Couscous Salad with Antipasti platter

I wanted to impress my friends with great food from my trip. I've collected many food photos and memorized tastes and even made notes on a bit of paper. That all helped me to make the things I've eaten into something special.

The Antipasti platter contained several things that stuck in my memory.
One was the salad, one was the creamy and smooth Ricotta and the marinated veggies.
The ricotta you can buy from one company here is grainy and tasteless. When I can avoid it, I am happy. I bought fresh unhomogenized milk and made once again my own Ricotta. So creamy and tasty.

I have a good supermarket where I can get olives, peppers and sunblushed tomatoes already marinated in spiced oils. And they have a good veriaty of cured salamis and hams. I even found Nduja, a spicy sausage meat from Calabria.

The couscous salad had to stand on its own against the other parts, so it needed to be served with a good dressing.

Recipe:
2/3 cup couscous
2/3 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
3 tbsp Ayvar
1 lemon
3 king oyster mushrooms
1 small courgette
1 orange bell pepper
2 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
fresh mint. Chives, parsely, rocket
2 tbsp Greek yogurt

Bring water to a boil. Use the same cup for measurement when you want to cook couscous. It is not weight but volume. Season the couscous and pour over the water. Stir and cover and let it sit for 5 min. When thd water is gone stir and loosen the couscous. Now add Ayvar and herbs. A bit of yogurt on top and you are ready to serve it.