What I ate today

Riveting title for a blog post, right?

Sometimes I get weird cravings for things and I have to have them like yesterday. This explains why I drove to the grocery store during evening rush hour today for a can of beans.

But first, let's talk about lunch. When I was 16, I went to the beach with four of my best friends and one mother. That makes five teenage girls and one mom living in a trailer on the beach for a week. Did I mention that the week before the trip, my best friend (who was there) confided in me that she was a lesbian? Oy, awkwardness. Yes, we almost killed each other and nearly drove the mother crazy. Luckily (she thought) she was a cool mom, not a regular mom (bonus points if you know what that's from). Anyway, we drove to this little restaurant/stand on the beach each morning for breakfast and got what were called Sunrise Bagels. Big chewy bagels with a thick layer of cream cheese, a big slice of tomato and some dill. So good! For some reason, eleven years later, I got a craving for one today.


I slimmed mine down a bit with a whole grain "Bagel Thin" (like a bagel with the middle sliced out, only 100 calories). I think maybe Thomas's makes them? I also used reduced fat cream cheese and used fresh basil and cilantro in place of the dill. I may or may not have also put some bacon bits on it . . . It took all of my willpower to take this picture with my phone before inhaling it.

And then, my weird dinner craving. Last weekend we went to a cookout hosted by one of Frank's employees. The guy and his wife are Turkish, and her mother lives with them. So the mother cooked all this awesome food for the cookout, which included tabouli and some kind of bean salad. I couldn't get this stuff out of my head, it was that good. Seriously, if I could eat one kind of food ethnicity for the rest of my life, it would probably be Middle Eastern. I will eat anything that is loaded with garlic, lemon and olive oil. I decided that I needed to eat this tonight, so like I said, I drove to the grocery store during rush hour.

I don't have a recipe so I kind of just guessed on flavors and it turned out awesome, though i'd like to get the real recipe sometime. I just bought the instant boxed tabouli (if you're not familiar, it's a salad made of wheat bulgur and other things) and added chopped tomatoes, olive oil, lots of lemon juice and onion.

For the bean salad, I combined a can of cannellini beans and a can of navy beans, drained. I mixed in olive oil, lemon juice, fresh minced garlic, chopped vidalia onion, parsley, and a bit of salt. Oh, and some celery for some crunch. I went absolutely crazy with the lemon juice and garlic. I'm going to smell like a garbage truck. But it was worth it.