I spent yesterday detoxing from my indulging weekend and reinstating my lifestyle plan. The detox side of it meant drinking somewhere in the region of 8 pints of iced green tea. Not 100% sure how much I drank as I made the tea up in a huge plastic bowl. But I put about 8 teabags in it.
It was interesting because I’ve heard all the rumours about how much water you’re supposed to drink in a day. Some say 8 pints a day; others say that’s physically impossible. Well I can vouch for it being very, very possible. I ended up drinking about 9 pints of tea all told during the day, and managed two pints of ginger beer when I nipped out to the pub. I probably won’t aim for 8 pints of liquid every day, as it was a struggle, but I know I can certainly increase my fluid intake.
Anyway, delicious and refreshing as this tea was, after a while of sitting around doing nothing but drinking green tea, it gets boring. Also I got hungry. So I made myself a snack of couscous. I love couscous, but since buying the blasted stuff I’ve been completely unable to get that lovely fluffy texture that couscous is supposed to have. I have, however, now discovered a really easy way to get perfect couscous. It’s probably been done before, but its new to me and I think it’s marvellous.
I cooked my couscous in the microwave.
I took about a third of a cup of couscous, about 1/3 of a cup of water, plus on table spoon, and added these to a microwavable bowl. TI then covered the bowl with a plate, and placed in the microwave for 2 minutes on full (in a 950W microwave). The couscous came out lovely and fluffy but with a slight bite to it. Perfect with some mushrooms and butter forked through. Next time I will try using cold stock instead of water to add even more flavour.
Bolstred by my success I tried the same approach with the cracked bulgur wheat I have. I used 1/3 cup of bulgur wheat to just over 1/3 cup of water. This needed four minutes to get to the al dente point, but was equally delicious. If softer bulgur wheat is preferred then double the amount of water to wheat would do it; might need longer in the microwave to cook and absorb all the water.
A word of warning though; don’t attempt the same technique with rice. The water boils over and covers the inside of the microwave in a starchy sticky substance and the rice starts exploding after a while.
But I am dead chuffed that I can now make couscous with the correct consistency. I suspect that I will be eating rather more of it for lunch now.
