What Did You Eat for Dinner Last?

Kitty Morse, author of “North Africa: The Vegetarian Table,” “Come With Me to the Kasbah: a Cook’s Tour of Morocco” and other books:

“I’m batching it because my husband’s out of town, so I dug around in the bowels of my freezer where I save the remains of the recipes I test, and I defrosted a couscous shepherd’s pie, with couscous in place of the mashed potatoes. I’ve been experimenting with using couscous in all sorts of untraditional ways.

“It was about 3 months old. And you know, it was still pretty good. Of course, my mother was French, so it was an upscale shepherd’s pie--it was more like boeuf bourguignon topped with couscous.”