ahhh, a gift!

When I got home from work today, I was greeted by a box! Way exciting, who doesn't love to find that waiting for them?! After some research and accusatory text messages, I discovered it was from my good friend Andrea (so thoughtful) - she sent me probably one of the neatest things I've ever seen. It's called the Emulstir and I'm super excited to try it out. Thank you Andrea :)

My laptop broke two days ago. Okay, let me rephrase. My laptop died a tragic, slow, and painful death two days ago. I had this really bad habit of letting it rest on the arm of our couch, and it always decided to go bungee jumping. Now it's sitting in 3000 pieces on our kitchen table because Mike is fixing it. Unfortunately, this has been interfering with my blogging. I'm currently not-so-patiently waiting for a part to come in the mail. I will be posting more updates once this occurs.

Anyway, dinner was a slightly altered recipe from smitten kitchen and a marinade for salmon I kind of made up (some canola oil, brown sugar, soy sauce, and balsamic vinegar).

Couscous and Feta Stuffed Peppers (original recipe here)

Vegetable-oil cooking spray

1 1/4 cups fat-free chicken or vegetable broth

2/3 cup couscous

2 bell peppers

2 tsp olive oil

an unknown amount of zucchini and yellow squash, thinly sliced

1 tsp herbs de provence

1/2 tsp salt

1 small tomato, diced

1/2 cup feta

3 tablespoons tomato paste

Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a small baking dish with cooking spray. Bring the broth to a boil in a saucepan, add the couscous, cover the pan and remove it from the heat. Cut the stems and top half inch off the bell peppers and scoop out the seeds and membranes. Place peppers upright in a baking dish and roast them for 15 minutes or so, until they soften, then remove them from the oven until the filling is ready. Heat oil in a nonstick skillet. Add zucchini, yellow squash,herbs de provence, and salt. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or until vegetables are softened. Remove from heat and stir in the tomatoes and tomato paste. Using a fork, scrape the couscous into the skillet and toss with the vegetables. Stir in the crumbled feta. Fill peppers with the couscous mixture. Bake 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

It was pretty tasty - the original recipe includes chickpeas, which I did have, but I wasn't really feeling it tonight. Mike liked this too :)

xo, Lindsay