My veg box..part 2: shawarma vegetables and quinoa

In the Middle East “shawarmas” are typical street food that you can buy on every corner as the sun goes down; shawarmas are Lebanese rolled, wrapped sandwiches, made in round ‘khobez’ arabic bread, with marinated, spit cooked chicken or lamb, wrapped up with pickled vegetables and ‘toum’, a garlic sauce; the smells are glorious and even though I don’t eat meat anymore, I can still fully appreciate the aroma and flavours that go into that sandwich – I remember them very well. They make shawarmas at the open air Lebanese restaurant at the bottom of my Mum’s building in Abu Dhabi and the smell of the spit cooking in the warm Middle Eastern air mingling with the many and varied perfumes worn by everyone, is one of my most favourite aromas.

I now know the spice mix that is used to create those flavours and use it regularly on chicken for my boys, but at the weekend, I applied it to some of veg box produce, and it was a winner 🙂

This is a dish of flavour, freshness and colour…a vegetarian taste of the Middle East, which I teamed with quinoa to create a healthy tasty lunch..

I chopped up the mushrooms, sliced the leek and red onion, and chopped up the broccoli tops, the leaves and the few little pieces of broccoli. I sprinkled these with:

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp green cardamon powder

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt (I use about 1/2 for my tastes)

…stirred it all through, drizzled freelly with olive oil and lemon juice, and stirred through again to spread it throughout the vegetables. I then left them to marinate for a good couple of hours. 

Whilst they marinated I cooked the quinoa in my own unique way.



When I was ready to cook the vegetables, I sautéed them on the hob/stove over a medium heat until they were cooked, but maintained a slight crunch, as is my choice. I then threw in half the cooked quinoa and stirred it through to warm it up. At the same time, I sautéed the rest of the sprouts flowers in another pan. 



When it was all warmed through, I added roasted flaked almonds and pomegranate seeds to finish the dish and threw on the sprout flowers. Yum yum yum!! 

Love it!!!! This was soooooo good!!! 

Part 3 of my veg box fun is coming tomorrow with even more new ideas…for now, I’m bringing my shawarma vegetables and quinoa to this week’s Fiesta Friday blog party, co hosted this week by Mila nd Jhuls ……. Come along and join the fun! 

Have a great Friday everyone xx