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!

Lentils again! Egyptian Koshari.

Me and lentils are having a love affair this week! Since I've been veggie (over 5 years), I've grown to really love lentils. I think it may be my favorite protein source. Not only are lentils great for protein, they also lower your cholesterol, provide you with B vitamins, iron, fiber and no fat! One of the best things I love about them is that they are easy to cook and can be made into beautiful dishes like indian and nepali dahl, soups, curries and tonight's dinner, Egyptian koshari. Koshari is a quick, cheap vegetarian dish made of rice, lentils, pasta and tomato sauce. It's even quicker if you already have cooked rice in your kitchen like I did. I didn't have macaroni so I used mini penne. Worked great! Here's the link to the recipe. I didn't put fried onions on top because I was lazy but next time, that is happening for sure. Feel free to add spices like cumin, curry powder etc. to flavor the sauce.

Soeur Leila's Red Lentil Stew

This may not look like much but believe me when I say that is the most flavorful combination of comfort food ingredients: red lentils, noodles and crispy pita croutons. I've made this once before about a month ago and I was so impressed with it. Today was the perfect day for it as we just got a bit of rain outside. I got the recipe from a food memoir called "Memories of a Lost Egypt". You can find the recipe posted online here. Substitute water for the chicken broth and use a couple of quartered fresh tomatoes instead of canned. And do make the pita croutons. They are the perfect crispy accompaniment to the thick, luscious velvety stew. A squeeze of lemon prior to serving is nice as well.

Red Lentil Stew adapted from "Memories of a Lost Egypt"

2 cups red Lentils
4 cups water plus 2 TB extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, quartered
2 tomatoes, quartered
1 large carrot, cut into 1" pieces
2 small zucchini, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon cumin
1/3 pound vermicelli or angel hair, broken. I used fine cut vermicelli like this.
Salt And Pepper to taste
1 large onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
Croutons:
Olive oil
Pita bread cut into pieces

Method:
Combine lentils, water, 2 TB olive oil, onion, tomatoes, carrot, and zucchini in a soup pot. Bring to a boil then lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until lentils are very soft. Puree entire mixture in a blender or food processor. Return to pot and add cumin, pasta, salt and pepper. Simmer for 10 minutes. In another pan, saute chopped onion in 2 TB. olive oil until well browned. Add to stew along with the parsley and simmer for 5 minutes.
To make the croutons, heat some olive oil in a pan and fry pita bread pieces until browned. Drain on paper towel.

Cake Balls! and Red Lentil Stew

What?!?! Yes sir, I made cake balls! I've seen these things before at the post punk kitchen forum and I knew that they were going to be made one day. When I made Marc's birthday cake a few weekends ago, I had messed up the first cake. It came out overdone on the outside and fell apart when I plopped it out of the cake tin. It was still perfectly good though so I kept the pieces in the freezer for cake balls later.


I felt like a candy maker rolling smooshy cake mixture into little balls and then dipping them in chocolate. I added colorful sprinkles to entice you even more.


These little guys are dense and very rich. I had one so far and I was totally satisfied! I will be sharing them with my co-workers tomorrow. If you want to make these, follow this recipe as a guideline. It says to use a whole can of cake frosting but that was a little scary for me. I used almost half a can which worked just fine.


This was my lunch today. I've been wanting middle eastern food and was flipping through a food memoir I read a while back called "Memories of a Lost Egypt" by Colette Rossant. There is a recipe for Soeur Leila's Red Lentil Stew which sounded real good. Pureed red lentils and vegetables simmered with vermicelli noodles and sauteed onions. I added spinach for some color. I served it with olive oil-fried pieces of pita bread. The stew was thick and velvety and was so good with the fried bread and a squeeze of lemon. This one's a keeper! Recipe here. (Replace the chicken broth for veggie broth or water. Also instead of a can of tomatoes, just use 1 tomato, quartered.)

Fool Nabed (Egyptian Fava Bean Soup)

On an impulse, I threw a bag of dry, skinned fava beans into the crockpot at 10pm last night. Had no idea what I was going to do with them nor how they would turn out the next morning. At about 8am, they were really overcooked and in tiny bits. Couldn't do much with them except make a soup.


Found this Egyptian Fava Bean soup recipe in my "Classic Vegetarian Cooking from The MIddle East & N. Africa" cookbook. I pureed the bean bits and heated them up with cumin, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. I had a little bowl for breakfast. Creamy and very flavorful! Will have this again at dinner with some whole wheat pita.

Here's the recipe: http://www.sudairy.com/mer/recipes/fulnabed.html
I used the skinned fava beans so I didn't need to skin them. Sometimes you'll find the brown fava beans which are the beans with the skin on.

Egyptian Potato Soup

This will be dinner tonight along with a crusty baguette that my husband will pick up from the market after work. Recipe is from the 'Olive Trees and Honey' cookbook. A very simple and naturally vegan recipe that is simply prepared with potatoes, onions (or leeks), garlic, celery, water, bay leaf, turmeric, salt, pepper and lemon juice. I used red potatoes with the skin on and added a little cumin (my favorite!).

Egyptian Lentil Soup

I'm so used to making lentil soup with split red lentils that I wanted a break from it to cook with brown lentils. I found the perfect recipe for egyptian lentil soup from a new cookbook I just acquired called 'Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa'. As most of you know, I love middle eastern flavors so this soup was right up my alley. It's dead simple but richly flavored with cumin, garlic, onions and lemon juice. The recipe requires an extra step at the end of adding fried onions as a garnish on top of the soup but I wanted to save my fat and calorie count. This is my soup o' the week and I'll be having it for dinner every day after work. Yum!