Reasonable Recipe: Savory Apple Couscous

Welcome to my first Reasonable Recipe!  I started tonight's dinner by attempting a recipe in one of my healthy cookbooks, but it turns out, I didn't have many of the ingredients (and the meat had gone bad due to the unexpected winter weather-induced power outage this weekend), so here's what I made instead.  It turned out surprisingly good for such a simple recipe.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 small-medium onion, diced

1 large red bell pepper, coarsely chopped

1 small-medium tart apple (i.e., Granny Smith), coarsely chopped

canola oil

garlic powder

ground ginger

3/4 cup apple juice

1 cup dry couscous (I used plain, but whole wheat would be great!)

1 chicken bouillon cube (can be omitted for vegetarian option)

Heat oil in a large skillet or dutch oven.  Add onion and red pepper to skillet and cook until pretty soft (5 minutes or so).  Add a healthy sprinkle of ground ginger and garlic powder (as much or as little as you like), and cook another minute longer.  Add water, apple juice, and the chicken bouillon cube (which will dissolve) and allow to boil.  Stir in apple and couscous, cover, remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes.  Fluff couscous before serving.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving:

217 calories

7.2 g fat

0 mg cholesterol

110 mg sodium

33.1 g carbohydrates (2 g fiber, 9 g sugar)

4.6 g protein

The next time I make this, I will add some halved grape tomatoes in the final step with the couscous and apple.  Very good!!