Summertime couscous salad

This couscous salad is both fresh and filling and is as healthy as can be! It's a really good recipe to make a huge batch of which you can then eat for multiple meals. Yum!

Ingredients:

• couscous
• tofu
• chickpeas
• cucumber
• red bell pepper
• juice of one lemon
• cumin (powder form)
• salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper if you like it hot
• coconut oil (extra virgin olive oil works too!)
• optional to garnish: rucola, sprouts

Instructions:

Preparation (3 minutes)

1. Prepare couscous according to package instructions, set aside and let cool.
2. Peel and chop cucumber into small pieces, chop bell pepper into small pieces.
3. Drain canned chickpeas.

Tofu (10-15 minutes)

1. Slice the tofu into long, thin pieces
2. Wrap tofu in a paper towel and place it on a plate. Put another plate on top of it and then place something heavy on that plate to then let it sit for 5-10 minutes (the goal is to get as much moisture out of the tofu as possible).
3. Chop the tofu into bite-sized rectangular blocks.
4. Heat up 1 tablespoon of coconut oil over medium heat in a pan and sprinkle a generous layer of cumin, salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper to taste.
5. Place the tofu blocks in the pan and let them cook for about 4 minutes on each side. The tofu should take on the color of the cumin (light brown). You know the blocks are fried to perfection when each side is slightly crunchy.

Assembling the salad (1 minute)

1. Mix tofu, bell pepper, cucumber, chickpeas and couscous.
2. Drizzle lemon juice and add zest over mixture.
3. Season with additional salt and black pepper.
4. Garnish with rucola and sprouts as desired.
5. Your summertime couscous salad is ready to be devoured!