couscous with stir-fried veggies

my first time to prepare and eat couscous was something so fast and yummy that i wish it weren't only sold in delis, which means - expensive! and that it was readily available in the local supermarkets at affordable prices.

i wanted to make a greek/mediterranean inspired dish with my left-over half-packet of couscous so i checked out what i had and made this:

prepare the following
2 shallots, roughly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
5 red ripe tomatoes, quartered
1 carrot, diced
1 can of shiitake mushrooms, drained, rinsed, drained again, and sliced
1 can garbanzo beans. drained, rinsed, and drained again
a handful of raisins
a handful of cashews

after the nifty mise en place you just made, melt a pat of butter in a small pot, pour in a cup of water and season with salt and pepper, as soon as it starts boiling, remove the pot from the fire, pour in 1 cup of couscous, make sure every tiny bit settles down into the liquid, cover and leave for 5 minutes.

while waiting for the 5 long minutes to end, stir fry what you prepped above, in a hot pan with 2 tbsps. of hot olive oil in it.  put in the ingredients one after the other in the same order as listed above.  season with salt and pepper and a sprinkling of dried parsley.  when the five minutes are up, switch off the fire.

fluff your couscous with a fork and pour it into your stir-fried veggie concoction, mix 'em up gently.  serve hot, preferably in bowl with a spoon and a drizzle of lemon.  start eating and marvel at the really hearty, really yummy, and unbelievably easy invention you just made.

you can substitute my ingredients with whatever you have, just make sure you stick to the sorta-greek/sorta-mediterranean inspired theme so as not to end up with anything bizarre.  but hey, sometimes, bizarre tastes great too!