Attack of the Veggies! Part I.

From Doodle-A-Day

Or, how eating meat centered leftovers for a few weeks will cause massive cravings for fresh vegetables...

Or, how a wimpy Austinite craves summer and this is the next best thing...

We've had lots of great dishes exchanged, but I'm pretty sure all of them have revolved around meat, many times with a paired starch, such as noodles, mashed potatoes, etc. These are all wonderful, but sometimes I'm just dying for a veggie meal to make me feel balanced. Enter, Greek night! Tonight I made my own fresh hummus and Greek salad. (Actually, I had my hummus-God boyfriend make the hummus, but I soaked and cooked the chickpeas!)

This week's meal was a bit more expensive than my usuals just because of all the fresh produce, but boy was it worth it! And it's ok because the hummus was dirt cheap. The secondary theme of this week was "Recipes? Who needs 'em?" since I basically just grabbed stuff that sounded good and threw it together until it tasted like I wanted. "Recipe" follows:

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Greek salad:
4 cucumbers = $2.72
2 bags cocktail tomatoes = $6.94
1/2 red onion = $0.88
1/3 jar kalamata olives = $1.50
8 oz feta = $3.98
splash EVOO
salt, Greek seasoning
total salad: $16.25 (8 servings, $2.03/serving)

hummus:
16 oz bag dried chickpeas = $1.00
1/4 jar tahini (about 1/2 c) = $1.25
4 cloves garlic = $0.10
lemon juice
EVOO
salt, cumin, garam masala, cayenne etc from the cupboard
Soak the chickpeas overnight, then cook them in the crockpot on low for 12 hours (or possibly somewhat less, but that's when I got home from work). Drain. Throw everything in a food processor. Adjust seasonings to taste.
Total hummus: $2.50 (makes 32 oz!, so at least 16 servings=$0.16/serving=damn cheap!!!)
1 pita bread for dipping = $0.42
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Even with the slightly more expensive salad, I'd like to see you get a fresh, delightful meal like that for < $3 when eating out! What can I say...cooking well and saving money makes me very proud of myself.