Talin’s Ultimate Couscous Salad Recipe

I would like to introduce to you a very healthy, flavorful, Couscous Salad recipe, which is full of essential nutrients, which will get your taste buds active and will want the whole salad bowl to yourself. Yes, it is that good! Couscous is one of my favorite things to add to vegetables, and add so much flavor with it. Excellent choice to serve at dinner parties, or regular dinners, for lunch, for dinner, anytime. Here is The Ultimate Couscous Salad Recipe.

Couscous Salad Recipe
Serves: 4 or more. depending on how much quantity you would like to prepare. play around with the amount of ingredients to your desire.

Ingredients…
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups pearl couscous
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
• 1 full cucumber, diced (about 1 cup)
• 1 large tomato, diced…. preferably tomato on a vine…
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh herbs (any combination of fresh parsley, cilantro, arugula, basil, dill or mint)
• 1/3 cup raisins or more to your tasting
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, toasted or not. you can just add them in.
• Freshly ground black pepper and salt

To Prepare follow these instructions…
1. In a large saucepan, bring about 2 quarts of water and 1 teaspoon of salt to a boil. Add couscous and cook until tender, 8-10 minutes. Drain with a strainer — preferably thin holed strainer so the couscous will not fall through.

2. While the couscous cooks, in a small bowl, mix the oil, mustard, honey, lemon juice and zest, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

3. Add cooked and drained couscous to a large bowl, and then, pour dressing over warm couscous, mix well. Let it cool completely

4. After cooled completely, Add cucumber, tomato, herbs, raisins and walnuts to the couscous and stir. Taste for seasoning and add salt and/or pepper as needed.

5. Enjoy it when its cold – cover then refrigerate, about 1 hour. Better to eat cool…

Bon Apetit!

Grocery Shopping – A Cool Story

The other day, I had gone Grocery Shopping in the meat produce section of the store and all of a sudden I was just talking to myself on cooking and finding new ways to cook chicken with different spices and herbs and sauces, and all of a sudden there were about 3 or 4 people who are women around me wondering what I was saying and they heard me talk to myself, then they started asking me questions, what do you do to cook chicken? What spices do you use? I said I use different spices and mix them together, then make my own sauce with the ingredients I buy. I said I usually cook chicken with a sweet and sour twist to it, and I make sure that I bathe my chicken in a lot of sauce, marinate it and all that. They said oh wow, that is great. They told me you must be an expert cook and you must do all the cooking in the house. I said, yes I do. I love to cook for my family and I enjoy creating new types of recipes and experimenting with flavours, spices, sauces, herbs, and more. We became instant friends and we took each others contact information and now we are in touch and share with each other our recipes, and soon we will be getting together for coffee to discuss our food preparations and more.

It is so amazing how people cross your path and especially from a grocery store, so Thank goodness I was talking to myself. I thought it was strange talking to myself while grocery shopping, but it was really cool to get my thoughts rolling and enjoying my time shopping. I love grocery shopping and I always look at prices and sales from the flyer.  They are very nice ladies and 2 of them were together shopping, the other one was just alone shopping, and we ended up having a 15-20 minute conversation by the meats about food, and everything. They love watching the food channel and they are avid cookers and love baking too. I am so happy to have found them as we share the same interests. You meet people where you least expect it, and its an ideal place to meet in a grocery store. A lot of people have asked me questions at the grocery store, but this one struck out the most. I wasn’t going to go shopping that day, but then I ended up doing so anyway, so I was glad I did.

So excited to get together with them. probably this coming week. lets see. Has it ever happened to you where you meet people in a grocery store or where you least expect it? Did you make friends with them? Do you enjoy meeting new people all the time? I was really happy with meeting them.

