Inspired By Dreams

When I was a teenager, I had a very odd dream.  I have thankfully forgotten most of this dream...I only remember that it was very bizarre and that it was a murder mystery dream.  The only specific that I remember from this dream is that at one point, someone had to escape and the only escape route was to jump off of a high precipice (a building or a ledge) into a truck full of tabbouleh.

Yeah, go figure.

But I guess the tabbouleh did the trick because the person (I don't know who it was, but it was a protagonist) got away from the antagonist after jumping into the tabbouleh.  Now, what a dump truck full of tabbouleh was doing parked there, I have no idea.  But I have been intrigued by tabbouleh ever since.  Tabbouleh is a Middle Eastern food.  Oh, and FYI, here's how you pronounce it.

Amazingly, I only just recently tried making tabbouleh myself for the first time.  It makes a wonderful, healthy, whole grain and veggie-packed side dish or vegetarian meal.

I made a few changes from the recipe (as detailed in the recipe notes below).  The main change being that I added 1/4 cup of chopped fresh mint leaves (many versions call for mint, but the one below does not, so I added it).

I hope you enjoy it, but I hope it doesn't haunt your dreams!

Tabbouleh

Ingredients:

1 cup medium-grind bulgur
Coarse salt and ground pepper
6 plum tomatoes, cored, seeded, and diced
1 English cucumber, seeded and diced
1 cup chopped fresh parsley (from 1-2 bunches)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup chopped mint (see notes)

Directions:

In a medium bowl, mix bulgur with 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt and 2 cups boiling water.  Cover bowl, and let sit until bulgur is tender (but still slightly chewy), about 30 minutes. Drain in a fine-mesh sieve, pressing to remove liquid; return to bowl.

Add tomatoes, cucumber, parsley, lemon juice, and oil; season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine.  Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate up to 3 days (bring to room temperature before servings).

Source: Martha Stewart, Everyday Food, April 2007, originally found here.

Notes: As mentioned, the original recipe does not call for mint, but I added it because many tabbouleh recipes do call for mint and I love the flavor that it adds.

I also added slightly more lemon juice (because I love lemon juice too!).

I only used about 3/4 of the English cucumber because I wanted to use the rest of it for something else.  Plus, I only had 4 plum tomatoes on hand, so I used 4 instead of 6.

I actually had a hard time finding bulgur.  I finally found Bob's Red Mill brand in the baking aisle next to some other specialty wheat and grains.  You might also find it by the beans, or by the rice and quinoa.  Speaking of quinoa, if you absolutely can't find the bulgur, you can substitute quinoa in this recipe.

Back to the bulgur though, I followed the package directions for cooking the quinoa (rather than soaking it for 30 minutes) and I let it cool before I added it to the tomato-cucumber mixture.