Weekend Carnivore

If you have been paying attention at all to my food blog posts then you have figured out that I love hummus.  I honestly would sooner give up chocolate than hummus. It may sound a tiny bit crazy but it is also true!

A few years back, I was walking through Soho in London and noticed a new restaurant called Hummus Bros.  Loving hummus, I was immediately interested in going and trying this place out but I just didn’t have anybody that I thought would be willing to go with me.  Years past and I still hadn’t tried it.

hummus bros

Then, a few weeks ago my friend Kelly – another hummus lover – had some time to spare in central London. We decided that now was the time to lose our Hummus Bros virginity.  Boy, we were not disappointed!  It may just be the case that this is the perfect ‘fast food’ restaurant for me.

Firstly, any restaurant chain that uses a pun as their tag line is off to a good start with me.  Really, Hummus Bros, you had me at ‘give chickpeas a chance’. Still the truth is always in the tasting and as much as I love hummus (did I mention that?), there are few things as disappointing as being served a bad hummus. Perhaps this is the case simply because of the high expectations you carry with you from whatever your most recent mind blowing hummus had been.  You are chasing that hummus high and anything that undermines that hits hard.

Good thing then that the hummus on offer from Hummus Bros is so amazingly good! Firstly, it isn’t just about the hummus that you can get there but what you get on top of your hummus. The hummus is a base and then you can order any number of combinations piled on top. Then, you are given a wonderfully warm brown pita to scoop it all up.

The toppings range from the very vegetarian offerings such as chickpeas or fava beans to the decidedly carnivore such as slow cooked stewed beef.  Kelly and I ordered a few small dishes between us to try. The servings were generous and without a doubt if I was going on my own it would be enough to order one small hummus. However, this was more like the hummus sisters throwing a party. So,we went nuts and tried a number of them. Each one was super good.

If there is one food item that rivals my love for hummus it would be mushrooms. So, when I saw the mushroom topped hummus I knew that had to be one I tried. It was vegetarian delight of stewed mushrooms and caramelized onions nestled on top of their creamy hummus. They give you the option of adding sun dried tomatoes to that mixture and I didn’t have to think twice about saying yes. It was truly an amazing combination.

Hummus Bros Mushroom Hummus

What I found particularly interesting about the hummus sold at Hummus Bros was that the tahini was served in a dollop on top of the hummus.  Which meant you could swirl it in yourself in the amount you desired. I love tahini so it was all in with that sesame goodness!

Another plus for Hummus Bros is the attention they pay to making their food fit into your nutritional requirements. Not only does their website have a full break down of the calorie and fat content of each of their dishes but they also have reduced fat hummus available. If you have gluten issues, you can also ask for the pita bread to be substituted with rice cakes, gluten free bread or carrot sticks.

When we went, we did have to ask them for the reduced fat hummus because we didn’t see it mentioned on the menu. However, when we did ask there was no problem at all in getting it. All this praise for their hummus and we had the reduced fat version. I bet the full fat must be even better.

If you have a soft spot for hummus and are in London then make sure you find your local branch of Hummus Bros and give them a try. Oh, and don’t forget to wash all that chickpea goodness down with a glass of their fresh mint and ginger lemonade!

Isn’t it funny how as soon as the sun comes out and it starts to feel like summer everybody suddenly becomes extra focused on eating healthy? You would think that one day we would all figure out that if we ate better all year round we wouldn’t have to go scrambling for diet recipes when summer finally arrives. We all do it though and with it feeling hot and steamy in London this week (not something that happens all that often!) my shopping trolley was even more filled with fruit and vegetables than normal. 

Ever since we have decided to go full force into the weekend carnivore lifestyle of eating mostly vegetarian recipes, our vegetable drawer is bursting at the seams anyway but I do tend to get more adventurous when the summer recipe season hits. I will buy any vegetable that looks good and challenge myself to come up with a new healthy vegetarian recipe that I can work into my diet.  This week, I picked up an aubergine with no real plan as to which vegetarian recipe I would be making. 

