Survival Cooking

I'm a horrible horrible monkey. Before I get to the whole cooking lesson, I'm going to tug at your little human heart strings with this very cute picture of a baby squirrel monkey. I got it from some squirrel monkey web site.

Okay, on to the cooking lesson for the day. Summer Salads. Nothing is worse than slaving over a meal at the end of a long, hot day. The sun is still out, the heat has finally let up for the day, and you really want to be outside fetching the frisbee (wait - do humans fetch or throw frisbees? sigh - I'll never get ALL the details right) but instead you're inside making dinner.

The answer can be found in hearty summer salads. We aren't talking lettuce in a bag (which, the old lady tells me has played host to several cases of E.Coli lately - you DO NOT WANT e.coli. The Super Bongo had E. Coli once -- had to be put in the hospital and poked repeatedly with sharp things and they very nearly killed me.) We're talking the cousins of easy - taboule and couscous.

Taboule is parboiled and dehydrated wheat and couscous is pasta that's shaped like little BBs. The beauty is that both can be prepared simply by boiling water (or broth). You measure out what ever amount of the dry taboule or couscous you want - and then measure out an equal portion of the liquid of your choice. Boil said liquid, pour over dry ingredient, cover and for taboule, wait about 30 minutes and for couscous, wait about 5. Once the taboule or couscous is made - you can add in veggies to your delight. (cool before adding) I particularly like cukes and mint in my salads. But, what ever veggies you have around will work - just cut into bitesized bits. You can even toss in left over cooked veggies. Nuts and fruit is good too -- I especially like grapes. I also chop up herbs from the garden -- mint, basil, parsley, chives -- whatever is good.

For the taboule - I chop veggies while it "cooks" and then put the bowl in of taboule in the frig to cool and the bowl of chopped veg in the frig to sit -- and mix it all together just before serving. For dressing, you can use lemon juice and olive oil. Make sure you taste for salt and pepper. In the summer, the phenom and I like to have taboule salad and sauteed chicken breasts. Quick, tasty, and easy.

Next time, I'll give you the secret to really excellent home fried 'taters.