Lablabi (Tunisian Chickpea Soup)

Sometimes I pick out a recipe and I don't expect much from it.  Take this recipe for instance.  I thought it would be good, but mostly I wanted another easy vegetarian recipe and I got suckered in by the poached egg in the photo.  I'm such a sucker for poached eggs.  Runny egg yolk is my jam.  And yes, I know I sort of mis-used that term.  So I sent Alex the recipe and said "hey, we should make this sometime."  And then we both proceeded to not do anything about it until New Years Eve rolled around and I wanted a simple dish to make for lunch that didn't require too many ingredients from the grocery.  Luckily, we had everything we needed in the fridge.  In the spirit of full disclosure, if we had been short on eggs I would have made a special trip to the grocery store just to get eggs.  There was no way that I was going to make this soup without poached eggs.  It was one of the "optional enhancements" listed in the original recipe but I think it is totally crucial.  Even if I weren't obsessed with poached eggs I would think it was crucial for the recipe as a whole.  Without the egg the soup lacks body and richness.  As the egg yolk melts into the soup it makes the broth a little creamier.  And while we're on the topic, I think the harissa is another necessary element.  If you don't like heat, just add a little, but I think that without harissa you will be missing out.  The same goes for the fresh herbs - the parsley and mint gave the soup some brightness and freshness.  But if you absolutely had to pick one thing to leave out, I would leave out the herbs.  Or the drizzle of evoo.  You could leave that out too. But if you make the soup and add the egg and harissa you will be pleasantly surprised by just how tasty the soup is.  Don't get scared when you taste the chickpeas by themselves prior to adding the garnishes.  They taste a little bland, but the broth is delicious.  And the soup as a whole with the addition of the garnishes is warm and comforting, not to mention really tasty.

Recipe after the jump!

Turkish Chicken Yogurtlu Kebobs and Cauliflower Salad

Sometime last fall Alex and I tried a Turkish restaurant called Peri Ela on the Upper East Side based on a recommendation from a friend.  The food there was pretty good, but my absolute favorite dish that we had there that evening was a dish called yogurtlu chicken adana (which the menu described as "spicy ground chicken, sliced and served over yogurt-garlic and pita bread").  I was essentially picturing a wrap/open-faced sandwich or pizza of some sort, but it was so much better than that.  The pita bread was toasted and cut or torn into large croutons and then topped with spicy chicken kebobs, onions and peppers and a garlicky-yogurt sauce.  The croutons soaked up the juices from the chicken kebobs and the sauteed onions and and peppers but still retained some of their crunch and texture.  The chicken kebobs themselves were nice and flavorful.  It was totally spicy, creamy and delicious.  Sunday afternoon I picked up some Turkish bread from Zabars and immediately starting thinking about trying to recreate that yogurtlu chicken adana with the bread.  Seeing as I am far from an expert on Turkish food I tried to find a recipe to follow online but I couldn't find any.  I found plenty of lamb or beef kebob yogurtlu recipes but nothing with chicken.  So I decided to just make something up.  I always like  yogurt-marinated chicken so step 1 was marinating the chicken in labneh, herbs and spices.  Step 2 really winging it since I couldn't find a really good recipe to follow.  We did take inspiration from the various lamb or beef kebob yogurtlu recipes but from that point we basically threw in whatever ingredients seemed to make sense. 

Given that I basically had no idea what I was doing here, I thought the end result was surprisingly successful.  The chicken itself was my least favorite part (next time I will tweak the marinade to make it more flavorful or make chicken adana), but the pide soaked in the tomato sauce and yogurt sauce was pretty delicious.  While we were eating Alex and I both came to the conclusion that next time we might want to cook the chicken 90% of the way and then add the bread, chicken and tomato sauce to a shallow casserole or baking dish and throw it in the oven for a few minutes.  I think that way the bread will absorb more flavor and the dish will just meld together a little better.  Even if I don't bake the combined dish in the oven, I will serve the dish in shallow bowl or baking dish because serving it on a plate is just asking for trouble.  As Alex and I tried to toss the bread, chicken and sauces all together it was a battle to keep everything on the plate and not fling chicken, etc. everywhere.  While our execution wasn't perfect, the flavors were pretty good.  I thought the combination of the tangy-ness from the yogurt sauce, the sweetness and slight smoky flavor from the tomato sauce and the heat from the cayenne in the butter sauce worked really nicely together.  I was worried that the cauliflower salad would be too heavy/dense to serve with the kebobs but it was surprisingly light.  I really liked the lemony dressing, which was bright and fresh but not too acidic.  I also liked the slight hint of heat of the crushed red pepper flakes.

