The temperature outside got to 105 F today. Our house stays pretty cool since it’s built on a slab but we finally turned the a/c on around 6 PM. It was definitely not a day to be cooking anything so I made a couple of salads and served them with hummus and pita.

One thing with salads, though, they are really time consuming to make! Cooking some fish or a burger and steaming broccoli is way easier and quicker. John was my helper today squeezing lemons, picking mint leaves, and being generally helpful by reaching things that are on high shelves and doing a lot of clean-up.

The tabbouleh I make is very parsley intensive. I used three bunches along with quite a bit of mint, scallions, and a little garlic and tomatoes. There is only a quarter cup of bulgur wheat which is first soaked for 20 minutes. The dressing is basically just lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. I make it a few hours before dinner so that the bulgur wheat can soak up the dressing.

There are lots of recipes online for Israeli salad. Most of them have the vegetables finely chopped. I made my cucumber, tomato, and onion chunky. It is quicker to do. I seed the cucumber and get some excess water out of it by salting it and letting it sit for an hour in a colander. I also added some mint to the salad and dressed it with lemon juice and olive oil. A sprinkle of sumac as a garnish is nice.

So for the last two nights we have had two really tasty dinners without heating up the kitchen. When I mentioned that they both had been vegan the family seemed surprised. So delicious, filling, and good for us!