Couscous with Dried Cranberries and Pine Nuts

I need more sides in my life. Couscous is a great weekday choice because it’s so quick to make, maybe 20 minutes in total. This recipe is from the Fresh & Healthy DASH Diet Cooking Cookbook which I absolutely love. The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet was developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute a encourages increasing whole grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and lean proteins and minimizing processed gains, high-fat meats and dairy, sugars and sodium… which is basically more just eating healthy versus a diet.

 

This couscous recipe is made with vegetable broth to give it some flavor with bites of pine nuts, dried cranberries, and scallions.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons canola oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 2 cups reduced-sodium vegetable stock
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup couscous (whole wheat if you can find it)
• 1/3 cup dried cranberries
• 2 scallions, coarsely chopped

 

Heat the canola oil in a pot over medium-high heat. Add the pine nuts to the oil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

 

Add the vegetable stock, salt, and pepper.

 

 

Bring to a boil and add the couscous and cranberries.

 

 

Remove from the heat, cover with a lid, and let sit for 10 minutes. Fluff the couscous and stir in the scallions.

 

 

It’s as pretty as it is delicious! The bites of cranberry add a nice pop of flavor to the couscous and I loved the crunch of the pine nuts.

 

 

You may notice that the couscous isn’t the only beautiful thing in these photos. Look at those stunning serving spoons!

 

 

The hand carved serving spoons were sent to me by World Vision, a Gift Catalog that allows you to give a truly meaningful gift this holiday season.  The catalog is filled with items for every budget ($16 to $39,000) that help children and families in need worldwide.

 

The World Vision Gift Catalog offers an alternative (or addition to) traditional holiday gift giving. You can choose a gift for these families that fits your financial abilities and personal tastes. For example, a gardener may enjoy giving hybrid or drought-resistant seeds to a farmer with a donation of just $17 to help one family. Or a child may be the perfect recipient of a donation of $35 which buys new toys such as stuffed animals, dolls, sports equipment, simple games, and more. Because of donations from leading companies, this gift actually goes 12 times further to provide fun-filled toys (it would buy $420 worth of new toys).

 

With a financial contribution, the gift giver can select one of 36 items that you will get while helping a person in need. The spoons shown above come with a donation of $65 (to put in perspective, a donation of $64 equals education for 2 children). The Hand-Carved Serving Spoons come in a gift bag of African fabric and benefit the orphans of the Kamba tribe in Kenya. The wonderful people at World Vision Gift Catalog have offered to give another set of these spoons away to a lucky reader! All you have to do is use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter. Good luck!

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So if you are trying to figure out the perfect gift for those in your life, consider paging through the World Vision Catalog to see if something inspires you!