No heat required

[howdydave]

Howdy!

I just thought that I'd start a thread for recipes that don't require
any cooking at all!

My first contribution is:

Tabouli

Tabouli is a cold salad from Lebanon made out of bulgar (cracked wheat.)

Delicious Middle Eastern salad or appetizer!

Some stores sell Tabouli Mix. Some stores even sell it in bulk!
This only requires you to add water, oil, lemon juice and tomatoes.
(Sometimes I don't even bother with the tomatoes!)


If the mix is not available, you can make it from scratch:

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Ingredients
Serves 4 to 6

3 cups of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup of finely chopped fresh mint
4 or 5 finely chopped spring onions (with the green parts)
4 ripe, medium size tomatoes, chopped into small cubes
1 cup of medium burghul/bulgar (cracked wheat)
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 jalapeno pepper, de-seeded, chopped fine (optional)
5 TBS good olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Tools: Chef's knife, chopping board, mixing bowl, strainer/sieve.

Rinse cracked wheat several times and then soak in cold water for about twenty minutes.

Chop the tomatoes (small dice).

Clean the parsley and remove the large stems (you want mostly leaves). Chop fine.

Put the cracked wheat in a sieve to drain.

Trim the spring onions, and chop them into 1/4" lengths.

Put the drained cracked wheat and tomato in a large mixing or serving bowl. Add salt, pepper, allspice, lemon juice, olive oil, mint, parsley, and optional minced jalapeno.

Taste for seasoning. If too dry, you can add additional lemon juice.

Toss well. Tabouli benefits from resting - you can cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator for a few hours or over night, tossing occasionally.
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You can do a search on "tabouli" for alternate recipes.

During the hot season, I can make an entire meal out of tabouli!

[joy]

NOT A RECIPE



I'm so glad we have this forum. I don't really have a special need for any detailed recipes right now. I did lose quite a lot of weight eating like my husband should be eating since he is a diabetic and has high cholesterol. When I stopped of course I gained some back.

Why am I writing this? Well because tabouli sounded like something I'd like. So one summer quite a long time ago while we were staying at the lake for a week I bought a prepackaged mix and added what else I wanted to the mix. My husband still laughs about it. He was pretty fair about trying it I must say. We haven't had it all that often but I could live on it if necessary, especially if I could slip in a baked potato ever now and then. Sure is easy to fix as well and lots of possibilities to add to change the taste.

I'm looking forward to checking out all the recipes here. Many thanks to all the people who are so helpful.

[howdydave]

Another cold recipe is Hummus

Hummus is made from ground chic peas.

If you like it as much as I do you can probably find a mix for it in the
same location where you find the Tabouli mix.

Premade can probably be found in the dairy or deli section.
Some stores also sell Hummus in bulk.

[howdydave]

Thin-slice vegetables,
Add Plain Yogurt,
Spice to taste,
Let it marinate for an hour or more.

A word of warning... Lemon (or any other acid) will curdle your yogurt!
It will taste fine, but you will lose the smooth, thick consistancy.

If you are a timid chef, start off with something simple for spices, like
dry salad dressing mix.

[joy]

Yes, I like ‘em! I had to get the can from trash to make sure that chick peas and Garbanzos were the same pea. I’ll give that recipe a try sometime.

I used to be on about five anti-seizure medications at once for my peripheral neuropathy. I got so tired of the brain fog plus they did not help with the pain. Also made me swell big time and I would end up with rash on legs often. Since legs were numb I would let it go on until it would become infected often. So now I don’t use that as my choice of treatment. But I still get sleepy sometimes so try and set loud timers so I’ll not start a fire.

Too much information, I know, lol. But I certainly can sympathize with daughter about her medications she takes for her seziures.
I’m really enjoying this recipe section.

[howdydave]

I love Thai food. Here is a recipe for Som Tom

BTW: Don't forget to wash your hands after handling the peppers!
(Nasty things might happen if you rub your eyes!)


