Israeli Couscous Salad with Apples, Cranberries and Herbs

What do you get when you combine whole wheat Israeli couscous, toasted slivered almonds, diced apple, orange scented dried cranberries, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh parsley and a delicious dressing made of apple cider vinegar, maple syrup and olive oil?

You get one delicious and refreshing salad packed with flavors that remind me of Thanksgiving without the heaviness that you get by eating stuffing and cranberry sauce.

My stepdaughter made this salad first and was nice enough to share some of it with us last weekend.  I always make a Mediterranean flavored couscous salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, black olives and feta cheese so this was a new and fresh way for me to have it.  We loved it.  So much so that I bugged her for the recipe and finally Googled the ingredients to find the recipe when she didn't get it to me fast enough.   The recipe credit belongs to Giada De Laurentiis.  I was not surprised.  She ranks right after Bobby Flay as the TV chef that I most want to cook for me.

This salad was the perfect meal to take to the office for lunch.  My stepdaughter generously shared enough that I was able to take it two days in a row; but, because I enjoyed it so much, I knew that I was going to have to make some more of it.  Not only was the salad delicious, it kept really nicely in a covered container in the fridge.  The flavors just seemed to get even better each day.  I was pleasantly surprised that the apple didn't turn brown and yucky and the almonds did not soften at all.  The only negative...if you can call it that...was the outcome that I received when I ran the ingredients through the points calculator on the Weight Watchers' website tonight.  If you only get 6 servings out of the salad, the points plus values are around 13.  That's a very good reason for me to limit my portions and eat more whole foods the rest of the day.   This is one salad that I'm definitely going to be working into my meal plan this week.

I know that some of you will be shocked that I didn't change anything at all from the original recipe.  So for the ingredient amounts, I'm going to steer you over to the Food Network site  here.

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

This post is being linked up 

here, here, here,  

here,  here and here.