TINY Kitchen Shrimp with Garlic Kale and Parmesan Couscous

At our house, we take dinner pretty seriously as it’s often our first time in the day to talk and catch up on everything. Because of that, when I get home from work, I want to jump right into the catching up part and not spend a ton of time in the kitchen. That’s where recipes like this were born: what’s easy, yummy, and relatively healthy without being boring? Enter the TINY Kitchen Shrimp with Garlic Kale and Parmesan Couscous.

This is a great recipe for those times when you want to make a dinner that looks truly impressive (and tastes delicious), but you’re crunched for time. The whole thing should take you under thirty minutes, including prepping all ingredients. It’s also a healthy yet hearty meal, loaded with veggies and low-calorie shrimp, but set atop filling and yummy couscous. The core veggies in this recipe are the garlic and kale, but I’ve added bell pepper and garbanzo beans to give it some extra flavor. You could just as easily substitute some of your own favorite veggies like tomatoes, zucchini or butternut squash to make this recipe your own.

INGREDIENTS

½ lb shrimp, deveined and peeled

2 cups kale, washed and chopped

½ cup garbanzo beans

½ cup red bell pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 cup dry couscous

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 ¼ cup water

2 tbs olive oil or coconut oil

An additional 2 tsp olive or coconut oil

1 tsp dried parsley

salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

In a small pot, bring 1 ¼ cup water and 2 tsp oil to just a boil
Add couscous, cover and remove from heat
Let stand for 5 minutes
Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat 1 tbs oil over medium-high heat
Add shrimp
Lightly salt and pepper the shrimp while they cook, and cook until opaque
Turn the heat to medium, and add 1 tbs of oil to pan with shrimp
Add in kale and garlic, stirring frequently until kale is wilted and garlic is aromatic
Add the garbanzo beans and bell pepper, stirring everything together
Add 1/4 cup grated parmesan and stir to evenly coat everything with the parmesan
Remove lid from couscous and fluff with fork, adding remaining parmesan cheese, parsley, and then salt and pepper to taste (NOTE: couscous should be light and fluffy, and all the water should be absorbed)
Plate the couscous, and then top with veggies and shrimp