Couscous Ratatouille

This couscous ratatouille is a delicious vegan medley of vegetables combined with giant couscous, making a perfectly filling quick healthy meal. It’s ideal as a family dinner and easily freezable too! 

Couscous ratatouille is based on the classic French Provençal vegetable stew and the delicious flavours that go with that.

You can be sure you’re getting a good dose of your daily recommended nutritional intake from this healthy recipe.

This Couscous Ratatouille Is Perfect For Vegan January

Firstly, Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends! You may want to consider this vegetable based recipe after all that turkey! Ha ha! 😉

Anyway, so, you may recall that I mentioned in the oven baked salmon recipe that Lady Lynne and I are going vegan for January.

Well, this recipe provides an idea of the sort of meals you can expect here on neilshealthymeals, throughout that month, fitting into the usual theme of quick healthy meals, but being vegan!

I must admit that when Lady Lynne told me I was going made the suggestion that we should both try a vegan only diet for that month, I had some trepidation, not only from a whole load of new meatless meals I’d have to think of, but also that fact of all the other things I might miss, like cheese and my beloved Greek yogurt!

However, I’ve thought about it more clearly now, and, actually going through some of the recipes here on neilshealthymeals, a lot of them can be tailored to be vegan. This comes from both of us not being huge red meat eaters, preferring white lean meats and / or fish, and a diet largely like the Mediterranean diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.

For instance, I was making a batch of chorizo and lentil stew this week and it occurred to me that it could quite easily be made vegan. Removing the chorizo meat element, switching the chicken stock for vegetable stock and adding some kidney beans or chickpeas, extra red peppers and a little chilli too. Yum!

It’s going to be an interesting January, and I’ll keep you fully updated here. And, I hope you’ll follow Lynne and me on our vegan “journey”.

Uganda and Zanzibar

Firstly though, before vegan January……

There’s not long to go for Lynne and I now before our BIG holiday to Uganda and Zanzibar and hello Gorillas!

We’ve been saving hard for this, for months and months. Work for us both has been extremely challenging this year (but when is it not) and I’d be telling fibs if didn’t admit that I’m pretty exhausted with the long days I’ve been spending at work. Still it’ll all be worthwhile, and that’s why we work hard isn’t it?

Naturally, I’d far rather bring you 2 – 3 quick healthy meals and simple recipes every week, here on neilshealthymeals, but whilst some people may make their living off blogging, I’m a way off that for now!

Last weekend we had a fabulous lunch with Erin and Luke, which involved much good food with delicious shared tapas at the black dove and much good red wine and conversation too. Whilst blogging has never made me any money (yet), and that certainly wasn’t the intention when I set out on this journey, what is has done, is enrich my circle of friends. Good friends.

Lady Lynne and I have a few final holiday things to pick up this weekend. Some final shopping in Glasgow, you know, the typical British holiday requirements, like t bags and umpteen bottles of sunscreen. Then it’ll be time to begin the packing.

Packing has to be light. We’ll be travelling a bit by motorised transport of some sort in Uganda with g-adventures to get up into the jungle where we’ll base ourselves, for a few days, before trekking to hopefully find those amazing creatures!

Naturally, packing wise, Lynne is trying to get in as many pairs of shoes as possible, whilst I’m fretting about my camera, spare lenses, tablet computer, and whether there will be wi-fi anywhere!

Anyway, enough said about that, without further ado here’s today’s recipe!

Print

Couscous Ratatouille

Prep Time

30 mins

Cook Time

30 mins

Total Time

1 hrs

 

This couscous ratatouille is a delicious vegan medley of vegetables combined with giant couscous, making for a perfect filling quick healthy meal.

Course: Dinner

Servings: 4

Calories: 331 kcal

Author: neil@neilshealthymeals.com

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large red onion diced
• 2 cloves garlic crushed
• 1 courgette sliced thinly zucchini, then slices quartered
• 1 large carrot peeled and diced
• 1 red pepper capsicum, diced
• 250 g white mushrooms sliced
• 2 x 400g (14oz U.S) tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp chilli paste optional
• Freshly ground salt and pepper
• 100 g whole wheat giant couscous
• 400 ml vegetable stock
• Freshly chopped flat leaf parsley

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pan.
2. Sauté the onion and garlic for 3 – 4 minutes.
3. Add the courgette, carrot, red pepper, combine together well and cook for 3 – 4 minutes.
4. Add the mushrooms, cook for 2 minutes, stirring together.
5. Add both tins of tomatoes, bring the ratatouille to the boil, then turn down to simmer gently, stir in the chilli paste and allow to cook for about 6 minutes.
6. Whilst ratatouille is simmering away, cook the whole wheat couscous in the vegetables stock for approximately 6 minutes, then drain.
7. Add the cooked couscous to the ratatouille, cook everything together, stirring the mixture regularly for a further 5 minutes.
8. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
9. Serve garnished with the chopped parsley

If you enjoyed this recipe how about checking out my ratatouille and chickpea stew?

Right, I’ve just got a couple more blog posts for you next week.

Check back then for the first one on Tuesday, a deliciously easy simple chicken and vegetable soup. Then on Thursday chocolate cranberry truffles the first of 2 Christmas recipes!

So, as its Thursday let’s do the link up with Amanda at Running with Spoons and I’ll catch up with you next week!

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