Exam Season Recipe: Warm Vegetable and Feta Couscous

By Yasmin Attwood, 2nd Year English

The Croft Magazine// The process of cooking can become a formidable task in exam season when you are busy with so many deadlines and time is limited. But it is exactly at this time when your energy is low that a nutritious meal is most important; this recipe provides triple the goodness: being easy to make, nutritious, and delicious! I would recommend cooking a batch of it (this recipe makes roughly 4 portions) to either share with friends, or to last you for several meals in a row – it also is easier in terms of using up ingredients rather than leaving half a packet of something random like feta cheese with no idea what to do with it.

Ingredients :

·    1 block of feta cheese (‘Greek style salad cheese’ from Sainsbury’s tastes the same as feta but is half the price, it might only be in the big Sainsbury’s though) (There are some good vegan alternatives out there too if you want to make this recipe vegan :)

·    1 pepper

·    1 onion

·    1 broccoli

·    1 carrot

·    Half a bag of cous cous (or roughly 250/300g)

·    Stock cube/ paprika/ whatever spices you feel like (eg, garlic powder, cumin, oregano etc)

It doesn’t matter if you don’t use the exact same veg, and if you have any spare veg hanging around just add it in, it’s a great way to use it up.

Method:

1.  First fry the onion and pepper in oil in a pan until cooked, then set aside.

2.  Then put the chopped broccoli and finely chopped/grated carrots in the pan, fill with water until they are covered, and boil on a medium heat for 10 minutes or until they look soft.

-     Zero waste tip: grate the stalk of the broccoli and cook it too, it saves it from going to waste and you don’t really notice it when it’s grated! Also don’t bother peeling the carrots, saves time and carrot :)

3.  Add the cous cous directly to the pan without removing the boiling water, and leave it for a few minutes with the hob switched off. You might have to add some more water to make sure the cous cous is fully saturated.

4.  Then add the spices and the onion and pepper, and mix it all up.

5.  Lastly, remove from the hob and add the crumbled/cubed feta cheese.

The meal is complete, quick and immensely nutritious to fuel you through exam season. It can also be made fully vegan by swapping out feta for a vegan cheese substitute.

Hope you enjoy!

Featured Image by Karolina Kołodziejczak via Unsplash

What's your favourite/go-to exam season meal?