Tabouli

Delicious, yummy Tabloui. I love it! Can't get enough. It is a simple dish, with an Mediterranean/Levantine origin. Its acidic and light and can be used in a variety of applications. You could eat it is a snack, add meat and make it an entree, put it on a salad (which I will be doing later for dinner, as you will see), or put it on the side of a hummus plate as an appetizer (which, surprise surprise, I also do). I cooked mine with the traditional bulgar (which is cracked wheat), but I have seen recipes using quinoa or cauliflower "rice" if you're going to get crazy "healthy" and grain free. But the way I see it, everybody needs a little bit of carbs in their life. :) (I really have this weird mental thing with raw onions... So I used onion powder instead of 1/2 a yellow onion. But traditional Tabouli calls for diced yellow onion...Add it if you must.) Yields 3-4 cups

Ingredients: 1/2 cup bulgar 1 1/2 cups water 1 English cucumber 1 large (beef steak) tomato 1 cup curly parsley, chopped 1/2 cup mint leaves, chopped 2 lemons, juice 1 tsp olive oil 1 tsp salt 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp garlic powder pinch of cracked pepper

Instructions: 1. In a pot, bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil. Add 1/2 cup of bulgar and cook according to the package instructions. This was roughly ten min when I cooked it. Set it aside and allow the bulgar to cool. 2. While the bulgar is cooling, finely dice up your cucumber and tomato. You want them to be almost as small as possible. I cut my cucumber in 1/4" circles down the entire body. I then cut each slice vertically and horizontally till it was in little cubes. I did the same with the tomato. (DO the same to onions if you must.) Add these to a mixing bowl. 3. Finely chop up your parsley and mint, measuring each out in a packed measuring cup (see amounts above). Add each herb to the bowl. 4. Juice your lemons and add the juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder to the bowl. 5. Once the bulgar has cooled, add it as well and stir thoroughly till all ingredients are well mixed. That's it. You've just made some tasty, delicious, versatile Tabouli. Enjoy!