Couscous with Garden Vegetables

What better way to celebrate the first harvest of the year than with a big delicious bowl of couscous loaded with veggies fresh from the garden.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup couscous
• 1/2 small orange bell pepper chopped
• 4 scallions sliced (avoid the dark green bits)
• 12 small cherry tomatoes halved
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• Lemon zest
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Place couscous in a heat proof bowl. Pour 1 cup boiling water over couscous. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Fluff with fork.
2. Whisk oil and juice together with salt and pepper and dress couscous
3. Mix in cut veggies and sprinkle with lemon zest.

Canned Tomatoes

Picture courtesy of Allyou.com

This is going to be a relatively short post, and is mostly a question. Canned tomatoes are pretty much a staple in my pantry. Crushed or diced, sauce or paste. I LOVE tomato products. Like most people I try to be an informed consumer. One way I do this is by keeping track of the ingredients in my food.

Every can of tomatoes I buy seems to have Calcium Chloride, a food additive that is meant to help the canned tomatoes keep their shape and also prevents tomatoes on the vine from rotting. From the bit of research I've done this additive seems to be a natural salt however I'm not entirely sure I think it belongs in my food. I've heard that Tomatoes canned for overseas markets don't seem to have the additive and it's mostly for the USA market.

What do you Kitchen Witches out there think? Who buys with and who buys without? Has anyone bought both and noticed a difference? Does anyone know if the addition has any type of health side effects?

Leave a comment and let me know.