Tabouleh

Tabbouleh is my favorite salad, hands down.  My Mom's been making this my whole life... not sure how, or why, she learned to make it, but I'll be eternally grateful.  To me this salad just tastes healthy and yummy and exotic! I've heard it's Lebanese, it's Turkish, it's Greek... really, I don't care- - -I just love it.  I categorized it under "Mediteranean" figuring that covers all the choices.

This is a great salad, or side dish, for parties and picnics.  It covers two important criteria... it's good for vegetarians and it doesn't need refridgeration! I usually serve it with Chicken Souvlaki, which is just a nice word for chicken kebabs.   It's great to make ahead, but don't add the tomatoes until the day you serve it so they don't get weird and watery on you. You can adjust the fresh veggies to suit your taste, I usually add more tomatoes because I like them so much!

Serves approx 4

Ingredients:

1 cup bulger, or cracked wheat

1-1 1/2 cups hot water

1-2 lemons, juiced

1/2 english cucumber, diced or 1 peeled regular cucumber

2-3 medium tomatoes chopped

1/2 bunch of parsley, minced

1 bunch green onions, thin sliced

2-3 Tbsp olive oil, or to taste

Salt & Pepper

First, add 1 cup boiling water over the bulger and let it sit about 1-2 hours.  If the wheat still seems hard, go ahead and add another 1/4 cup of water and let it sit another 30 minutes. Use a large bowl for this!  Even though I show a measuring cup below, the bulger doubles or triples in size!

Chop the veggies and toss into the bulger, add the olive oil and the lemon juice.  Add plenty of fresh cracked pepper and salt to taste.