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!