African Couscous Salad

I love couscous, especially cold couscous salad. This couscous salad has a nice sweet North-African taste to it, and a little tang from the red wine vinegar. I think that cider vinegar would also taste fantastic! This is best if completely chilled before serving, giving the flavors time to meld ;)
My 3 critics enjoyed it, as did I.... definitely will be making it again. It is quite filling, therefore, I think it would be the perfect packed lunch. It makes a great side dish too!


Ingredients
1 cup whole-wheat couscous (makes 3 cups cooked and fluffed with fork)
1 1/4 cup hot fat-free chicken broth
290 g jar of chickpeas (210 g just chickpeas), drained and rinsed
1 medium carrot, shredded
1/2 cup diced celery
2 tbsp finely chopped onion
1/4 cup raisins, not packed!
1/4 cup dried apricots, chopped (approx. 25g)
1 cup red bell pepper, diced
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

*To make it vegetarian, substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth.


Directions
- Boil the chicken broth in a small saucepan. Once broth is boiling, remove from heat.
- Add couscous, stir to fully coat couscous and cover.
- While couscous is sitting, prepare the rest of the ingredients.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix the remaining ingredients (see note below on optional olive oil).
- Fluff couscous with a fork and let cool. (if you add the hot couscous, it will absord too much of the liquid in the mix... including the water in the vegetables... so it is best to wait till it has cooled).
- Once couscous has cooled to room temperature, add to the salad mix.
- Mix and refrigerate.

Nutritional Data
3 WW points
187.5 cal
1.1 g fat
41 g carbs
4.2 g fiber
3.3 g sugar
6.3 g protein

Add 1 tbsp Olive Oil to the recipe (when you add the vineagar) and the values change too
4 WW points
207.4 cal
3.3 g fat
41 g carbs
4.2 g fiber
3.3 g sugar
6.2 g protein