Weekend Cookbook Challenge - Lucky 7 Couscous & Vegetable Sald

Sara over at Iliketocook, has come up with an interesting Weekend Cookbook Challenge with lucky number 7 as the theme. This actually was a lot harder for me than I thought. The deadline to submit is August 4th, so you still have some time. Hopefully others will be more creative than I am and I can’t wait to see the round up. So here’s how I came up with this entry…..

1. I thought of doing a dish with 7 ingredients but figured that others would have the same idea…

2. Then I thought I’d randomly choose 7 cookbooks from my more than 150, open them all randomly and cook whatever was on the pages….but it got too close to the deadline and I’m too hot to do that much cooking….

3. My Honey suggested 7 bean salad, but frankly, I’m not sure I could come up with 7 different beans plus I’m not really even a 3 bean salad person….

4. Then he suggested 7 alarm chili….whine, whine (that’s me doing the whining), it’s too hot for even my delicious 3 alarm chili…

5. Maybe 7 ingredients isn’t such a lame idea after all, so maybe the interesting ribs I made yesterday would work - but as Homer Simpson would say "Dhoh!" the recipe has 11 ingredients (I'll be posting about them later this week)….

6. So I thought I’d go waaaaay back to my posts from when I started last May (hard to believe it’s over a year), and I did find this delicious Maple Bourbon Grilled Salmon recipe which does have 7 ingredients in the marinade….but still, I’d like to have one new recipe that reflects the theme of lucky number 7…..

7. By this time, it’s already July 31st, and I’m not sure I’ll even get into the round up, so I headed over to Iliketocook again and discovered that Sara is returning to vegetarianism (at least for the week) and I took out one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks – Quick Vegetarian Pleasures by Jeanne Lemlin. Even though I’m a staunch carnivore, I love this book. Sometimes, I make the dishes the way they are intended, and sometimes I add meat or chicken or fish, but every dish is delicious. I gave each of my daughters copies of it when they moved out and they love it too. But I digress a little. The book fell open to Couscous & Vegetable Salad with Orange & Garlic which has my little note “unbelievably delicious” plus lots of splatter marks and a broken spine right there – just to let you know how much I love this recipe. Plus, it’s perfect for the continuing hot and muggy weather we’re having here in Toronto. And as for the number of ingredients…..well, there are 7 in the dressing and 7 (if you don’t count the water to make the couscous itself) for the couscous…so there you have it – a double 7s!!!

Plus it's The South Beach Diet friendly too if you use whole wheat couscous.

Recipe

Couscous & Vegetable Salad with Orange & Garlic

See you at the Weekend Cookbook Challenge round up on August 4th or 5th.

Related links: Food and Drink recipes weekend cookbook challenge South Beach Diet