Food for Fuel: My Big Fat Greek Project, Part III

December 8, 2008 at 1:40 pm | Posted in Food, Nutrition, Other, Poultry, Rice, Quinoa, and Other Grains, Vegetable Side Dishes | 8 Comments

Update: This week’s Blogger Secret Ingredient contest is being hosted by Sweet and Natural, who chose peppermint as the ingredient. I used peppermint in both the dolmas and the Greek Yogurt Dressing/tzatziki, so I’m submitting these recipes. I also discovered that peppermint is on the World’s Healthiest Foods list, so I added it at the bottom of my post.

Apparently grape leaves last forever in a jar, because it’s been two months since I last made dolmas. I really have no other use for grape leaves, so I decided to make dolmas again last night in another Big Fat Greek Project, Part I being the other dolma project, and Part II being here.

My primary reason for making dolmas, however, was not to get the grape leaves out of my fridge, but to have an excuse to make this hummus recipe that I grabbed from MizFit’s blog. And yes, hummus is great on pita bread, but delicious to spread on dolmas as well.

The hummus was easy to whip up in my mini food processor during the dolma’s lengthy simmering time (for info on making the dolmas, see link in first paragraph of this post). Verdict? This hummus is amazing. I followed the recipe exactly and it is perfectly spiced. A good thing, too, because I shelled out the money for tahini so now I have to make hummus all the time. Not. Cheap.

I just enjoyed more of it for lunch. So yummy.

I also made a Big Fat Greek Salad with the following:

• Mixed greens
• Baby spinach
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Green bell pepper
• Kalamata olives
• Feta

Which I covered in my homemade Greek yogurt dressing:

• 1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 tsp. dried dill
• 2 tsp. chopped fresh mint
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper

I topped the salad with a grilled chicken breast, which I just grilled plain on my George Foreman, since it was about to be covered in yogurt dressing anyway.

You can see some of my dolmas on the back of the plate. I think they turned out even better than last time and I am crediting Uncle Ben’s Instant Brown Rice.

Nutrition of this Meal

This meal contains 18 ingredients on the World’s Healthiest Foods list:

• Bell peppers
• Garlic
• Olives
• Onions
• Romaine lettuce
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Lemon
• Low-fat cheese
• Yogurt
• Garbanzo beans (hummus)
• Chicken
• Brown rice
• Black pepper
• Cayenne pepper (hummus)
• Cumin (hummus)
• Dill
• Peppermint