Recipes after the jump!

Roasted Acorn Squash and Onion with Tahini and Za'atar

I think it is time for me to stop buying so much squash at the farmers' market.  Every week I see a new variety and pick up more squash.  So we have been battling our ever expanding squash selection little by little.  Right now I have a stripetti squash at home (which is apparently a cross between a delicata squash and a spaghetti squash).  Once I read the little blurb claiming that it was a cross between a delicata and a spaghetti squash I couldn't resist buying a stripetti squash because those are my two favorite squash varities.  But I think we are about to hit Alex's squash tolerance soon and I am running out of new and inventive ways to cook squash.  So I might take a week or two off and then go back to buying more squash.  I am still determined to buy some more new squash varieties, but we just need a break until we use up all of the squash we have and until I come up with some new recipes.  I definitely want to make some soup and to also make some baked goods.  This Pumpkin Pecan-Praline Pie from Martha Stewart sounds particularly tempting and it might just be tempting enough for me to break my no pie rule...  Probably not though.

This recipe by Yottam Ottolenghi was one of two of his recipes that I had set aside for future squash experimentation this fall.  We had to make a number of modifications to the recipe becase we had acorn squash instead of butternut squash, we were out of pine nuts and we only had half of a red onion left, but we had a Vidalia onion in the pantry.  But we tried to stay true to the rest of the recipe as much as possible.  As with all Yottam Ottolenghi recipes my first thought upon tasting the dish was "this is interesting."  He combines ingredients in ways that I would never contemplate on my own (although the combinations might be totally commonplace to someone of Middle Eastern descent) and I find myself having to re-evaluate flavor combinations every time we make one of his recipes.  This was neither our most successful, nor our least successful Yottam Ottolenghi dish.  I liked it, but I would like to try it again as written and see how that changes things.  Acorn squash has always seemed a little starchier and less sweet than butternut squash to me and I think that this recipe would benefit from a slightly sweeter, moister squash.  We also incinerated our onions a bit because we lost track of time.  The onions that were salvagable were really delicious with the squash and the seasonings.  This is one of the few times that perhaps sticking to the recipe as written might have been the way to go...

Recipe after the jump!

Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

First and foremost, I wanted to say how excited I was when we bought Yotam Ottolenghi's new-ish vegetarian cookbook, Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi.  All of the recipes in there looked so interesting and the pictures were so beautiful, but I kept picking it up and putting it down because we already have so many freaking cookbooks.  I just didn't want to buy another.  But I am really excited that I finally caved.  Second, my pictures of this dish look awful compared to the pictures in the cookbook.  Just look at the cover of Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi and you can't help but be impressed by how utterly gorgeous his food (and the pictures of his food) is.  And then you look at my picture.  And the eggplant kind of looks like a... well I'm not going to say it because it's not at all appetizing.  But my pictures are nowhere near as pretty.   

Since this recipe is the picture on the front cover of the book and therefore a large part of the reason that I bought the book, I thought it was a fitting first dish for us to make.  And if this dish is representative of the other recipes in the cookbook, I am infinitely glad that we did.  Of the two of us, I thought that I would be a bigger fan of this dish but it turned out that Alex was.  He said that love was too strong of a word, but he "enjoyed" the dish and described it as having an interesting blend of flavors - the buttermilk/yogurt sauce was kind of tangy and the pomegranate gave it a nice sweetness without the whole thing being too sweet.  I would agree with all of his comments, but add that the fresh thyme was a really nice herbal (slightly floral) addition.  The eggplant itself was almost creamy and with the pop of the pomegranate seeds you ended up with a nice textural contrast as well.  My one complaint is that some bites of the dish just weren't as well seasoned as others, but you run into that problem with most roasted vegetables.  I know we make that comment/criticism of a lot of roasted squash recipes.  The layer of eggplant at the top that really absorbed the evoo and buttermilk sauce was delicious.  The layer that you scraped off the bottom (even after the addition of more buttermilk sauce) was less so.  All things considered it was a really interesting dish.  It was not my favorite dish that we have ever made, but the recipe is definitely worth trying.

Recipe after the jump!

