Pearl couscous with cucumber and avocado

Soon I will be leaving California once again, and so it seemed fitting that before I head off on my next adventures, I should make something that features avocado, a fruit that always makes me think of California!


This dish combines avocado with just a few other flavors - cucumber, lemon juice, basil, and dill - and mixes it all up with pearl couscous, which is one of my favorite grains and is ridiculously easy to prepare. In fact, the whole thing hardly takes any time, tastes great, and is very refreshing both warm and cold.

Ingredients (for one serving):
75 g. pearl couscous (also known as Israeli or Lebanese couscous)
1 ripe avocado
1/3 of a cucumber
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh dill
A few spoonfuls of extra-virgin olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Wash the basil and dill. Chop the dill finely, and tear up the basil leaves by hand. Combine the basil and dill with the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper; stir; and let sit. You can either prepare everything else immediately, or else let the herb mixture sit half an hour first.

Bring a small pot of water to a boil, and add the pearl couscous. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit 10 minutes or so, until the couscous have soaked up the water. Meanwhile, peel the cucumber, and chop it into thickish wedges.

Chop the avocado into wedges as well. I usually slice the avocado in half, then cut in a checkerboard pattern across each half, while leaving the peel on. After that, I can just turn the halves upside down, push the peel inwards, and the avocado wedges just fall out.

Once the couscous are done, drain any excess water, and combine them with the cucumber, avocado, and herb mixture. Stir well and serve warm, or else refrigerate for later.

Panzanella (Tuscan bread salad)

Panzanella is a classic Tuscan summertime dish. Simple to make, it requires no cooking and is best if made at least an hour before serving, so it's a great dish to bring to potlucks and parties.


The version I made is the most basic one, but it's easy to make your own variations by adding whatever ingredients you want. Some common additions include hard-boiled egg, anchovies, capers, or lettuce.

Ingredients (for a large salad):
1/2 loaf of high-quality, somewhat stale bread (though the typical bread would be Tuscan bread, which is made without salt and in my opinion is a complete waste of flour, I used some older sourdough walnut bread I had, and it was delicious. The walnuts were a great addition to the salad as was the extra flavor of the sourdough)
1 cucumber
5 medium-sized salad tomatoes
1 red onion (the fresh kind if possible)
A handful of basil leaves
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Cut the bread into thick slices and place the slices in a large bowl of cold water to soften up. Depending on how stale your bread is, this could take from about 5-15 minutes. The bread should be soft but not disintegrating.


When the bread is softened, remove it from the water and squeeze out any excess water from the bread. Taking a bit at a time, crumble the bread into smallish bits (not as small as real crumbs), and place the crumbled bread in your salad bowl.

Slice the onion into half-rings. Wash and peel the cucumber (if it's the kind that needs to be peeled) and slice it fairly thin. Wash the tomatoes and dice them. Wash the basil leaves and tear them up by hand.

Add the onion, tomatoes, cucumber, and basil to the bread. Add in several spoonfuls of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir everything up, cover, and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Just before serving, add in a spoonful or two of balsamic vinegar, and extra olive oil, salt, or pepper, if necessary.

Cucumber Yogurt Salad

I was a very picky eater as a kid, which made meal preparation a rather tricky task for my parents, especially considering that my brother, who was generally pretty accepting of various foods, absolutely refused to eat cheese (which was one of the few foods I would eat of course). However, whenever my mom made this salad, my brother and I would both happily eat it all up and even ask for seconds!


I tried to make it once in Italy, and this led to my discovery of the fact that nobody in Italy seems to know what dill is, nor can it be found in any major supermarkets or open-air markets. I finally managed to track down a jar at a strange foreign foods/health foods store that I came across completely by chance while wandering down a street near the Navigli district. That jar, with it's labeling of 'Aneto' is the one I still have and use, though of course if you have access to fresh dill then you should definitely use that!

Ingredients (makes enough for 1 large dish or for 2 people to split as a side to other dishes):
1 medium cucumber
250 g plain yogurt
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt
Mint
Dill
A spring of parsley

Wash the cucumber and peel if necessary (depends on the variety of cucumber). Chop lengthwise and then chop each half into thin slices. Combine cucumber and yogurt in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice and then add a pinch of salt, the mint, and the dill. Mix everything well. Wash the parsley and chop it into little bits. Sprinkle the parsley over the salad and serve immediately or let chill a bit and then serve.

I added some Israeli/Levantine couscous to my salad to round out the meal, but the salad also works well as an accompaniment to heartier dishes, particularly when they are spicy!