I jiggled my dorm room key for a few seconds, struggling to open the door. With a final pull and heave, I opened the door with a familiar loud squeak. Usually when I walk into my dorm, I see my roommates sitting around the TV watching MTV while doing their homework (very productive I know). But today was different. The sight that greeted me was so incredibly strange; I’m still trying to comprehend what happened.
Only one of my roommates was there that Sunday. She was the first to get home that weekend, and I was the first to witness her state of being. Pieces of torn up pictures littered the floor, while my roommate sat there cross-legged hugging a stuffed bear.
Now while I cannot continue this story out of respect for my roommate’s privacy, I can tell you one thing: to make her feel better, we pigged out that night.
And that is how I fell off the bandwagon.
By the time the night was over, we were completely bloated, a hundred times sleepier, and our room was a million times messier.
Ah the sacrifices I make for my roommates.
The morning after was the worst part. Waking up feeling like I’ve taken two steps backwards is horrible.
So to compensate, I decided to make a healthy middle-eastern salad to get myself back on track!
I call this salad Tabouleh, but it is also commonly referred to as Tabouli. There are a lot of different ways to do this salad, and every culture does it differently. Because the salad requires a lot of different herbs I didn’t have, I did an “easier” version, comprising of all the same major elements, just substituting lettuce and cucumbers for a lot of the ingredients I didn’t have.
Ingredients
-One bunch of Parsley, very finely cut
-Half a head of romaine lettuce, thinly sliced
-About ten grape-sized tomatoes, or one big tomato
-Two diced cucumbers
-One-fourth cup of fine bulgur (a type of grain)
-One squeezed lemon
-Olive oil
-Salt
-Ground pepper
Traditionally, there is no romaine lettuce or cucumbers in Tabouleh. If you’d like, you can go the more traditional route and add finely cut mint leaves and half a bunch of cilantro.
Step One: Chop up the parsley leaves as finely as you can
Step Up: Slice romaine lettuce into very thin strips
Step Three: Dice up tomatoes into very small pieces
Step Four: Slice up cucumbers first, then dice them to cut them into very small pieces
Step Five: Add all chopped ingredients into bowl, add bulgur
Step Six: Add a generous sprinkle of olive oil, salt, and dusting of ground pepper
Step Seven: Add lemon, and cover bowl with plate. The bulgur needs to soak up the lemon and olive oil to soften.
Once the bulgur has softened, serve and eat!
At the end of the day, the salad didn’t really make up for the binge eating. But we all have to start somewhere. Next stop: going to the gym…
If anyone wants to see a recipe for any specific dish, just leave a comment below and maybe one day I’ll make it!
The salad is definitely a good start 🙂 I hope your roommate is feeling better!
Yes all my roommates are much better, thank you! 🙂