Stay Tuned For My Armenian/Middle Eastern Recipe Week Starting December 8 – 15, 2012

Hello everyone, due to popular demand and many people wanting to know about different types of food I eat, prepare and what my ethnic background eats, how it is prepared, what spices, herbs, among specific amounts to everything. I will be featuring an array and variety of Armenian and Middle Eastern foods that a lot of people are interested in. It is coming time to Christmas celebrations and gatherings with the family, and it is timely and it gets people to think about different recipes and create a new masterpiece in everything. So basically I will be writing and posting about different recipes that I have cooked myself, have learned from my family and friends, and basically what we love to eat with appetizers, deserts, dinner, breakfast, lunch, baking different cakes, pastries, salads, finger foods, meatballs, soups, among other delicious types of food. It will be quite exciting to me to share with the world my favourite Armenian and Middle Eastern Dishes. So stay tuned and get your taste buds ready for a new world in the culinary world and among everything else. Enjoy and have great Christmas and enjoy the holidays and every other day. 🙂

The Saffron Spice – A Documentary Watched

I was watching this extremely interesting documentary about the spice Saffron. I never knew how incredibly important this spice really was until I watched it on a special programming. These farmers when they go out to pick Saffron from the purplish flower they get this spice from, I never knew how important it was to them as they have safes to lock it up and some say its they’re life, its they’re livelihood. I couldn’t believe how much of an effect a spice has for people and its the way they make a living. Saffron comes from many countries like Morocco, Spain and other parts of the world. Saffron is extremely difficult to take out from the flower and its a long process from it being harvested and brought to their small villages where later the ladies and men pick them. Now the Saffron flower has a special season where they grow it and it is the most expensive spice in the world to date. The following links actually gives a little more information and description as to what I am talking about. There is just so much information on this beautiful spice that this is a big deal for some people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron

http://www.saffron.com/what.html

Since learning about Saffron, I have a new profound respect and appreciation as I love to learn about interesting things like this and watch educational and wonderful shows that teach people about different things. I try to saturate myself with educational programs, documentaries, how things are made, and things that are worthwhile to watch on TV. I knew what saffron was because when I go to spice shops and supermarkets, they sell them there and they are so expensive and tonight when I watched the documentary, I finally knew the reason why this was such a valuable ingredient and resource of our life. I couldn’t believe how incredible and beautiful it really is. I just hope people around the world appreciate these spices and where it comes from. It is not easy to produce spices and in the same show they spoke about Vanilla as well and I just cannot believe how big of a process it is. We must learn to appreciate the spices we have and look at them closely and think that oh wow, these spices were harvested through hard work and how the earth’s resources are such a valuable thing and some try to preserve them as much as possible. We should be grateful for what we have in our pantries. Now although we may have the powdered kinds of some spices, but in the show I watched on TVO explained the real saffron from a fake and they did experiments from different saffrons from different countries and regions of the world. This was so interesting to me that I have to blog about it today. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before and I want to travel to Spain and Morocco and experience the Saffron harvesting myself and go to the villages and be with people whom take so much pride into it. What a beautiful thing.

Talin’s Chicken Marinade…

Whether it is Chicken Drumsticks, Chicken Legs, Chicken Leg Quarters, here is a marinade for you…
Chickens and Porks are meant to have a sweet and sour flavour to it but here I am to explain to you how to marinade good chicken…
1. Make sure the chicken is thawed out thoroughly. Wash the Chicken, Keep the Skin on, but wash out the other stuff all throughout, get into the outside bone areas and wash that red stuff… Make sure Chicken is washed in Luk-warm water.
After cooking you may take off the skin if you wish… It is recommended… The Skin is kept on to leave it tender during cooking….
— In a mixing bowl
2. Put 3 tablespoons of Dark Brown OR  Brown Sugar

3. 1 teaspoon of Allspice

4. cut and mash 3 cloves of Garlic with a garlic squeezer

5. 4-5 tablespoons of Soya Sauce

6. then Put about 5 tablespoons some Diana Sauce Rib and Chicken Sauce…

7. Mix them together..
DEPENDING ON how much chicken you have, you have to bathe all the chicken evenly with the marinade! SO Add or subtract any of the above as desired to make a great tasting Chicken!
—-
8. then put the mix onto the Chicken. Make sure every single part of the Chicken is marinated. — Keep Marinated for 1 hour…
9. Then Take a pan on a stove top or a machine skillet
10. 2 to 3 cups of water so that the Chicken will cook.. —
11… Cook for 45 minutes to an hour, then serve…  If you want to taste the sauce. it is recommended you taste the sauce after 35 minutes of cooking while keeping the lid closed. If more spices and sauces desired from any of them up top, then do so.
BON APETIT!