Showing posts with label foreign food friday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreign food friday. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
New Blog...
I added a link at the bottom of the page for a new blog I'm doing on our Foreign Food Fridays. I am gathering the recipes we used on the first couple nights and blogging about the food. I did it partly to satisfy those of you who are curious about our monthly endeavors and partly to keep a record for myself of which countries and recipes we've already done. There isn't much there right now, but I am working on it so keep checking back. I will try to incorporate pictures of the food as we go along too.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Another Fantastic Foreign-Food-Friday!
We had the opportunity to share our foreign food night tradition with our world-traveling family last Friday. The cuisine of the evening was Turkish food. AMAZING! Not spicy like Thai food but full of lots of different spices and flavors, it was so delicious. Here is what we ate:
Appetizers were hummus with Pide (pita) bread, olives, goat cheese and Turkish Cacik which is a yogurt/garlic/cucumber/mint type dip that was a huge hit with everyone.
The main meal was Turkish chicken (which was marinated in a minty-yogurty-spice laden marinade), Pilav (which is a simple white and brown rice pilaf) and a Turkish salad full of tomato, bell pepper, cucumber and fresh parsley.
For dessert I made 2 different recipes of the famous Turkish Delight which were such a hit that they were nearly instantly devoured. There were only a few lingering ones left for the next day.
Here we are enjoying all of it:
The food was fantastic and we happily ate all the leftovers the rest of the weekend!
Appetizers were hummus with Pide (pita) bread, olives, goat cheese and Turkish Cacik which is a yogurt/garlic/cucumber/mint type dip that was a huge hit with everyone.
The main meal was Turkish chicken (which was marinated in a minty-yogurty-spice laden marinade), Pilav (which is a simple white and brown rice pilaf) and a Turkish salad full of tomato, bell pepper, cucumber and fresh parsley.
For dessert I made 2 different recipes of the famous Turkish Delight which were such a hit that they were nearly instantly devoured. There were only a few lingering ones left for the next day.
Here we are enjoying all of it:
The food was fantastic and we happily ate all the leftovers the rest of the weekend!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Foreign Food Fridays!
A few months ago while making out a meal plan for the week I realized we were in a meal rut. You know, the same things all the time. We had talked with some of our friends about having a thai food night once a month with them, but with all of our hectic schedules, the timing just never seemed to work out.
Hungry for something fresh and new, I spent a few days thinking about different ways to change things up yet make it easier to plan meals and grocery shopping. Adam suggested we assign a type of food to each day of the week (i.e. Tuesday is casserole night, Wednesday is chicken night...) and we can try new recipes according to what night it is. Fantastic idea! I set about sorting it immediately and a short while later had a good plan.
It was good, but I still felt like it needed to be more fun. That's when I had this wonderful idea: Foreign Food Friday! I got out slips of paper and pens and a quart sized mason jar, sat all the kids down at the table and explained the plan. They were to write down the names of some countries that sounded interesting to them on the slips of paper and put them into the jar. Then, every Sunday after dinner we would take turns choosing one. Whatever country was chosen would be the focus of research that week and on Friday we would share a typical meal eaten in that country and learn some things we may not have known about its culture.
The idea was a hit! Everyone loved thinking up new countries to add to the jar. Brielle got to choose the first slip.........Ireland! Let me tell you something: Irish people really know the meaning of comfort food! We made Irish stew, soda bread and homemade apple pie (whose crust was made with sour cream and turned out to be the best one I've ever made).
We have since extended the invitation to the friends with whom it was so hard to coordinate schedules and they joined us for our last Foreign Food Friday: Thailand. It was a blast! We have since decided to do Foreign Food Friday every other week in order to do more research and allow time for hunting down those sometimes elusive foreign ingredients. I believe our friends will be joining us for every Foreign Food Friday and I am looking forward to the next one: Russia! If anyone has any fantastic foreign recipes they'd like to share with us I would be very glad to get them. Hopefully, as this might very well become tradition in our house, I will be able to add a few photos with recipes next time.
Till then, take care and explore the amazing depths of your culinary culture if you dare....it could be eye opening and wonderful fun.
Hungry for something fresh and new, I spent a few days thinking about different ways to change things up yet make it easier to plan meals and grocery shopping. Adam suggested we assign a type of food to each day of the week (i.e. Tuesday is casserole night, Wednesday is chicken night...) and we can try new recipes according to what night it is. Fantastic idea! I set about sorting it immediately and a short while later had a good plan.
It was good, but I still felt like it needed to be more fun. That's when I had this wonderful idea: Foreign Food Friday! I got out slips of paper and pens and a quart sized mason jar, sat all the kids down at the table and explained the plan. They were to write down the names of some countries that sounded interesting to them on the slips of paper and put them into the jar. Then, every Sunday after dinner we would take turns choosing one. Whatever country was chosen would be the focus of research that week and on Friday we would share a typical meal eaten in that country and learn some things we may not have known about its culture.
The idea was a hit! Everyone loved thinking up new countries to add to the jar. Brielle got to choose the first slip.........Ireland! Let me tell you something: Irish people really know the meaning of comfort food! We made Irish stew, soda bread and homemade apple pie (whose crust was made with sour cream and turned out to be the best one I've ever made).
We have since extended the invitation to the friends with whom it was so hard to coordinate schedules and they joined us for our last Foreign Food Friday: Thailand. It was a blast! We have since decided to do Foreign Food Friday every other week in order to do more research and allow time for hunting down those sometimes elusive foreign ingredients. I believe our friends will be joining us for every Foreign Food Friday and I am looking forward to the next one: Russia! If anyone has any fantastic foreign recipes they'd like to share with us I would be very glad to get them. Hopefully, as this might very well become tradition in our house, I will be able to add a few photos with recipes next time.
Till then, take care and explore the amazing depths of your culinary culture if you dare....it could be eye opening and wonderful fun.
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