Beach Bar-b-PKUs

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest! We are on vacation and spending time with family, which usually means one thing for this clan- lots of big, family dinners. During the summer months we tend to camp out at the beach for dinners. My mother and I hosted a Seafair party last weekend in honor of the hydroplane races on Lake Washington. We served lemon chicken skewers, lemon veggie skewers, quinoa tabouleh, spanakopita, caprese salad, fruit salad, and green beans marinated in the same marinade as the skewers.

I had never made tabouleh before and was eager to try out new flavors. I first chopped all the spices and veggies. That is my favorite thing to do. Following a vegan diet, I have learned to embrace the endless chopping of veggies. The one trick with chopping the veggies is to slice the onions very thin. The slivers make for tasty flavor.

You can separate the ingredients into two bowls to serve as the low protein option and the traditional tabouleh.

Meanwhile cook up the quinoa and pasta. While we are traveling, I am limited on my pasta selection. The smallest noodles I had on hand were the Aproten Ditalini by Cambrooke. So I cooked those suckers up and mixed in the dressing. I threw a little extra salt, pepper, and oil on my “tabouleh”. The one other thing I would critic from the recipe is adding more parsley. I only used one bunch between the two dishes and wish there was a little more. Of note, depending on your personal phe allowance you can use more or less pasta. I prefer a higher proportion of veggies to pasta for more flavor and can tolerate it with my diet.

This paired perfectly with my low protein caprese salad, which was garden fresh tomatoes, basil, baslsamic, oil, and S &P. The variety of flavors was overwhelming and generally I am not used to that. Enjoy!

Low Protein Tabouleh:

2 bunches curly parsley

1 package grape tomatoes, halved

1 small bunch mint leaves, finely chopped (more or less depending on your preference)

2 cups dry pasta of your choice, the smaller the better

¼ red onion finely sliced (I prefer slivers)

Juice of one lemon

1 clove garlic finely minced

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt to taste

Freshly cracked pepper

Recipe inspo below:

http://www.colorfulrecipes.com/fresh-light-authentic-lebanese-tabbouleh