Summer is here, and you step out to the streets happy as a butterfly wanting to smell the flowers. You try to get a big breath of the summer air and… COUGH, COUGH, COUGH; you almost lose your lungs. The smell of pee, garbage, and who knows what else, almost make you run back home. But being a die hard optimistic I keep going. Hoping that the flowers and butterflies will show up eventually. Well…. they don’t. That’s how it is living in the big apple. You sweat bullets in the steamy air; you have to fight a taxi driver that came from the hottest place on earth and think that 90 degrees is considered mild weather for the day and decide to economize his AC. Then you question yourself why on earth you want to live here?  And the answer to that is you don’t, but still do anyway. New York has its magic, the culture, the restaurants, the cool stores, lots of options and different people. But nature, beach, fresh air… NOPE! I know, I shouldn’t be complaining especially after such a long winter. But one has the right to dream right? And I dream with beach and nature. So to cheer myself up a little, I cooked lamb chops, nice couscous salad to go with it and had a romantic dinner with my lovely hubby.

For the Couscous:

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup chopped shallots
• 3 cups Chicken Stock
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups couscous
• 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan, add the shallots and cook for 3 minutes over medium heat. Add the chicken stock, salt and pepper, raise the heat to high and bring the stock to a boil. Off the heat and add the couscous. Cover the pan and let it sit for 10 minutes. Add the pine nuts and cranberries to the couscous, stir and serve.

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