Summer sautee with Israeli Couscous

I'm just not a morning person. Maybe that's why it feels to me like morning people outnumber non-morning people by at least 2:1. They seem to be everywhere, all perky and showing up to 9:00 meetings having already accomplished several other things. It's not that I want to sleep into late morning or early afternoon and waste half the day away. Getting up at 7:00-7:30 is fine by me. I just don't want to be required to have to actually DO anything taxing at that hour. I wish I could be one of these people who gets up at 5:00, leaps out of bed and onto their bike or into their running sneakers and gets their workout done for the day. But, I'm just not. Every once in a while, I get up and run or ride when I really want to get a workout in and know I can't do it in the evening, but there is no leaping involved. It takes everything I have to drag myself out of bed after pressing "snooze" a couple of times. When I was swimming regularly a couple of times a week, I did that in the morning, mostly because it was too much of a pain to deal with wet chlorinated hair in the evenings. In order to get that started, I actually had to plan to meet a friend who I didn't know very well at the time, so didn't want to not show and have her be upset with me.

Also, from what I gather, in order to be a morning person, one has to go to bed earlier. It seems many people I know are actually going to bed at the same time Todd and I are sitting down to dinner at 10:00. I know this is bad for me and probably contributes to the fact that I often don't sleep well and rarely feel rested when I get up in the morning. But, it's really hard to break the cycle, especially when you live with another non-morning person, and even more so when they are unemployed and have no structured schedule to abide by. I could try to get to work earlier, so I could leave earlier, get my workout done earlier, so I could eat earlier and get to bed. But the fact is, I'm just more alert and productive in the evenings. I can literally feel myself perk up at about 4:00 in the afternoon at my desk, and that's about when I'm really ready to get going. I also feel a lot better running or riding in the evenings vs. doing it in the morning since I'm not feeling very alert at that point.

Summer has really finally arrived here in the northeast and it's darn hot. Since I've been trying to turn the stove on as little as possible and keep dinners simple, you'd think that would move our dinner time back a little, but it really hasn't. This is one dish I made last week that I really liked.

Summer Sautee with Israeli Couscous
1 cup Israeli couscous
1 tspn and 1 tblsn olive oil
1 1/4 cups water
1 tspn salt
1 tspn oregano
1 small onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small summer squash, sliced
1 small zucchini, sliced
1 cup frozen peas, rinsed
1/4 cup more fresh basil chopped
1 small bunch fresh spinach chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
goat cheese to taste
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the tspn of oil in a small saucepan. Add couscous and toast until light brown, about 5 minutes. Be sure to stir often. Add water, salt and oregano. Bring to a boil, then cover and turn down to a simmer. It takes about 10-12 minutes to cook.
2. In sautee pan, heat the tblsn of oil. Add onion and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add squash and zucchini. Cook for about 10 minutes, then add peas. After a couple of minutes add spinach, tomato, and basil. Cook for a few more minutes then turn off heat and sprinkle goat cheese, salt and pepper. Put couscous in bowls and pour veggie sautee over it to serve.