Moroccan Garbanzo Bean and Feta Pitas

I have one complaint about this dish - the chickpea salad is all one texture, a little mushy.  I wish there had been something crunchy to liven it all up.  One of the reviews suggested roasting the chickpeas for some crunch.  But we didn't want to take the extra time.  I wish we had.  If it hadn't required another trip to the grocery store (our 5th trip in 3 days), I would have picked up some kalamata olives to throw in for some salty kick.  I thought about adding some red bell pepper for crunch and a little sweetness, but I decided against it because the red bell peppers at the store didn't look that good.  I also thought about just serving the filling as a salad over a bed of romaine lettuce and serving it with pita chips for crunch, but Alex wanted pita sandwiches so we went with pita sandwiches.  I know I have already said it, but I really missed the crunch.  If I were to make this again (and I'm not sure that I would because nothing about the recipe really stood out for me), I would roast the chickpeas so they are nice and crunchy.  And I might still serve it with pita chips.  And I might kick up the flavor a little bit (or serve with hot sauce).  The flavor wasn't bad, but it didn't jump out at me either.  The Greek yogurt added a really nice flavor that I was initially skeptical of, but I ended up wanting more of it.  The yogurt was probably my favorite component.  Even though we had wonderful fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from the farmers' market, it was really the yogurt that shined.

Recipe after the jump!

Toasted Israeli Couscous with Pine Nuts and Parsley

I had never heard of Israeli couscous until I moved to NYC.  I feel like I say that a lot.  Don't get me wrong, I have always been an adventurous eater and my parents exposed me to all kinds of foods growing up, but somehow we skipped right over Middle Eastern (with the exception of gyro, kebobs, shirazi salad, souvlaki and baklava) and African cuisines.  So I really missed out on Israeli couscous entirely until New York.  I think I had regular couscous for the first time in a tagine in France at an Algerian/Moroccan restaurant (at least I assumed it was one of those, although it could have been Tunisian or any other Arabic Maghreb country but there are a ton of Algerians and Moroccans in France).  But I had never heard of Israeli couscous until I went on my first shopping trip to Kalustyans.  And then I discovered that I loved it.  Because the grains are so much larger than regular couscous it does take longer to cook, but I think it's worth it.  Texturally Israeli couscous is similar to fregola or pasta.  According to Wikipedia, Israeli couscous is actually pasta so that makes sense.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite Israeli couscous recipes.  I enjoy the flavor of the cinnamon and the buttery crunch of the toasted pine nuts.  I think the couscous works wonderfully with merguez sausage or grilled chicken.  All in all, it's a fun side dish to have in your repertoire.

Recipe after the jump!

Moroccan Lamb Kebobs with Mint Dressing and Middle Eastern Yogurt Sauce

It's almost Easter!  Yay.  When I think Easter, I think roast lamb or honey-baked ham.   And Cadbury Mini Eggs, which are the best Easter candy ever.  If you have never had Cadbury Mini Eggs before I highly recommend running to the nearest Duane Reade (or Sam's Club, which is where my mom picked up the 36 oz package that she bought me) to pick some up.   Yum.  Anyway, I decided we should do some lamb kebobs in honor of Easter.  We obviously weren't going to roast a whole lamb leg or a honey-baked ham, so lamb kebobs seemed like a good compromise.  I found a recipe for a Moroccan leg of lamb with a Mint Dressing on the NY Times website so I stole the idea for the flavors of the lamb marinade and then made the Mint Dressing as written.  And then Alex decided to whip up a yogurt sauce (similar to a tzatziki, but without the cucumber).  So we ended up eating a dinner composed of store-bought pita, lamb kebobs with mint dressing and yogurt sauce, and a simple salad.  All things considered, it was pretty tasty.  My only complaint was actually with the Mint Dressing - which I found to be a little acidic/bitter.  I really wish that the flavor of the mint had dominated, but all I really tasted was red wine vinegar and shallot.  So I would probably cut back on the amount of vinegar and maybe up the amount of herbs - perhaps add in some cilantro?  I don't know.

Happy Easter everyone!

Recipes after the jump!

Moroccan-Spiced Scallops with Lentils

Some meals are more exciting than others.  This one, just didn't excite me.  It smelled good.  It sounded good.  And I am a big fan of the flavor combination of cumin, coriander and cinnamon.  But once we got everything on the plate it was just kinda... meh.  The flavors were decent, but I was hoping for one of those dishes where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.  And all I got was parts, none of which were bad but nothing that blew me away either.  My biggest complaint was that the lentils were verging on starchy mush (I would probably use green lentils in the future because I feel like they have a better texture better).  If I had read the reviews before making the dish I would have thrown in a little more spice and added some garlic for an additional flavor hit, but I'm still not sure that it would have saved the dish.  Actually, I have no idea what would have saved the dish.  Oh well - I guess this dish won't make it into our repertoire.

Recipe after the jump!

