Moroccan Couscous with Beef - Walima Cooking Club Challenge

Happy beginning of a new decade! This was the Walima Challenge for the month of December featuring the Moroccan cuisine, but due to the holidays and all, I am late, but it's never too late when it comes to good food ;) So here's the couscous with beef that I made.
The recipe is copied and pasted as given by the Walima site.
I skipped the squash, and the smen and replaced it with canola vegetable oil. I added a small bell pepper too. The couscous I found in the market had a sachet of mixed herbs and garlic that I added to and turned out to be very good. I made couscous with beef before but with more ingredients like turnips, cabbage, potatoes and eggplant. This recipe is pretty good and easy.

COUSCOUS WITH BEEF

Ingredients :
- 1 pound couscous
- 1 pound meat (beef), you can use chicken or lamb.
- 2-3 carrots
- 3 zucchini
- 3 tomatoes
- squash
- 1 big onion
- parsley & coriander
- chickpeas
- 2 Tbs vegetable oil
- 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp turmeric, pinch pf saffron
- water
optional :
- 1/2 tsp smen (butter ghee)

Steps :
Heat the oil at medium temperature, add chopped onion and the meat.
After 15 min, add chopped tomatoes, parsley, coriander and the spices, let cook 10 min, add water, let cook 1hour.
To prepare the couscous :
Add some water and fluff it up with your hands, let it soak.

After the meat has cooked 1 hour, place couscous in the steamer pot and let steam 20 min.
Remove couscous from the heat, let it cool, add water, fluff it with your hands, add salt and oil, if you want, you can add smen (butter ghee).
Put couscous to steam another 20 min.
Add carrots to the meat, after 10 min, add zucchini, squash, chickpeas, let cook.
To serve, place couscous first, then the meat, the vegetables and the sauce.

If you don't have a couscous pot, you can follow the same steps using a microwave.