It’s amazing what you can find in the kitchen, between both the cupboards and what you recently bought at the store, that can make a great meal.  I got creative tonight and whipped up a tasty salad that required nothing but ‘shopping’ in my own cupboards and fridge.  It took less than 10 minutes but has and will provide(d) hours of happiness, from a full stomach…to multiple meals, aka leftovers.

Ingredients:

-(Trader Joe’s) couscous
-(Trader Joe’s) grape tomatoes
-(Trader Joe’s) frozen artichoke hearts
-(Costco) hearts of palm
-Grapefruit
-Leftover chicken breasts
–Tessemae‘s Lemonette
-S&P

Directions:

-Cook couscous per directions — boil water, put in couscous, let sit 5 minutes.
-While that’s happening, defrost artichoke hearts, cut hearts of palm, peel and cut grapefruit.  The chicken I had was already sliced from last night.
-When couscous is done, place in large bowl, top with all other (solid) ingredients.  Toss with salad dressing, season to taste.  Eat.

Rough, right?  Just think about all the additions/subtractions/changes you could make to this, too, to fit your tastes.

-add nuts
-add beans (garbanzo (chick peas), black, kidney)
-no meat
-seafood (I’m out of chicken — only had a couple pieces left so salmon or tuna’s going in there tomorrow)
-dried fruit
-different dressing
-more seasoning
-base of quinoa vs. couscous

What’s the most important thing?  You can make SO MUCH out of what is in your kitchen so you don’t have to go out night after night.  What’s the worse case scenario?  You experiment, it’s not great.  You know everything that went in there and you just keep trying.  Cook on my friends, cook on.