Egyptian Recipes

We participated in our support group's international festival on Saturday, and I wanted to share the recipes for the food we prepared.  Our country was Egypt, and I found, through a web search, two really easy and yummy dishes.

Egyptian Sweet Couscous
Serves 12
According to My Fitness Pal, there are 189 calories per serving.  It's a pretty generous serving, too.

1 box Near East original plain couscous
2 cups apple juice
1/4 cup finely chopped pistachio nuts
1/4 cup finely chopped almonds
3 tbsp butter
powdered sugar
cinnamon
candy-coated almonds (optional)

Directions:

1. Bring apple juice to a boil.  Stir in couscous.  Cover and remove from heat.  Allow couscous to set up for 15 minutes.
2. Melt butter and chop nuts while couscous sets.  After 15 mins. pass, add butter and nuts to the couscous and stir thoroughly.
3. Scoop couscous mix onto a serving platter and dust with powdered sugar and cinnamon.
4. Decorate with candy-coated almonds if desired.  It can also be topped with fresh berries.  Serve warm or cold.

Egyptian Chick Pea Salad
Serves 12, 210 calories per serving

2 cans chick peas (garbanzo beans) drained
2 cucumbers peeled and cubed
1/2 sweet onion finely diced
4 celery stalks finely diced
1 large tomato diced
1 cup mayonnaise (I used Blue Plate light)
1/2 cup sugar
4 tsp white wine vinegar
Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Once vegetables are diced, place them in a bowl with the chick peas, lightly salt and gently stir until mixed thoroughly. 
2. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the mayo, sugar and vinegar.
3. Spoon about half of the dressing mix onto the vegetables and stir to lightly coat.  Add more dressing in one tbsp at a time until all the veggies are lightly coated.  I did not use all of the dressing and put about 1/3 of it in a storage container to keep refrigerated for later use.
4. Cover salad and refrigerate for about one hour before serving.

This recipe originally called for an oil and vinegar dressing, but it did not taste good.  I substituted the mayo-based dressing.  To make this dish a little more diet-friendly, you could dress it with an oil and vinegar or other lighter dressing of your choosing.

I'm sorry for the lack of pictures.  I'm still without a camera, and any photos you see on this blog have been taken by my mother who graciously emails them to me later so I can post them.  I wanted to post this while the recipes where still fresh in my memory.  In a few days I hope to add pictures of our costumes and projects. 

Thanks, Mom, for being the official Olive Plants photographer. 

Happy eating, y'all!
Dawn