Dinner Plate #87

 

Here we go avoiding cooking with heat again...so we have a cup of raw beet and jicama salad, stuffed grape leaves, a cup of salted/peppered cucumbers and tomatoes, pita crackers, and homemade eggplant hummus.

Okay, so I did roast an eggplant in my toaster oven for a while, but otherwise, this was stuff I put together without heating up my kitchen! The grape leaves (dolmas) were canned; I have never made stuffed grape leaves myself and I don't know where I would get grape leaves anyway. (I just looked that up as I was writing that, and my Wegmans does carry grape leaves...hmm. Project for future me, maybe.)

The beet and jicama salad was definitely a new one for me, and it was great as a change of pace. The recipe is from Creative in my Kitchen. If  I'd had some golden beets this might be more beautiful, but it's pretty nice as it is, don't you think? I really enjoyed the tahini dressing, and it held up well as a make-ahead salad.

I was a little disappointed in my hummus, but sometimes, we just do our best and move on. I think it's because the recipe doesn't include any olive oil--that makes a difference, I think. The leftovers ended up with that weird gelatinous quality you sometimes get, and I think olive oil would have prevented that, too. But it was still tasty, and it went well with the crackers, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I also enjoyed the grape leaves with a bit of hummus spread on them, though that may be sacreligious.