenge to cook something. The recipe I was given was Veg Couscous from the the Now Cook It website. The site is a place where you can find a bunch of recipes created by Co-op and SORTEDfood, they want to help build the skills gap when it comes to cooking. You can be a newbie who has never touched a pan in your life or someone who has been cooking for years and just wants to brush up on some skills.
Now Cook It is specifically designed as an online cooking course, you get to watch easy and simple videos, along with having step by step instructions on how to do everything. Anyone can learn basic cooking techniques in their own time and pace, as well as having the luxury of doing it at home. The course is completely free which I think is fantastic as everyone should know how too cook, even if it is just one signature dish.
If you’d like to learn how to make the Veg Couscous then carry on reading…
You will need…
- 1 red onion (or white)
- 1 red pepper
- 1 lemon
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 courgette
- 100g couscous
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 plum tomatoes
- 50g cucumber
- Β½ tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp Greek yoghurt
Along with needing the following equipment
- 1 Large deep roasting tray
- 1 Silicone or wooden spoon
- 1 Kettle
- 1 Small dish
- 1 Large mixing bowl
- 1 Roll of Clingfilm
- 1 Sieve
Once you have all that together you can pre-heat your oven to 240ΒΊC with your roasting tin in there to heat right up. While that’s doing that you can prepare your vegetables.
Cut them into around 2cm pieces, making sure to separate the pieces of onion and de-seed your pepper. Crush a whole clove or two of garlic in its skin, and cut the lemon in half making sure the take the ends off too so it sits in the roasting tin easily.
Chuck everything into the heated roasting tray along with some olive oil and a good bunch of seasoning (salt & pepper). Place on the top shelf of the oven for 20 minutes to get a nice char on the vegetables and cook through.
Bring the kettle to the boil while the vegetables are in the oven and place the couscous into a large bowl (make sure you measure your couscous as it really does expand! It’s easy to do this by placing it in a small dish). Place the oregano and corriander in the couscous, add the same volume of water to it and give a little mix. Cover with clingfilm and allow to sit for around 10 minutes.
Once you take the vegetables out of the oven remove the garlic and give it a good crush after removing its skin. Then squeeze the lemons through a sieve into the couscous, and add the vegetables and crushed garlic.
Give everything a good stir together and you are good to go!
I ate it after just stopping there as I just loved it as it was but the recipe does carry on to include cucumber and tomato along with a good drizzle of greek yoghurt on the top. If you want to add them that’s fine all you have to do is de-seed the tomato then dice both the tomato and cucumber into small chunks.
Serve with the greek yoghurt dolloped on top along with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
I throughly enjoyed cooking this so much so that we have eaten it two more times since we made it. It’s so easy and delicious, the video that came along with the instructions was really quick and easy to watch while the instructions were so simple and made you feel like you were in complete control the whole way through.
I want to make a Not So Filthy Kebab and a Slow Cooked Beef and Mushroom Pie next!
Will you be taking a look at the Now Cook It site and trying some of their recipes?