a rocky start

Week one was not what I expected. I did manage to cook the three dishes that I wanted, but it took two different days. One of my mom's aunts ended up in the hospital and then two of her other aunts came for a short trip from out of town. I also just finished a 5 day hospital stay myself to have my gallbladder removed, so my mom has been helping me take care of the babies since I am restriced from lifting all three. To make a long story short, since mom was expecting her aunts to visit, I had to take all the kids to her house and cook there. Luckily she lives right down the road. Unfortunetly for me though, it feels like we are moving out anytime we have to go anywhere because we have to take so much stuff with us plus the two babies (Miles and Noah) and my two year old (Maddie).

Persian food is not fast food, it is very intricate and can take lots of time. After we arrived, I put together the rice, which took me a good two hours. Let me tell you though, no other rice can rival the taste and aroma of middle eastern rice, so it is worth the long process of cooking. If you ever try it, and I hope you do, you will understand what I mean. After I got the rice cooking, I started marinating the chicken and realized I forgot the onions at home and wondered if that would make the chicken's flavor taste too off. I sat the chicken in the fridge and decided I'd worry about that later. It was time to relax a little since all of the kids were asleep, and wait for our aunts to arrive. They did a few hours later. We visited with them for a while and then they were off to see their sister, the one who was in the hosptial, who thankfully we had just heard was released and at home.

After they left, my husband Adam and I gathered the food and our children and headed home. At this point, it was already 7:30 so I decided to save the appetizer for the next day. I cooked the chicken kabobs and i was right, the flavor did suffer, without the onions it tasted like chicken drenched in lime. oh well, the rice turned out perfect and there is always another day as far as the chicken is concerned.

Iranian's are pretty famous for making a lot of food, as are most middle eastern families, so it was no surprise that we had plenty of leftovers for the next day and so an opportunity to make the appetizer we had missed out on the day before. It was basically a mixture of spinach, yogurt, garlic and onions. It is to be eaten with bread, but I found I liked it mixed in my rice more than I liked it with the bread.

The Iranian week didn't go as well as I had hoped but it could have been worse too! Next week will also be a challenge since Adam just switched jobs and we can't afford to spend a lot of extra money on this project just yet. Next week will probably be Irish food for that very reason, heavy on the potatoes because they are cheap and versatile. I already know the potato dish I will make, it is called Boxty and it sounds delicious. I am hoping that even though we don't have much to spend that I will have more time to spend in the kitchen to make what we do have taste delicious, just like the peasants in Ireland would do....

Also, I will post the recipes soon for anyone that wants to try them and hopefully some pictures too!

the idea

After seeing the fabulous movie Julie and Julia and watching one too many episodes of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain on netflix, I have decided on an adventure of my own! I would LOVE to travel around the world, but with almost five month old twin boys, a two year old daughter and a husband that is newly out of school and just beginning his career as a doctor, that will have to wait.

In the meantime, I love to cook and I LOVE a lot of ethnic food, so I thought, why not bring those other regions I dream about weekly into our home. It gives my husband and me a little taste of the places we long to go and also will expose my children to the many many different tastes of the world. My family is mostly German, with a little bit of Irish and a little bit of
British thrown in. My husband's family is 100% Iranian, so these are where I will start.

The first stop next week will be Iranian food. The spices and techniques used make Persian food a difficult task to complete, but I am up to the challenge. Hopefully, I will be able to someday compete with my father in law's amazing dishes...someday!

I plan to do this once a week for the next year so if you have a country or region you want me to tackle, please send me your suggestions or recipes or both!