Ingredients:

2 cups shredded fresh green papaya.
3 medium roma tomatoes, or use a few more if you can find cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons dried shrimp
4-6 fresh Thai chiles, remove stems
3-4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice


Note: Thai chiles are very hot!

I love fish sauce so I always have extra fish sauce available at the table.

Method

Peel fresh green papaya, rinse the white milk off, pat dry, then shred the whole papaya.
Sprinkle with a bit of salt then rinse it off and drain.
Keep 2 cups shredded papaya out, and put the rest in a sealed container for later use.
Slice tomatoes thinly.
In a mortar & pestle, coarsely pound the fresh chiles (whole) and garlic.
Add sliced tomato, and pound it lightly (do not over-crush).
Add dried shrimp, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice.
Add these items spoon-by-spoon, and taste as you go.
If you want to add peanuts, add now and lightly
pound (optional).
Add shredded papaya and pound together until mixed well.

Serve on a dish with fresh shreaded cabbage on the side. Enjoy!

To watch somebody make it see the clip from
The Center for Lao Studies: Making Green Papaya Salad (http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/14IkpyMNzwboPQzd) (a safe flash video.)

The recipe is a bit different than mine but you'll get the general idea.



Notes & pointers:

Green papaya has a very mild, almost bland, taste, but it is the medium through which robust flavor ingredients take body and form. It picks up the hot, sour, sweet and salty flavors, giving them a unique crisp and chewy texture unlike that of any other vegetable. When made into salad, you wouldn't know that it was mild and timid; you remember it only as bold and spicy.

Unripe papayas are readily available in various sizes and shapes at many Asian markets. Select one that is very firm with shiny green peel suggesting that it is as freshly picked as possible. Any very firm unripe green papaya can be used for the recipe, ranging from the small Hawaiian papaya to the huge Mexican variety. The important thing is that it should be unripe - the flesh still light green, almost white, in color after it is peeled. Select the firmest one you can find. Even green fruits will eventually ripen and turn soft if allowed to sit around for some time.

There are many ways to make green papaya salads, with varying degrees of hotness, sourness and sweetness. This recipe, from northeastern Thailand and Laos, is probably the hottest one (depending on how many and what kind of peppers you add) and is a staple food of the populace.

FYI: "Tom" (tum) is the Thai word for HOT.

[howdydave]

Dice some onions (3 or 4) and put in a bowl

Add 1 to 3 Tbsp. of salt and mix
(salt draws the water out of the onions)

Periodically drain the water out of the bowl
(every 15 to 30 minutes) for an hour or two.

Note: It takes longer to draw the water from
red onions than it does from white onions.

Add Indian Paprika (1 tsp.) and lemon juice (3 or 4 Tbsp.)
A bit of ground chile pepper can be added if desired (I don't use it)
Mix.

Cover and let stand (mixing occasionally) for at least an hour or 2. (It's even better the next day!)
Add more lemon juice if necessary.


After you've made it 3 or 4 times, you will find the right proportions of
salt, paprika and lemon juice to suite your taste.

This one will amaze you...
It isn't hot!
It isn't salty!
It isn't sour!

The flavors blend for an amazingly mellow sensation!

[Lavandula Canadensis]

i just love that receipe book (entirely raw vegan): ’The Raw Gourmet’ by Nomi Shannon (former raw vegan chief at the Hippocrates Institute in Florida, USA) – easy receipes, beautiful pictures, full of advice too… just discovered her web site:
http://www.rawgourmet.com/
bon appétit !

[Lavandula Canadensis]

definitely a lot of mouth watering receipes on that forum... for those ones like me who like tabouli a lot but have gluten intolerance... you may replace the cracked wheat by cooked rice (either white or brown or wild) and it will be just as good ! hummm ! thanks to all of you who take the time to post them all here for us ! merci ! :p

[BrierRose]

I have no recipes to share. But I just want to say thanks for starting this thread. I always looked for totally no cook recipes. And there are many great ones here, that I've already tried. Thanks for sharing your wonderful no-cook recipes.