I have been trying to get my kitchen organized and it is a lot harder than I thought it would be which is making cooking really challenging. When it comes to food I am definitely a horder. I have every bean every grain and practically every spice I have ever heard of. I don’t know how it all started but I have been a horder since I was a little kid, you would think I was raised during the depression or something. For example, olives have always been my favorite food and I usually keep a back up jar but if I don’t have one I keep a lone emergency olive in the jar until I replenish my supply. That’s right folks it is no lie; at any time you can open my refrigerator and you are guaranteed to find at least one olive. And if there is one olive and you eat it…. well let’s just say you won’t make that mistake again.
I also have had an unlabeled bag of an unknown grain since I moved in to the last house. Mr. Smurf was trying to convince me that if I haven’t used it in 5 years I was never going to use and it was time to throw it out. Instead, it came to the new house and now with many more years of cooking experience I immediately identified it as couscous and decided it was time to make magic happen. First, I was going to toast some coriander and make kind of a Greek-style dish but then I couldn’t find the coriander anywhere so the old standbys of garlic and Italian seemed to be the perfect solution.
This dish turned out to be everything I had hoped: fast, easy, healthy and we were able to make gigantic portions and save some for lunch this week. I was going to use mushrooms too but they weren’t any good so if you try this add them in before the chard leaves if you have them around. And if you don’t love olives you might want to try raisins or another dried fruit instead.
Swiss Chard & Pine Nut Couscous with Sicilian Olives
Saute the onions in a cast iron skillet for a couple of minutes and then add the chard stems. Once they are all starting to brown shove everything to the side of the pan and toast the pine nuts over the hot spot. Make sure they don’t go from golden to burned, it can happen rather quickly and then move them to the side of the pan. Add the garlic, saute for 30 seconds, mix everything together and then add the chard leaves. Once the chard leaves cook down (like a minute) add the sundried tomatoes and their re-hydrating water, and about a cup of stock depending how much reserved water you have. Add the couscous and mix everything together. You don’t need to have the whole mess under water but you need enough that nothing is going to burn while you reduce the heat, put the lid on, and cook for about 10 minutes. Check on it and stir things up once or twice. Add the olives & lemon juice and enjoy!
Lazy Smurf's Guide 
come cook for me, my couscous is always dry
Yum. This looks and sounds delicious. People who see our pantry would think we were horders. Our pantry is full, overflowing. But I love it!
You really can’t go wrong with these ingredients. And I like the idea of always having an emergency olive on hand. I tend to have an emergency carton of ice cream. But that’s just me 😀
Seriously, your cous cous looks better than any I’ve ever made. I’m going to try this recipe!
What an awesome looking dish! I’d be all about throwing some sundried tomatoes in it too.
And I’m with you on the food hoarding issue. I totally collect pantry items and justify them with the idea that I never know when I might want them (especially now that I can only get cool, weird things when I visit big cities like Atlanta), but it could definitely be classified as a problem 🙂
Wow, I’m out of it, sundried tomatoes are in the recipe. Not sure how I missed that on the first read!
That is funny, there should be lemon too, I forgot to add it in the list.
This looks delicious, I am always looking for healthy meals that combines delicious ingredients like sun dried tomatoes, olives and garlic. Yum!
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This dish sounds so so so good.