Vacation Cous Cous with Edamame, Mint & Feta

By Tracie Broom
Partner, Flock and Rally: Events + Communications for a Brave New South
June 14, 2013

Last week, my business partner and I left town for our PR firm’s annual summer retreat on Folly Beach, and we needed some easy, tasty treats in the fridge. We’d be pretty busy between hardcore remote office time with our laptops on the tin-roofed porch, and those blessed few hours of chillaxing on the beach in our Sunshine Rentals beach chairs, discussing client strategy and business development.

(If you hit Folly and want the sweet, canvas umbrella treatment, visit Mike at the E. 2nd beach access. Yellow umbrellas. He’s a roller derby husband, a great citizen, and his wife runs the wildly cool Juice Joint smoothie truck across from Tokyo Crepes.)

In our downtime, we could be found scarfing queso at Taco Boy, forking into duck prosciutto & beets at Blu at The Tides, noshing on Cuban sandwiches at the Drop-In, reveling in Thai tamarind seafood soup and amazing pizza at the ‘Wich Doctor, luxuriating in blackened salmon BLT wraps from the Lost Dog, or chomping grilled mahi tacos on handmade tortillas at the rad new Chico Feo taco shop (next to Bert’s, where the awful Lunch Hook used to be).

But we’d need sustenance at the beach house. Here’s my current go-to vacation salad recipe for quick, healthy deliciousness. Most of it comes in a bag (unless you nerdily grow your own mint like I do), and the whole thing takes 20 to 25 minutes tops.

I don’t recommend making this with regular, bulgur wheat cous cous. What makes this salad great is the teensy-tiny pasta plumpness of the Israeli cous cous, interacting with the pop of green peas and corn, and the toasty crunch of pine nuts. If you have to, sub orzo.

There are so many veggies, it’s like you are barely eating pasta or cheese, and yet YOU ARE. Want to get fancy? Throw some grilled or roasted shrimp up in there. Yum.

Makes a junkload. Serves at least 16 people handsomely. Lasts a good week in the fridge.

Vacation Cous Cous with Edamame, Mint & Feta

1 lb. Israeli cous cous/pearl pasta (or better, Trader Joe’s Harvest Grains Blend. Orzo is fine in a pinch)
1 block of feta cheese, 1cm cubes (reduced fat works quite well)
Big handful (20-30) fresh mint leaves, chopped or chiffonade (I wouldn’t try this with dried mint. Go with fresh basil if there’s no mint to be found. But, it is your salad now.)
¼ cup or so of toasted pine nuts (toast them in a pan or toaster oven, but be careful, because they burn easily)
2 lemons’ worth of lemon zest, no white pith
½ cup good olive oil, or more (California Olive Ranch has a bright, green flavor)
1 14-16 oz. bag frozen green peas (go organic with the veggies if you can)
1 14-16 oz. bag frozen corn
1 14-16 oz. bag frozen edamame
1 14-16 oz. bag chopped spinach
1 14-16 oz. bag haricots verts (pretentious little green beans)
Good fresh-ground black pepper & good salt to taste
A really big bowl

Ideally, thaw the bagged veggies first, which, happily, negates the need to cook them. Otherwise, cook according to directions and drain.

Fire up the cous cous according to directions, which takes 10 minutes. While it’s cooking, chop your feta and mint, toast your pine nuts, grind your pepper, and zest your lemons. This can all go in the same (giant) bowl.

Add your drained/cooked/thawed veggies, and mix up. Then add your drained cous cous pasta. Throw that olive oil in there, salt to taste, and stir gently until everything is mixed up better than the files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

Top it with roasted/grilled shrimp or another proteinaceous thing to make a statement-y dinner.

Have a great summer, y’all!

This weekly food column is curated by Tracie Broom, who serves on the board at Slow Food Columbia (http://www.slowfoodcola.org), publishes The Yum Diary (http://www.yumdiary.com), and is a founding partner at Flock and Rally: Events + Communications for a Brave New South (http://www.flockandrally.com).