Couscous Meals

Before I go on to the recipe, I want to share some sites with you. With today's economy being so hard financially for most people, the key to be able to cook nutritional meals and save money is by using coupons.

Yes, I clip coupons and I also a researched online and found some great sites that offer some fantastic coupons and if you use store cards you can even save money that way.

What works best for me with these sites is the fact I can click and print the coupons I want or need. Usually they limit you but even at that you can still save. A BIG thing to remember though is this: if you clip and print the coupon, be sure to use the coupon because if not you are only wasting your printer ink and since the objective is to save money, by printing coupons you will not use is only wasting precious printer ink which in the long run cost you more money.

I have been trying to plan my meals like this: I signed up to have my local store send me the Sunday sales paper via email. I look at my coupons and try to match them with things on sale (this saves you double the money) and incorporate what I have on hand (from previous sales) into a meal. Yes, I also stock pile and have for years.

It is hard to stack up on fresh produce so I usually purchase what I can use for that week, so besides looking to see if chicken is on sale that week, I usually look at the produce sales first. When you are cooking with couscous, the choices for incorporating fresh produce in a dish is endless.

It does take a little time to look through the coupons, print them and goes through the sales paper. Basically, it is like a small part time job, you have to treat this project like working on your Squidoo lens daily.

When I was little I remember liking apricots because my grandmother use to give them to me. One day out of the blue I was wondering what apricots would taste like in a couscous dish so I went to the store and purchased some dried apricots and seen they had Salt & Pepper cashews on sale and got them also.

I grated the zest of two oranges (too much, I should have used the zest of one orange)
The juice from the oranges that I zest
bag of dried apricots diced fine
1/2 cup of Salt and Pepper cashews (crushed)
Couscous
2-Chicken Breast (that I had frozen)

To be honest I was not crazy about this combination and my husbands reaction was: "It's okay". Needless to say I am not sure I will make it again.