MIDDLE EASTERN BOWL WITH SPICED BEEF
One bowl packed with some of my Middle Eastern favorites.
I love a good restaurant cheat, don’t you? There’s a place close by that I frequently want to visit and that’s because they have the taste of my family’s home made cooking in their food. I have my reasons as to why I don’t go there often… but that doesn’t stop me from craving it every now and again. That’s exactly what happened the other night. I went into this frenzy about how I wanted a Chipotle-esque version of my familys’ cooking, and after a little experimenting, this is what I came up with.
Now, I LOVE a good shortcut as well- feel free to do you and make everything from scratch as you wish. I usually go with making the things I cannot buy (yes, we all know homemade is MUCH MUCH MUCH more delicious) but I have an almost one-year old and work piling up by the day. With that said, cutting time has become my speciality lately.
BIG WIN: I bought everything used in this recipe from TRADER JOES. That included the sauce as well as the cauliflower tabbouli. We usually make our tabbouli from scratch but I was trying to hide in the cauliflower so Hamzeh wouldn’t notice (spoiler alert: he did). Also, feel free to add hummus to this recipe. As you could probably already tell, I made this bowl based on my personal preference, but feel free to change it up. Some people eat chicken shawerma instead of spice beef, so if that tickles your fancy– by all means go for it.
• SPICED BEEF ingredients
1 lb. lean ground beef
1/2 onion diced
2-3 TBS of Middle Eastern 7 spice**
salt & pepper
1/2 cup of pine nuts
+ Directions: Add beef and onion to frying pan on medium-high heat. Once combined, add 7 spice and salt and pepper and remove from heat after 8-9 minutes. In a separate pan, add 1 TBS of olive oil & sautee pine nuts over medium heat. Add to meat mixture. Set aside.
• TABBOULI (I used CAULIFLOWER from TJ’s)
• BASMATI RICE (1 cup, cooked)
FOR THE SAUCE:
+ 3 TBS of plain yogurt
+ 1 tsp of ZHUG sauce (from TJ’s)
**Middle Eastern 7 spice is used in all of our cooking & can only be found at a speciality store. If you can’t find it, use 2 tsp of all spice, 2 tsp of paprika, & 2 tsp of cumin.
