Cous Cous Salad with Feta Cheese and Peppers

I love the way food from the Mediterranean brightens up a plate and palate with its colours and full flavours. I decided on a feta salad as I had a lot of feta cheese and red peppers. The combination of ingredients in this dish could have taken me down a few routes. I could have made stuffed peppers with tomatoes, feta cheese and cous cous. On the day, I felt I wanted something more substantial so I increased the cous cous and went for a salad instead.

This dish is so simple that I often make it early in the mornings to eat as a cold lunch at work. It's filling, vegetarian and tasty, so much better than a plain ham and mustard sandwich. It also brings a bit of Greece to work with me. I used chicken stock to make my cous cous instead of plain water, but to keep it vegetarian, you can you vegetable stock. I find the stock adds extra flavour to the dish, but it's not a vital component and can be left out. 

There's so many ways to mess around and experiment with this dish also. While the ingredients I chose go well together, you don't need to follow the recipe exactly, just use what you have.  There's no reason why other grains such as bulgar wheat won't go with this dish either, or some fresh herbs, parsley, basil...etc. The one thing I would say is to be generous with your protein, put a lot of feta in, it's best part of this dish. Having too little is like eating a tub of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough only to find one piece of cookie dough in the whole tub!

Ingredients

1/2 cup Cous Cous

boiling Water

1/2 chicken Stock cube

150g Feta Cheese, crumbled

handful of cherry Tomatoes, halved

1 spring Onion (Scallion), sliced

2 Peppers, de-seeded and cut into 1 inch squares- I used one red & one yellow

dried basil 

dried parsley

extra virgin Olive Oil

balsamic Vinegar

Salt & Pepper

Recipe

Heat grill. Put peppers on a heatproof tray, drizzle lightly with olive oil, scatter dried basil and parsley, and season. Put under hot grill until soft and sides are slightly charred. Allow to cool.

If using stock, crumble stock cube into boiling water and stir until dissolved. Then cook cous cous to packet instructions. 

Make a dressing with 1 part balsamic vinegar, 3 parts olive oil, season well and shake until mixed. 

Add cous cous to large bowl, then peppers and remaining ingredients, except the feta cheese. Dress cous cous and veggies, then crumble cheese over the top. Serve and eat.