Bastardized Couscous

OK - so toward the end of my "no-spend" month, I'll be honest - I really did not do that great of job at not spending money. And now that I got that off my chest, I'll share with you a "clean out the pantry" recipe that I concocted with some expired couscous (does couscous really expire? discuss.), asparagus that seduced me in the produce section, some leftover morels from my beloved father, freshly grated Parmesan cheese and generic V8.

Here's the basic gist of what I did:

Cook the couscous according to directions. Instead of using water or broth, I used vegetable juice - I was looking forward to turning said couscous into an interesting color and getting some tomato flavor.

I grilled 1 lb. of asparagus with lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt and garlic. After it cooled, I cut it into bite sized pieces and gave it a quick saute with (the damn near invisible) morel mushrooms.

After the couscous was done, I tossed it all together with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. This dish is good hot or cold.

Note on cheese: I never used to grate my own cheese. But it just so happens that Wisconsin is a neighboring state and damn their cheese is cheap. In fact, I need to make a cheese run one of these first days.