3 More No Meat Days

Three more no meat days have gone by...of course I'm still eating eggs but these are not fertilized eggs and so I refuse to count it. Granted when we were a kid and had chickens we occasionally got a fertilized one but lets just leave that for another day.

Day 3 - Spinach salad in pita pockets. How can you just not love pita pockets. I get these stone ground whole wheat ones and they are delicious. Add so spinach, avocado (my favorite food), tomato, cheese, and hard boiled eggs and you are good to go. This is a meal that doesn't weigh you down but definitely makes you feel full.

Day Four - Foule. We had a potluck to go to and I decided to take a chance and bring foule, pitas, and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. Now my darling husband and I had a several minute discussion over what actually constitutes foule. In Jordan we would order foule and they would o bring out a hummus like dish made with Fava beans instead of chickpeas. I thought this was what you would call foule. My husband though says the beans themselves are just called foule and who knows what that stuff we were eating was called. Looking for a recipe online though "foule" was used to describe the blended dish. The bean can though agrees with my husband. So I guess he is probably right. Regardless I brought both whole foule beans and the blended "foule" to the party so I guess it really doesn't matter which one of us was right. In making the dish I had a slight mishap. Below is the recipe I used to make the "foule". Using an entire lemons worth of juice...well that was probably a little too lemony. Next time I would probably add lemon to taste. Also I blended my "foule" up in my food processor. It just gave it a smoother consistency. So I made my foule and took it to my potluck. Some people really loved it. Others I'm sure were scared. I tried some last night and it was OK. I had some for lunch today and it was delicious. So I think this may be one of those things that gets better with a night in the fridge...sort of the way soup does :) I had to purchase tahini for this dish which isn't exactly the cheapest thing in the grocery store but you need tahini to make hummus as well and the recipe doesn't call for a tons so I have lost left for my next middle eastern meal.

Ingredients

1 (15 ounce) can fava beans

3 garlic cloves

2-3 tablespoons tahini

1 lemon

to taste water

to taste salt

to taste olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh parsley (optional)

1-2 teaspoon jalapenos (optional)

Directions

1. Drain water from beans, rinse beans, then place on stove top and bring to boil.
2. Mean while place garlic, and jalepeno in bowl, and mash the two of them.

3. Drain boiled beans, and add on top of garlic and mash untill you get a thick paste.

4. add lemon juice and tahini, mix together.

5. gradually add water until mix becomes to a good consistency.

6. salt to taste, and stir in optional parsley, or leave to decorate the top of the foul.

7. place foul in plate, and add olive oil on top. serve with warm pita. Enjoy.

Day Five - Mushroom Ravioli. So I got this recipe from a vegetarian magazine. You take a chopped mushroom assortment and cook it down with chopped garlic, onions, olive oil, thyme, and a dash of sherry. Of course I didn't have a dash of sherry but it was still fine. Then I cheated on the dough. Yes I'm sure you true lovers of Italian food would be disgusted but I just used wanton wrappers. Today was not the day to try and roll out my own dough. So I put the mushrooms mix in the wrappers. I also did several with just cheese to makes sure that picky #1 would eat something. I boiled vegetable broth and then threw these babies in to boil for about two minutes. After I pulled them out I put butter and Parmesan cheese on the cheese ones and pesto on the mushroom raviolis. So easy and pretty tasty.