Chicken and Couscous

My husband and I travel so if we are home a weekend it is a date night. One thing I hate is to have a great meal and then have a lot of dishes to clean up. And one way to do that is a rotisserie chicken. They are great and there is so much you can do with the chicken. When I buy a rotisserie chicken I cut it in half and take the meat off so it does two meals. Below are the ingredients for one of the meals we love.

Ingredients

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

salt and pepper

4 medium carrots, thinly sliced

3/4 cup couscous

1/2 of a coarsely chopped rotisserie chicken

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1/4 cup golden raisins

4 scallions, roughly chopped

1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro

I got this from Food Network and modified for our tastes

Start with the chicken. When I am cooking for the two of us I cut the chicken in half and use half for this recipe and keep the other half for tomorrow night. Chop the chicken in small pieces,

Next get all your vegetables ready. Go ahead and cut the carrots. First you peel the carrots and slice the carrots in thin slices. Next cut the ends off the scallions and chop the scallions. Chop the white and light green parts of the scallions.

Now lets get the parts for the topping ready. You can use sliced almonds or if you have whole almonds chop them in a food processor. We like the whole ones chopped but either one is fine. You need to go ahead and chop your cilantro. You need 1/2 cup of fresh chopped cilantro. You really need to get the fresh it is so much better than the dried cilantro.

Bring 2 1/2 cups water to a boil in medium pot. Add 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon,1 tsp ginger, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Once the water is boiling add the carrots and cook until tender about 4 or 5 minutes. Drain the carrots, and save the liquid.

Put 3/4 cup of couscous and chicken in a medium bowl. Then pour 1 cup of the liquid that you drained off the carrots and mix all together. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it stand for about 5 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork.

Now in the same pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the almonds, raisins, scallions and the 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Cook, stirring, until the nuts are toasted, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in 1/3 cup of the chopped cilantro.

Put some of the couscous and chicken in your plates. Top with the carrots and more of the cooking liquid. Sprinkle with the almond mixture and more cilantro. You can add a salad if you want more vegetables. Now everything goes in the dishwasher and enjoy date night.