Dinner Plate #30

 

This was very much a "use what's here" meal, but I think it turned out pretty well. I have here the end of a head of green leaf lettuce, a homemade pita with dips (parsley hummus and red pepper-walnut dip), and a bulgur pilaf in the Cyprus style (recipe from My Family's Food Diary, adapted to suit what I had). It was a kind of Greek-ish lunch.

I had kind of used nearly everything fresh in my refrigerator except this bit of lettuce, half a bunch of parsley, part of an onion, and a red pepper. I also had part of a jar of tomato sauce in there, and the end of a package of bulgur I'd been intending to do something with for quite some time. So I combined that with a can of chickpeas, some walnuts, and a few other things I would generally always have, and like magic, I had a meal.

The parsley hummus was mostly following a recipe from Sugar Salted. I cut the recipe in half and added a bit more salt and garlic powder. It wasn't a bad way to use up some parsley! But of course, hummus is almost always delightful.

I roasted the pepper in my slow cooker and then was inspired by (but didn't follow very closely) a recipe from Dietitian Debbie, which made a thicker dip than I had planned but that was probably because I only had the one red pepper. In any case, it tasted good, so that was what mattered.

Homemade pita is not difficult, but it involves a lot of steps. Toward the end I was vowing never to make my own pita again, but then I tasted it. Fresh, homemade pita is probably the best flatbread I have ever made. I used the recipe from Sweet Simple Vegan, and saw comments about baking the loaves of pita; if I do this again, I might try that, even though the hard part is definitely not the actual cooking, so much as the "do this, then rest" steps that seem infinite. But it was amazing. Fluffy and flavorful.

The bulgur is not the best thing I've ever made, but I know from previous experience with similar things that I may find the leftovers much more enticing. I broke up some angel hair pasta for the vermicelli and it worked out fine, and used tomato sauce rather than passata. It was perfectly serviceable.

At the conclusion of this, I had only some scallions and a few sticks of celery in the way of fresh vegetables, which is a sign of my expanding tolerance for letting my food stocks dwindle. I'm not sure, given the state of the world, whether I am wise or not to approach things in this way. But as none of us knows what to do anyway, I'm going to say I'm pleased.

Plus, I used all the bulgur!