Burst Tomato Recipe - a 20 minute meal

It's been quite a while since I put anything food-based on here and tonight's meal is a great one to share! This meal took me 20 minutes to make, start to finish, is healthy, and delicious!

So, here is what you're looking at: to the left is couscous topped with burst tomatoes, behind that is home made pita, following around to the right is hummus, then kalamata olives and cucumbers from Spinster Beth's garden (Thanks, Beth, they were delicious!)

And now for the How-Tos:

Pita dough can be made ahead of time and kept in the freezer until the day it is needed. Follow the recipe for magic flat dough  that I posted early on in this blog for tips. It is really wonderful to keep on hand and takes only about 7 minutes to make the dough then 8 to 9 minutes to bake it in the oven. SO, for our meal today, put the rolled-out dough in the 450 deg. oven before starting the couscous. In the picture above, the pita is served alongside store-bough hummus, but you can easily make that at home as well!

Couscous is a very simple, quick grain that is fairly healthy. Head to HealthMad to get the full scoop on its health value. It requires all the time it takes to boil water plus five minutes more to be complete and tastes good hot, cold or at room temperature so it makes a decent lunch for the next day too!

Ingredients: 

one box couscous mix, plain (you can find this in nearly any grocery store now)

1/4 tsp. turmeric

one large or two small carrots

fresh parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Cook the couscous according to directions on the box, adding the turmeric to the water before adding the couscous.
2. Using a food chopper/processor (or similar method), finely dice the parsley and carrot(s) while the water is coming to a boil.
3. Add the parsley and carrots to the couscous once it is finished.

Let the couscous sit off to the side while finishing the Burst Tomatoes.

Burst Tomatoes as with the couscous, are super-simple, take just a few minutes to cook and are delicious at any temperature.

Ingredients:

2 to 3 containers grape or cherry tomatoes (we prefer grape toms in our house)

about 1.5 Tbsp. each of parsley, rosemary, oregano, and thyme (remember, people, that's EachI)

splash of olive

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Finely chop the herbs - this can be done all at once.
2. Add all the ingredients to a hot pan and over med-high to high heat, continuously (or nearly so) stir the tomatoes until they begin to pop and burst in the pan. This will create a bit of a "stew" effect over time. Once most of the tomatoes have burst open, use a knife to pop any tomatoes that have not busted on their own.

Finish off the meal with sliced, crunchy cucumbers and olives and perhaps a glass of water with a lime slice to serve! 

Enjoy! 

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