An aubergine, by the way, is what my fellow Americans call an eggplant. So, if you are scratching your head wondering what I might be talking about with this recipe just rest assured that this is simply an eggplant recipe by another name. I knew I had been living in the UK for a long time (14 years this month) when I caught myself thinking aubergine rather than eggplant. When your mind thinks the word of the country you moved to instead of the one you grew up with you know you have finally gone native!

My husband has come a long way with his vegetable eating habits and will try just about anything.  However, I knew from the past that unless it is very well hidden he isn’t going to be a big fan of any aubergine recipe. So, that meant that my newly purchased aubergine was destine for a vegetarian lunch recipe.

For the past month, I have been participating in a cooking event over at Recipezaar (yes, I do spend a LOT of time there..such great people and recipes!) where we cook food from different regions of the world.  One of the regions we have just finished “visiting” is Greece. So, I had a whole bunch of Mediterranean bits and bobs hanging around in the fridge. Aubergine fits so well into Greek cooking that I knew it wouldn’t be hard to come up with a Greek vegetarian recipe.

Not having a clue how the eggplant recipe would end up, I started by slicing my eggplant lengthwise and griddling them.  If you do it well there isn’t much that is better tasting than grilled aubergine because it really works so well as a base for any other flavours you want to add to it. Which, is exactly what I did because amongst the remains of my Greek cooking ingredients was a little bit of feta.  I took a little bit of a gamble and cut up some fresh basil I had laying around and mashed it into the feta. You know what!? That was a stunning combination and I will be using it again in other recipes. The fresh basil really took that salty feta to a different level.

I spread that mixture over the griddled aubergine and then raided my fridge for any jarred Mediterranean vegetables and added them to the aubergine and feta stacks.   Then I plated up and tucked in to my newly developed low fat vegetarian recipe.  That was followed shortly by giving myself a nice firm pat on the back because they were SO good. The artichoke might have been chunky enough to make them slightly unwieldy when transferring to the plate but it was worth it for me since I can’t get enough of artichokes lately. Really though, this aubergine and feta recipe is so versatile and you could add any vegetables you desire to the top.

For me, two of these slices made for a perfect light vegetarian lunch recipe but I  could see this aubergine and fetish recipe being served as an appetizer recipe before a special meal. Equally, I could also see a side salad being added for a lovely summertime meal on the patio.  If you have a barbecue you could even do the grilling of the aubergine on that and make it an easy outdoor meal. Why not try them and let me know how that basil and feta combination worked out for you?

Mediterranean aubergine and basil feta stack recipe

Mediterranean aubergine and basil feta stack recipe

Ingredients:

2 lengthwise slices of aubergine (eggplant), about as thick as your small finger
60 grams reduced fat feta cheese
3 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
20 grams sundried tomatoes from a jar, drained well
30 grams marinated artichokes, drained well
30 grams green unstuffed olives

Directions:

1. Heat a griddle ban until very hot and then grill your aubergine slices until done. You can lightly oil the pan if you wish, I just used the tiniest amount of light cooking spray.
2. Mash the feta up in a bowl and stir in the chopped fresh basil until well combined.
3. Put the aubergine slices on a plate and spread an equal amount of the feta mixture over the top.
4. Chop up the sundried tomatoes, artichokes and olives and pile them on top of the feta mixture.

Serves: 1

Hello, my name is Sarah Jayne and I am a hummus addict! Seriously, I can’t get enough of the stuff. If I had the choice between really good hummus and chocolate, I wouldn’t have to think twice about snatching the hummus out of the hands of the person asking such an odd question. However, until recently, I have usually been guilty of buying hummus from the store rather than trying my hand at making my own hummus recipe.

Just like with the pesto the other week, I just always thought it would be too complicated for me to learn how to make hummus. Once again, I was wrong. I stumbled onto an easy hummus recipe that I really love because the base recipe doesn’t even use olive oil. Which means that I don’t feel at all bad about using tahini on my diet. It is such an easy hummus recipe that ever since my discovery of it, I have been playing around adding all sorts of things to it to come up with new hummus recipes.

Lately, I have also been “suffering” from a bit if an olive addiction. The little green and black gems have been finding their way into just about every meal I put together. So, when it was time to put together my latest hummus recipe I couldn’t resist the temptation to throw in some olives and see what happened. I also had a bunch of fresh coriander – cilantro for our American friends – that needed to be used. So, I threw that in too.

