Roasted Vegetables with Couscous & a twist

This recipe required an impressive pile of veggies. I decided to mix it up a bit and substituted one of the zucchinis for a yellow squash and added a red bell pepper to the veggie mix. I also decided to leave the skins on the cherry tomatoes -- I like that subtle smoky flavor of a roasted tomato. I couldn't get cardamom or saffron, so the saffron got left out & I substituted 1/2tsp clove + 1/2tsp nutmeg for the cardamom.

All in all this recipe took about an hour, I chopped the root vegetables first & got them sauteeing while I finished chopping up everything else that came later in the recipe. I didn't have a roasting pan, so I did the sauteeing in a large pan on the stove & then tranferred to a baking dish to go in the oven.

I thought it was strange that the recipe said to sautee the cilantro & parsley in butter -- I did as the recipe said but in hindsight I think it would have been better to just mix it in fresh with the couscous. I also added some lemon juice to the couscous to give it some extra flavor.

It was beautiful going into the oven. I went ahead and added 1/2C water before going in the oven so that it wouldn't get too dry.

It worked well to make the couscous & chop the cilantro and parsley while it was baking.

As my husband is an avid meat-eater I made some spicy Italian sausage to go with the dish too.

All in all it turned out well & was quite tasty. I was a little disappointed in the blandness of the couscous but having such flavorful veggies helped balance the meal.