Tomato and Olive Couscous Salad

One of my favourite chefs as far as food is concerned is Jamie Oliver.   I love his cookery books as the recipes are easy to follow and I’ve never found anything not to work.   He also likes lots of the flavours I like such as chilli, garlic and lemon.  He throws things together and doesn’t worry too much about presentation.   Well, maybe he does, but he doesn’t give the impression that he does.   As I can’t claim to produce the prettiest looking food, this is another thing I like to think I have in common with Mr Oliver.  Although I love his food, I do find all his recent crusades a bit irritating at times.   I think it’s a good idea to improve behaviour in schools but I’m not interested in watching a programme about it just because Jamie Oliver is presenting it.  On the other hand, if he did another show about food, he could rely on me as a viewing figure.

Anyway, going back to the food, when I found out that I Heart Cooking Clubs was going to be concentrating on recipes by Jamie Oliver for the next 6 months, I decided it was a great excuse to get out my Jamie books and do some Jamie inspired meals.  This week the theme was Happy Days and we needed to choose a recipe that would make us happy.   As I have the Happy Days with the Naked Chef book I decided it was the most appropriate place to look for such a recipe.   When I came across The Best Pasta Salad, a simple, easy but tasty looking dish I’d never tried before, I decided it was perfect for the new springlike weather we are having.  I adapted it a bit in terms of quantities.   I didn’t use small pasta shells but Israeli couscous, I didn’t have any yellow cherry tomatoes so used all red.  I also felt that 3 cloves of raw garlic was quite a lot, even though I made a slightly smaller quantity, so I only used one.

Ingredients – 3 servings

200g Israeli Couscous

300g cherry tomatoes

1 handful of black olives

1 tbsp fresh chives

1 tbsp fresh basil

1/2 cucumber

1 garlic clove, crushed

2tbsp white wine vinegar

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

How  to make Tomato and Olive Couscous salad

1.Cook the couscous according to the pack instructions.    When ready, rinse in cold water and leave to drain.

2. Chop each tomato into quarters and then each quarter in half again.  Dice the cucumber so each piece is about 1/2 cm square, dice the olives too.  Roughly chop the herbs.

3. Put all the vegetables and herbs into a large bowl.  Add the salt, pepper, vinegar, garlic and olive oil. Mix.   Add the couscous.   Mix again.   Taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary.

I served this as an accompaniment to fish and ate the leftovers as a packed lunch the next day.