Boy did this turn out to be a seriously yummy hummus recipe! So, good that I simply topped it with a couple more olives (told you I am addictive) and ate it with warm pitas and made that my entire lunch!

Coriander and green olive hummus recipe

coriander and green olive hummus recipe

Ingredients:
1 (400g) can chickpeas, drained but the liquid reserved
1/4 cup tahini
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup fresh coriander
1/3 cup green olives, pitted
freshly ground pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste

Directions:

1. Put the chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, coriander and olives into a blender or food processor. I use my mini chopper to make it extra easy.
2. Blitz in short bursts, pushing the mixture down when needed until everything is combined.
3. Add a little bit of the reserved bean liquid and blitz again. Add more if you need more to get to the hummus texture you desire.
4. Serve in a bowl topped with olives.

Serves: 2 to 4 (or just 1 hummus addict like me!)

I love Greek food but I am in the solid minority amongst my friends. So, even though I have been eyeing up The Real Greek restaurant on the Bankside area of the Thames for years now, I had never actually managed to talk anybody else into going there with me.

That all changed this weekend when we had some friends from Wales staying with us for the weekend. The female of the pair, Mandy, is as much of a hummus nut as me. We knew we would be near the Bankside around meal time and when I floated the idea of trying out the The Real Greek restaurant they didn’t take much selling.

Even before we tried the food at the Greek restaurant, I loved the atmosphere. It is located on the Bankside area of the Thames and is found right next to The Globe theatre. The day we ate there, just happened to be one of the days of the recent Thames Festival, so there was even more added atmosphere to the area.

As we walked up to The Real Greek restaurant, it was very inviting with tables set out on the walkway outside of the restaurant. There were chefs grilling some meat skewers outside which also added to the atmosphere even if it did make me slightly nervous about how vegetarian friendly the restaurant may have been.

Luckily, my fears died down as soon as I got a look at the menu. The main style of food served at The Reel Greek is meze and souvlaki. Whilst most of the souvlaki menu was meat based, nearly all of the meze menu passed as vegetarian. They got plus points for not only clearly marking which dishes were vegetarian but also which were vegan. On top of that, they also listed the calorie count for each dish right behind it on the menu. Now, that is something I would love to see as a trend in other restaurants. Had, I been making myself stick strictly to my daily calorie count it would have taken all of the guess work out of it. Really, that alone tempts me back since it would take so much stress out of dieting. Mind you, it did mean I didn’t even want to look at the dessert menu.

We chose to take a table in the outdoor portion of the restaurant. With the weather being so nice and with so much hustle and bustle going on around Bankside it felt for sure the way to go. Clearly others had the same idea because the restaurant was busy with other people relaxing as they munched there way through some Greek meze. As we looked over the menu, I was amused and charmed by watching the others get served their meze on the very English sort of cake stands normally seen at high tea. It was such a lovely British twist to the Greek restaurant.

The Real Greek restaurant

They had a number of meal deal options on the menu which allowed the whole table to order a large number of meze dishes and share them amongst the group. Which was perfect since there were so many vegetarian dishes to try out.  In the end, most all of the vegetrian meze we ordered was very good.  A few items did particularly stand out such as the Greek flatbreads which we all agreed were truly outstanding.

Another of the favourite vegetarian dishes we had that afternoon was the Gigandes Plaki. This was made up of giant white beans – they looked like butterbeans – served in a rich tomato sauce. It was marked on the menu as being fine for both vegetarian and vegan diets.

Gigandes Plaki

Of course, as I mentioned, I am a hummus freak. So, there was no way we were going to a Greek restaurant and not sample their house hummus. The hummus at The Real Greek was so nice that in the end we actually ordered a second plate so that there was enough for us all to have healthy servings. It was the right thickness and tasted especially good smeared on those tasty flatbreads.

The Real Greek hummus

I would for sure go back to The Real Greek and not least because there was so many vegetarian dishes on the menu that there are still a large number left to try.  You have to love it when you go to a resturant where there is enough meat on the menu to please the full on carnivores in your life but there are enough vegetrain dishes on the menu to leave you with just as much choice.