Saturday, November 12, 2011

Greek Beans, Lebanese Rice and Egyptian Basbousa.

Last night my husband and I had a romantic night out and for dinner, we had Lebanese food which I'm crazy about. Got me in the mood to cook Mediterranean food this weekend.


I made "Gigantes" which are baked lima beans in a tomato and dill sauce. If you hate lima beans, try them this way. They bake up so tender and creamy with a simple and beautiful flavor combination of dill, tomatoes, onions and olive oil. The recipe is from "The Greek Vegetarian". I also made Lebanese rice pilaf. I love the little vermicelli noodles in it. The recipe is from "Tables of Lebanon".


For dessert, Egyptian basbousa! This is a very sweet semolina cake that has been drenched with sugar/orange flower water syrup. I got the recipe here. I used vegan shortening instead of butter, omitted the eggs and replaced with a little almond milk and 1/2 a tsp of cider vinegar. And I substituted soy yogurt for the yogurt.


This dessert is amazing! It's so tender and incredibly moist from the syrup. I think I need to work on the liquid to dry ingredient ratio. My cake fell apart a little because it was so moist. But that did not stop me from enjoying the hell out of it!

4 comments:

  1. I LOVE Gigantes. Yum! I wish they were more popular. So good!

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  2. Oh, yum! I love gigantes too! AND I cooked with orange flower water today as well. Whoa, how coincidental is that?

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  3. I absolutely adore Greek gigantes. I usually cheat, though, & get the jarred ones from TJs. Your rice looks awesome! Do you use a rice cooker or just make it on the stovetop? I feel like my rice on stovetop is never as good a texture as what I get out. I've been wanting one of those Zojirushi rice makers forever, but they're so pricy!

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  4. Looks great!

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