Couscous with Roasted Veggies & Feta

A very easy recipe today, but oh so tasty; one of my standard dinners when I’m feeling a bit on the lazy side. It was my Big Bro Ben who first dished this up for me several years ago, and I’ve been making it pretty regularly ever since!  I actually always keep a slab of feta in the fridge for this very dinner.  Great for all the family too, and a good way to inject your wee ones with oodles of lovely veggies.  Mine love the natural sweetness of roasted veg, and always seem to eat way more than if they were just plain steamed or boiled.

If you want to meat-up your dinner it’s lovely served with some spicy sausages on the side, Philipe likes a couple of Merguez.  Merguez are spicy North African lamb or beef sausages that are soooooo good……and oh sooooooooo bad for you and are easily available to buy here in France, but a little harder to come by in the UK or elsewhere.

Like all my roasted veggie recipes you really can use pretty much any veggies you have lurking in your cupboards, fridge or garden.  For this dinner I used all veg picked from my garden and roasted up some lovely baby beetroot (their inaugural use of the season!), a carrot, some squash, half a courgette, a couple of baby aubergines (sadly almost the last of the year) and a couple of small peppers (also nearly finished).

Chop all the veggies to a similar bite size piece, though I tend to cut harder root vegetables a little smaller than others, and fill up an oven tray or baking sheet until it’s full. Don’t fill any more than a single layer or the veggies will be a tad on the soggy side rather than crisply roasted.  Whilst this always looks like an alarming amount of veggies, they really do cook down a great deal so make sure you fill it up!  And even if you do have some leftovers they’re great eaten the next day in a sandwich with a bit of goats cheese, feta or hummus.

I like adding a touch of balsamic vinegar at the end of roasting, it adds an extra level of sweetness which is a particularly nice contrast to the salty feta.

For a family of four:

1 onion (preferably a red onion), roughly chopped

4 cloves of garlic, left whole with skin on

Enough veg to fill a single layer on your baking sheet or roasting tray, cut into bite size chunks (you could use any combination of courgettes, peppers, aubergines, carrots, parsnips, squash, pumpkin, beetroot, swede, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, green beans….)

olive oil

salt & pepper

a handful of parsley, stalks removed and roughly chopped

balsamic vinegar (optional)

200g feta, roughly chopped

200g couscous

Preheat your oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7.  Place your veggies, onion and garlic cloves on a large baking sheet or tray, and combine with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, a generous grinding of black pepper and a little salt. Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes (turning at least once) until the veggies are all cooked through and a little browned.

While your veggies are roasting, prepare the couscous.  Because couscous varies in size, it’s best to cook to packet instructions. With the couscous in a largish bowl, I ordinarily  I add the same quantity in boiling water as weight of couscous, for example for 200g of couscous I would add 200ml of boiling water.  I also add a touch of olive oil and a little salt and pepper, then cover the bowl tightly and leave for 5 minutes. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and add a little more boiling water if it seems dry.

Once the veggies are cooked remove the tray from the oven, add the parsley, the roughly broken up feta (I crumbled the feta on my veggies afterwards today, but it’s also pretty nice warmed up in the oven until it goes slightly gooey) and a dash of balsamic vinegar if using, stir around a little and put back in the oven for a minute or two to melt the feta a little.

Serve the veggies on top of the couscous. Yum…..I hope you agree?!