Darren and I are officially on the Wedding Diet, so now I’m on a quest to find simple, healthy things that are easy to make in advance and pack up for him to bring in to work.

We both love couscous and tomatoes, so this one kind of took care of itself.  It’s a simple couscous salad with tomato, fresh mozzarella, and roasted asparagus.

The goods:
1 box quick-cooking plain couscous (Near East or equivalent store brand)

2 vine ripe tomatoes, cored and diced

1 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed

1 fist-sized ball fresh mozzarella, diced

olive oil

red wine vinegar

salt & pepper

The method:

– Set your broiler to high.

– Cook couscous according to package directions (usually this means bring 2 cups of water and a splash of oil to a boil, then take off the heat, stir in the couscous, and cover and let sit for about 5 minutes)

– While waiting for your water to boil, trim your asparagus.  Place on a baking pan, and toss with some oil, salt and pepper.  Whack that into the broiler and let it cook until just crispy on the ends and tender all the way through.

– Meanwhile, dice your tomatoes and mozzarella, and combine them in a big ol’ mixing bowl.

– When the 5 minutes are up on your couscous, fluff the couscous with a fork or wooden spoon (try to break up as many of the chunks as possible) and set aside to cool.

– Remove asparagus from the oven once it’s cooked and let cool.

– After about half an hour when everything is cool, add couscous to the bowl with your tomatoes and mozzarella.  Chop your asparagus into bite-sized pieces and throw that in the bowl as well.  Drizzle in some more olive oil and some red wine vinegar, add a good couple pinches of salt and pepper (to taste) and mix it all together.

Divide it up into your preferred storage containers, and you’re set!  I got five good-sized portions out of this batch, which is perfect and should last Darren all week.  Yay!