For the Love of Food

This week I shared with you how to roast, process, and enjoy raw coffee beans at home. Today, it is your turn to help me out and vote for my post to help me win!

Please click here to vote for me now!

The last day to vote is Thursday, October 14th!

The project foodblog challenge has driven me to seek out new and interesting ingredients at stores and parts of town that I had never previously visited.  This week’s challenge brought me to a wig shop in Nuremberg.  When my friend told me that I had to go to wig shop for raw coffee beans, I took a double take at her email.  So, in the spirit of trying out something new, I made my way past all the wigs and hair weave and bought some raw Ethiopian  coffee beans.

A while back I had the pleasure of watching a colleague preform an Ethiopian coffee ceremony in our community garden, and since roasting coffee is not something we take the time to do everyday, I thought it would be a fun adventure.

I have to say that I really enjoy learning something new (and I bet you do too!).  Did you know that raw coffee beans smell like a cross between freshly pulled garden weeds and a far, far off hint of ground coffee??  I also learned that the coffee smell that sends all of us flocking to the nearest café does not come about during roasting, but rather while grinding.

This was definitely a lot of fun and easy to do.  The “hardest” part was finding the raw coffee beans.  Now, let me show you how it’s done!

Continue Reading »

Today we are moving onto the main course of my Iraqi dinner party. I will be breaking the dish up over three days so that each piece of the dish can have it’s time in the lime-light.

This post is all about the lamb – succulent, melt off the bone, is there more? lamb. The key to making such deliciously soft lamb is patience and cooking them in a rack. When you cook them individually, as I often enjoy doing, they come out a bit tougher – although still very flavorful.

When all my guests asked if they could use their hands to finish the little pieces of lamb left on the bone, I knew it was a hit. One of my friends commented on how it would be such a shame to let even the smallest piece go to waste, and I have to agree.

The daylight pictures are from the day after, and as you can see it looks a bit drier. And, while it was still soft ans delicious, it was no comparison to the night before. My husband was really able to pull this dish off perfectly. This, for your information, is the only dish that he actually cooked in the entire evening. The other dishes I had pre-prepared prior to the meals and he tastefully arranged them on our plates and served them to us. Oh, it was such a lovely evening – I wish you all could have been there.

Ok, back to the lamb. Bellow is the recipe, courtesy of bon apétit. To change the flavor up slightly, I left out the garlic and let the rack of lamb marinate for 2 days instead of just overnight: Continue Reading »

In the spirit of trying new foods for my Iraqi dinner party that I held last weekend, I made shorbat rumman (pomegranate soup).

This was the only course that left people saving the word “interesting” too many times to have it seem enjoyable. To be honest, I was quite disappointed by this soup. It ended up being over spiced, but not flavorful enough. I would definitely make some changes to this soup to have it fit my flavor palate.

Now, I’m not a big fan of cilantro (coriander), but I wanted to try the recipe in it’s entirety…although I had to leave the mint out because mint will dry up your milk if you are breast feeding. So, I left it as it was – the recipe called for 2 cups of chopped cilantro. It just sends chills down my spine to think of eating so much cilantro in one dish. Next time, I will just leave it out completely. If you are a cilantro-lover – like my mom – just leave it in and you will be happy. Also, in the second round of adding liquid – at the very end when the pomegranate juice comes into play, the original recipe calls for adding another 8 cups of water. I think this really ruined my soup’s flavor and made it taste so watery that I couldn’t save it by adding my of anything else. I would also add more salt to the meatballs.

Here is the original recipe. Has anyone ever made this or had it somewhere? What is it supposed to taste like? Continue Reading »

This is the dish I served as entrée for the luxurious Iraqi dinner party that I held this weekend.

I used my favorite bulgur salad recipe and found this delicious shrimp recipe on Taste Buddies. The shrimp were out of this world. The harissa really gave it a nice spicy flavor without leaving my mouth burning. And, the cooling flavors in the salad help to off set the spiciness of the shrimp. This is definitely a dish worth making again.

My guests were all thrilled about the bulgur salad. They all thought this was such a complicated dish to make, but I reassured them that there was nothing more than a bit of chopping.

The servings in this dish are meant as a side dish. To serve as a main course double the amount of shrimp – 2 large shrimp per person, and double the salad recipe. Continue Reading »

As promised, I will be re-posting the recipes from my luxurious Iraqi dinner party. Today I am starting with the pomegranate martinis we served before the first course.

I had never had a martini before this, and to be honest, I’m not sure I will have one after. They are just waaaayyyy to strong for me. I’m a margarita sort of girl. But, I like to try new things, and if you do too, then you should at least try this at least once.

Just a warning – this makes enough for 6 drinks. And, the original recipe can be found here. Please note that mine is much darker than theirs, but I was using jarred syrup as opposed to fresh made. Continue Reading »