Tabouli: It's fun to say!

I stumbled upon foodgawker.com a few months ago and it really piqued my interest in cooking! I am getting married in a few short weeks and that's part of what spurred me to learn to cook. Sadly though, G is a meatitarian and I am a vegetarian. We have VERY few overlapping food interests. Still, most of my food endeavors are vegetarian. This delicious and healthy tabouli salad is easy to make!

I like to use recipes as a jumping point as far as quantity of ingredients; from there, I like to make things up as I go! This turned out very well. I decided to use quinoa as the base rather than the standard bulgar.

1) Boil two cups of water for every 1 cup of quinoa. When the water boils, add the quinoa, put on the lid, turn it down to a simmer and let it cook for 15-20 minutes. Ta-da!
2) Cut up 1 large cucumber and 1 large tomato.
3) In a bowl, mix 1/4 c olive oil, 1/4c lemon juice, and freshly ground salt and pepper. Add tomatoes and cucumber to mixture.
4) When the quinoa has cooled, pour the cucumbers and tomatoes over the quinoa and stir it all up! I like to add feta cheese to mine as well. Then serve chilled!
And there you have it! It doesn't take long to make, its easy, and its healthy for you. (My recipe fed about 4 people.)

Pre-Nesting

I am in the process of planning a wedding...close to being done, actually! In 46 days, the Ginger and I will be getting married. It has been a bit of a bumpy ride; we got engaged while my mom was going through chemo. Right before she got diagnosed with ovarian cancer, my dad lost his job. It was not by any means an ideal time to start planning an event that typically costs $27,000 in the mid-west! So I set out to do a wedding on a budget of $2000. Fortunately, God is good, and He has provided along the way. Our circumstances changed as time went on, and the budget grew to about $7000. Although quite and increase from the original budget, it is still a small amount when it comes to weddings. I strongly believe that it is possible (with a little creativity and a lot of work) to have a beautiful and meaningful wedding that isn't outrageously expensive.

A lot of the posts of my ideas and projects will be taken directly from my other blog because I'm just too lazy to retype anything! I wanted a fresh/pretty blog to share my months of wedding planning, but to also share my nesting experience (food + decorating). And so I give you Love Won't Cost Thing!