Monday, January 21, 2008

Middle Eastern Goodness


I LOVE Middle Eastern food, especially Lebanese. There is this wonderful restaurant here in Salt Lake that has THE BEST Baba Ganoush I have ever had, Mazza. We go there as often as we can afford. Lately though, it's not in the budget to go out to eat as often as we like to. So, I tried to re-create the sampler platter that we always get when we go there: Baba Ganoush, Hummus, and Mujaddara.

I got an eggplant from my co-op, and I don't really like eggplant at all. But I do like Baba Ganoush, so I found a recipe for it in Vegan Cookbook. I halved the recipe to only use one eggplant, which was more than enough for 2 of us (and tastes for the baby too, of course).

I made a quick and simple hummus, which with my food processor, was my best batch ever.

Then Mujaddara, which is lentils, rice, and caramelized onions, and just a hint of cumin.

We ate it all with some pita bread.. This was sooo good, everyone (including the dog) loved it. Our baby was going crazy for some more, we couldn't feed him fast enough, so we let him chew on some pita dipped in hummus for a while, so we could eat too!

6 comments:

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Isn't Middle Eastern food great? I love how vegan-friendly the cuisine is. I never have to worry what I'm going to eat when at a Middle Eastern restaurant :o). Hmmm... I bet my dogs would love Middle Eastern food too, but they've never tried it.

carrie said...

I just checked that cookbook out from the library....I'm gonna recreate your middle eastern goodness next week I think!!

Chris said...

I love middle eastern culture/food. I am in SLC right now and was wondering if you could hook me up with the name of that restaurant?

Also, I was wondering if you would be interested in being part of a testgroup to try 4 new PROBAR flavors. That means free vegan energy bars for you! E-mail me at probarfeedback [at] Gmail [dot] com. Thanks for blogging!

jd said...

All of this looks fantastic - I love middle eastern food, too! I'm especially fond of hummus (& falafel) - yum!

Also, I love how even your baby & the dog were devouring the food - it must have been really good!

Lizzy said...

Chris- Mazza is the name, it is in the 9th & 9th area as well as 15th & 15th. Are you in town for the outdoor retailer show?

Chris said...

Nah, I visited it to check out the new gear but I'm living here for a month to ski. In a week I return to the east coast to go back to school... one more semester then I'm free!

If your interested in getting some free bars just shoot me an e-mail with your address and i'll let you know about the details.