right turn ahead

Disclaimer: anything that begins with “lemon-pistachio” is always going to catch my attention straight away!

Once again, I dove into my new cookbook, My Paris Kitchen, this weekend to look for something tasty to try. When my eyes fell upon the Lemon-Pistachio Israeli Couscous, I knew it had to be made. Two of my favorite flavors are lemon and pistachio and for an easy weekday lunch – nothing beats couscous. Plus, I had most of the ingredients on-hand so a trip to the store wasn’t necessary. It was a win-win!

The first thing this recipe calls for is preserved lemon. Now, I didn’t want to go to the store, and I certainly did not have a few weeks to preserve my own lemon, so that was left out of the recipe. I just substituted lemon juice from a Meyer lemon. I can only imagine how much better the preserved lemon is in this recipe (although my substitution was still amazing!)

I had a plethora of dried fruit in my pantry, so I ended up adding apricots, cranberries, and cherries to my couscous. I love how the pieces of fruit give the couscous a bite of sweetness and how they look like little jewels in the dish. The pistachios I used were the salted and shelled ones from Trader Joe’s which makes this dish so easy. Who has the time to shell pistachios? Way too much work…

The finished dish was so good – a perfect light lunch to last the rest of the week. Now, the recipe does not tell you if you should serve this warm of cold – so I opted for cold. I portioned it out into lunch-sized containers and now I am greeted with a yummy meal halfway through the day. I love how versatile the recipe is and how I can use, pretty much, whatever is in my pantry. With the color of the fruit and pistachios, it would also be perfect for company (it’s so pretty!)