For the Love of Food

Hummus is one of my favorite spreads to make because of the fact that it’s very versatile. It’s not just meat for dipping or scooping with different breads, but makes a great sandwich spread.

I have made quite a lot of hummus in the last 3 years – since discovering it, and I have learned that the secret to the silkiest and smoothest hummus is in the chick pea peel. By removing the peel, you remove a layer of roughness from the chick pea and pave the way for silky hummus.

Now, there is no easy or quick way to remove the peel from cooked chick peas – you just have to slip it off – one chick pea at t time. But, it’s well worth the effort. It takes me just under 10 minutes to “peel” a 400 gram can of chick peas. And, as is with most foods, although the quick way is tasty and edible – opting to take the long way has its rewards. Continue Reading »

And, now for the final dish in my Luxurious Iraqi Dinner Party series: velvety smooth, fragrant, and delicious saffron and rose petal labaneh.

This was the crowning moment of my evening. Not only was it stunningly beautiful, it was so delicious! In all my research on how to host a luxurious dinner party, one important piece of advice is that your first dish should be stunning – both in appearance and taste – to really impress your guests. And, while this is true and important, I find it just as necessary to end the meal with an equally stunning dish…you don’t want them to think you ran out of energy at the end!

However uncomplicated it is to make this dish, it does take some planning and time – as well as access to organically grown/pesticide-free fragrant roses. I happen to grow some in my garden. Unfortunately, mine bloom and are most fragrant in early summer. By the time September rolls around, they are on their way out. Luckily, one of my fellow gardeners, and author or Naturlich Fürth, had plenty still left growing on her garden plot that were a million times more fragrant than mine…and she was happy to share!

Now, the part that requires time is “making” the rose honey. The longer it sits, the more fragrant it becomes. I let mine sit for a week before using, but I’m sure it can be used as early as 2 days after making – it will just be less fragrant.

Just remember that when it comes to the fragrant roses for this dish that you pick some with a sweet smell. I have some beautiful, very very fragrant, red roses growing on my garden plot, and they smell like a nice, clean rose soap…not exactly a flavor that I would enjoy in a dish.

The original recipe can be found here. This is originally called a panna cotta, but labaneh is yogurt that has been strained to give it a much thicker consistency which is a major component of this recipe. So, I just renamed it. Continue Reading »

For this month’s Taste&Create event, I have been paired with Corina from Searching for Spice. She has many delicious-looking recipe, and I came across one that really peeked my interest: roasted chickpeas.

I love chickpeas. In my humble opinion, they go well with every meal and can even enhance a meal. Now, I’d never heard of roasted chickpeas, so this sounded like a lot of fun, and I had no idea what the outcome would be.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that roasting chickpeas turns them into a delicious crunchy snack – like a croûton or that crunchy roasted corn that you can find at many convenience stores in Texas. Corina used hers in a salad – which sounds delicious, I, on the other hand, just used it as a sort of party food or snack food and set it out on my table in a little bowl during one of my garden meetings. The flavors were very delicious – with a hint of spice – but I believe the roasting dulls them down, so don’t be alarmed by the high amounts.

I plan on bringing a bowl of this to our garden’s Halloween party this weekend. I think that everyone with get a kick out of them! Continue Reading »

For the luxurious dinner party I held a few weeks ago I wanted to serve a salad that reached into the heart of the middle east and was quite different than the typical Fattoush or Tabbouleh salads.

After many days of searching, I came across a sandwich called Sabich a few times, and decided to leave out the bread and let it be an interesting salad.

The components of the salad really harmonized well together, and the salad was light, but hearty and filling. I can see why it is loved as a sandwich/wrap filling.

You can find the original recipe here. Continue Reading »

Most of them figured I slaved over this dish for hours, others could not believe how creamy it came out. This is my favorite part about cooking for guests – watching someone’s face light up when they eat my food. What I love even more is telling them how easy it was to prepare and encouraging them to try to make it at home as well…hence my love for blogging!

The recipe technically takes roughly 3 hours to finish, but you only have to take port in the preparation process for about 5 or so minutes of that time. This recipe practically makes itself.

Feel free to make this well ahead of time. I made mine 1 week before my party and it was deliciously creamy – and didn’t freeze into a block of ice – until the last scoop!

The original recipe can be found here. Continue Reading »

Now, many of you may have heard of Tzatziki. It’s a delicious thick yogurty sauce usually containing cucumber and a combination of other ingredients. Jajeek is it’s more fluid counterpart.

Jajeek is fairly easy to make, what I find makes or breaks it is good yogurt. Please try to find one that is nice and creamy. It doesn’t have to be a thick Greek yogurt, just not a clumpy one.

And, what can you do with jajeek besides dipping your lamb in it or eating it straight from the container?? Well, it goes great mixed with rice, spread on bread, on gyros, with grilled meats, on a burger, with falaffel or meatballs …I could go one and one. It’s very versatile, and you can add as many other ingredients as you like such as bell pepper, mint, lemon juice, etc. The best part is that my children love it so very much. The baby shakes with excitement when he sees it, and I once watched my older son climb over the table, grab the bowl, and drink it all before we even sat down to eat. What can I say, it’s yummy!

You can find the original recipe here. Continue Reading »

I am so excited to share with you that I have made it to Round 6 in the Project Foodblog competition! I’m so thrilled that I think I may just blog the whole night long! Thank you all for your votes!

In challenge 3 we had to hold a luxurious dinner party, and, as I promised in that post, I would post all the recipes from that evening. Well, somewhere along the way a few weeks ago I left you at the main course. Now, it’s time to pick-up with the rest of the main course with the Cardamom Rice.

I searched for quite a while before I found this recipe, but when I found it, I knew it would be great. And, it was fantastic. Prior to this dish I had never used cardamom, and I was pleasantry surprised that it has a delicious, yet mild aroma. So many spices that I well loved in the middle east are quite intense and can be overwhelming to the unfamiliar palate. Cardamom is not one of these spices.

The dish is quite easy to prepare, and involves little prep work for such a fragrant dish. I goes well with lamb, but I imagine it would even go well with beef or pork roasts.

Just a word of warning! The grains in bastmati rice and very lose and it takes some practice with presentation.

The original recipe can be found here. 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 »