Bulgur Salad with Vegetables and Feta

I'm sitting in Schiphol airport (free internet!), eating a bulgur salad that I packed over 12 hours ago as I was running out the door, but still tastes great. I guess it's now either a middle-of-the-night snack, or breakfast, depending on which time zone I use.

This salad is basically just a grain, chopped vegetables, some olive oil and lemon juice, and (optional but good) some feta cheese. I have been making similar salads for years with couscous. When I spent a month living in university housing in Quebec (summer 2006) and studying French, I practically lived on couscous salad. Contrary to what I'd been told before I arrived, there was no useable kitchen in the dorm. So my "kitchen" was a mini fridge, an electric kettle, one plate, one bowl, one fork, one spoon, and a couple plastic containers. Oh, and a knife and mini cutting board. I would pour boiling water over couscous, fluff it up, and add tomatoes, cucumber, olive oil, lemon, feta, and chickpeas (protein!) and that was lunch or dinner just about every day.

I don't know why it never occurred to me I could do this with other grains. As we will be packing up our apartment in a few weeks, I am in cleaning out the cupboards mode. And for some inexplicable reason I have lots and lots of bulgur on hand. Bulgur is whole wheat that is pre-cooked and partially ground (the wheat used in tabbouleh), and the wonderful thing about it, like couscous, is that all you have to do is pour boiling water over it and it is cooked. Instant food.

So here's a rough recipe (I don't measure; just add ingredients to taste)

Bulgur Salad with Vegetables and Feta
Makes about 8 cups.

• 2 c. bulgur wheat (coarser grinds would work better here)
  
• 2 c. boiling water
  
• 2-3 c. chopped vegetables (this time I used red pepper, finely chopped red onion, peeled and seeded cucumber, and radishes, but grape or regular tomatoes, green onions, cooked green beans, and probably other vegetables would also be good)
• juice of 1-2 lemons
• 3-4 T. olive oil
• 1/2 c. feta, crumbled
• salt and pepper to taste
• fresh herbs like parsley and mint would be a fantastic addition
• chickpeas or cannelini (white) beans would be nice too
• kalamata or regular olives make just about anything better
• or go the main course salad route and add grilled chicken
  

Pour the boiling water over the bulgur in a large bowl, cover with a plate to trap the steam, and let sit for 5 minutes or until the water has been absorbed. Fluff with a fork and let cool. You can add the lemon juice and olive oil while it is still warm, this allows the grains to absorb them a little more, but you don't want to add the vegetables and feta until the grain is cool. If you keep the salad around long enough for it to seem dry (or if the flavors seem to have gotten a little flat), just add a bit more lemon juice and olive oil.

(In the interests of full disclosure I should say that we ate this Friday night with awesome lamb kefta-- mix 1 lb. ground lamb with 2-3 cloves garlic, 1 small onion very finely chopped, 1 egg, 1 couple good handfuls of chopped cilantro, cumin, cayenne, coriander, salt, and pepper to taste, form into small logs and broil or grill in a grill pan. Yum!!!)

I have been seeing tons of grain salad recipes lately-- whole grains seem to be hot-- so I will have to see what else I can do with the quinoa, millet, forbidden (black) rice, and other odds and ends of grains in my cupboard. Making this salad with couscous would be exactly the same, but other grains you would have to cook first.

Can I just say that I am really excited about summer and salad season being here! Cooking always seems so much more effortless in the summer.

laughing until I cry

Nothing profound to say tonight. It's 5 a.m. and I've been up all night working on the book that will probably still be in some state of revision when they put me in the ground (and hey, AIDS might even be over by then)... and needing a bit of levity after a not-fun night (at one point I lost a bunch of changes for reasons I still don't understand, except that any Word document goes a bit bezerk when it gets around 3K)... so now to finish this sentence... somehow I stumbled onto this awesomely funny blog called CakeWrecks.

Which is what it sounds like, pictures of cakes that never should have seen the light of day.

Which made me laugh until I cried and tears ran down my face.

Check out the freaky babies, the freaky Micky Mouses, and the 35 mis-spellings of the word "birthday."

Here's another really fascinating site I just stumbled across (a few nights ago when, fittingly, I couldn't sleep): All-Nighters. Some fascinating research on insomnia (who knew that it could cure depression?) as well as some great personal essays.

I am leaving for Swaziland in about 12 hours and intended to try to get on Swaziland time as much as possible before I left... which I guess means it is about time for my afternoon nap... (and I am hoping I can sleep like a baby when I get on the plan at 7 p.m. Boston time).