What’s for lunch?

So a few weeks ago, I decided I needed to make some changes in my life and start eating healthier.  I figured the best way to do this was to experiment with Middle Eastern cuisine, because:

1) it’s healthy,
2) it’s cheap, and
3) it’s fun!

First, I made a batch of pita bread, using this recipe (with 2 tbs sugar instead of 1).  Pita bread is way easy to make; just roll them out and toss in the oven for four or five minutes.  After letting the dough rise, it usually takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to make a batch.

Pita bread is both cheap and tasty.  A batch of pita bread roughly equals as much as a loaf of bread and costs considerably less (considering each ingredient by amount used).  One thing I’ve found, though, is that pita bread doesn’t keep very well–after only a week, it starts getting moldy.  This happens regardless of whether or not it’s refrigerated.

I’ve tried letting the dough sit in the refrigerator overnight to enrich the flavor, but I’ve found that doing that makes the final product drier and more crumbly.  Besides, I can barely taste the difference.  It takes a bit more time, but I prefer cooking it right after letting the dough rise, usually for 90 minutes to an hour.

Next, I made the hummus.  Store bought hummus is ridiculously expensive, especially considering that you can make it yourself from relatively cheap ingredients found in any American grocery store.  The one possible exception to that is the tahini, but you can still make a tasty batch of the stuff without it.

To make the hummus, I used:

• one 2 lb bag of dried garbanzo beans (otherwise known as chick peas)
• 6-10 cloves of garlic
• 3-5 tbs lemon juice
• 1-2 cups water
• 2-3 tbs peanut butter
• paprika, cumin, and salt to taste

I can’t say exactly how much of any ingredient I used because I eyeballed most of it.  That’s generally the way I cook everything.  Still, it turned out great!

I used dry beans instead of canned because I wanted to avoid the sodium.  Plus, dried beans are way cheaper.  I let them soak overnight (and found that they generally expand to 3 times their initial volume–plan on it!) and cooked them for about two hours–basically, until they were tender enough to mush apart between my fingers.

As an experiment, I substituted peanut butter for the tahini.  Tahini is basically sesame seed butter, and it tastes almost the same as regular peanut butter.  I found, though, that using too much peanut butter overpowers the flavor of the garbanzo beans and gives it a weird taste.  In the future, I’ll probably skip the peanut butter (or add sesame oil–I wonder if that would work?).

To make hummus, you really need to have a good quality blender.  I went to my brother-in-law’s parents and used theirs.  Of course, I left them a pie tin full of the stuff to say thank you!  With a two pound bag of dried garbanzo beans to start with, I had PLENTY left over, as you can see from the photo.

All told, if you know what you’re doing, you can make hummus in large quantities for extremely cheap.  I can make the equivalent of a $10 bucket of Costco hummus for about $2-$3 from scratch.  A pie tin of the stuff, with the whole beans, paprika, and olive oil sprinkled on top for presentation, would cost much less–yet in an American restaurant you’d probably pay $15 or more.

(By the way, pita bread with hummus and fresh cilantro tastes heavenly.)

For the vegetable part, I diced up some cucumber, onion, tomato, bell pepper, and cilantro, with a touch of lemon juice.  For flavor, I added a pickle (the restaurants in Jordan serve pickles with just about every meal) with a tiny bit of olive oil on top.

Let me tell you, the end result was a resounding success! I’ve been eating this stuff for lunch for the past week, and it is delicious! Not to mention that it’s nearly twice as cheap as what I was eating before, and at least ten times as healthy.  Yeah!

My next culinary experiment will either be with Egyptian koshari or something to do with the million cherry tomatoes I picked at the McQueen’s house over the weekend.  I’ve also got a bag of frozen chicken, and I wonder if I can make some tasty shawarma if I marinate it in the yogurt I got on sale.  By the way, yogurt on pita bread with whole olives makes another delicious Middle Eastern snack.

Anyways, that’s what I’ve been up to.  If you want to try this out or have any ideas or suggestions, let me know!  I’d love to hear about it.