Faux Turkish Manti

I know I mentioned Alex's challenge to make a week's worth of original recipes months ago.  And I also know that we're midway through our annual week's worth of Chinese New Year recipes.  But I have been conceptualizing this recipe for some time now - since before he even mentioned that challenge.  And if I were to publish an actual week's worth of original recipes I would want this to be one of them.  But I don't know if I am ever going to get around to doing it.  However, I will try to make more original recipes of our own from here on out.

We have been buying pre-made Turkish manti (both frozen and dried) from Kalustyan's and making it for years now.  It is one of my favorite quick and easy pre-made meals.  Another favorite is the tarte flambee from Trader Joe's.  I'm not sure when and how I first discovered manti, but I think it was from a tiny whole in the wall Turkish place near my first apartment.  Since moving uptown it has become much harder for us to get our semi-regular manti fix.  The last few times I have gone to Kalustyan's they haven't sold or stocked manti.  It was a huge disappointment.  And it is something of a trek to get down there now.  So I decided that we should make some manti of our own.  Only instead of making traditional manti (which involves making dough and then folding lots of teensy little dumplings), we could make a play on manti - all of the same flavors, but a simpler method.  So instead of making dumplings stuffed with a beef and onion mixture, I picked up some fresh pappardelle and topped it with some sauteed beef and onions.  And then I used the traditional yogurt and butter sauces (or at least what I consider the traditional sauces).  I thought this was a very satisfying play on manti.  The flavors were all there, but it was so easy to put together.  I was incredibly happy with it.  The best part is that from now on, we can make these faux manti at home whenever we want them.  Go us!

Recipe after the jump!

Poached Eggs in Tomato Sauce with Chickpeas and Feta (Shakshuka)

What do you make when you have no idea what nights you will be home for dinner and don't dare defrost things?  If you are like Alex and I, your options are often Annie's organic mac & cheese (generally whole wheat, but not always), a frozen Trader Joe's tarte d'alsace (aka tarte flambee), pita/flatbread/lavash pizzas or eggs.  Yes, we are just as guilty of relying on prepared foods as the next person.  The wonderful thing about eggs is that they can hang out in the fridge until you want them and they can be made hundreds of different ways.  Sometimes we scramble them, sometimes we bake them, sometimes we fry them, and sometimes we make omelets.  Sometimes we serve them solo or with a salad and sometimes we do the whole breakfast for dinner bit with bacon, etc.  It really just depends on what we have in the fridge/cupboard and how much effort we feel like putting forth.  This time I wanted to put forth a little effort on a recipe that I found a few weeks ago that uses up pantry and fridge staples that we always have in the house - canned whole peeled tomatoes, canned chickpeas, pita, eggs, garlic, onions, jalapeno, feta, parsley and cilantro.  Ok so sometimes we don't have the herbs or the pita, but we have them more often than not. 

What I liked most about this dish was how satisfying if felt - warm and slightly rich (from the runny egg yolks and feta) - while still remaining (relatively) healthy.  It felt like a meal, whereas sometimes a plate full of just eggs (or a vegetarian meal) can leave you craving more.  I also really enjoyed that it was vegetarian.  We really don't cook enough vegetarian meals and when we do, we tend to make pastas or other carb-heavy meals.  The only carbs in this meal were the pitas, but if you were doing the whole carb-free thing you could cut them out.  Anyway, this was a wonderful Middle Eastern deviation from our standard vegetarian meals, one that I could definitely see us making again.

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Beets with Lebneh and Mint

Last night I was trying to think of a way to use up my beets from the CSA and I kept thinking about the lebneh I had left in the fridge from our Grilled Eggplant with Lebneh.  I really liked the combination of the garlic in the lebneh with the fresh mint.  And I thought that it would work with some roasted beets, but I wasn't sure so I checked Google.  When I Googled I found a variety of recipes including beets and yogurt - most of which wanted you to grate the beets and mix with plain yogurt.  That reminded me a little too much of a coleslaw and the proportions of yogurt to beet sounded off to me, so I decided to just wing it.  I found a Madhur Jaffrey recipe on Epicurious that called for a pinch of cayenne so I appropriated that idea and started cooking.  And man, that cayenne was genius.  But I have to give us credit for coming up with such a genius idea in the first place.  Alex actually said that this was one of his favorite beet recipes ever.  Not that we make beets that often, but I still consider that to be a serious accomplishment.  Once you stir it all together, the tartness and coolness of the lebneh was the perfect contrast to the heat of the cayenne and the sweetness of the beets.  And then there was the brightness of fresh mint and the hint of fresh garlic.  Yum.  It was just really good.  And the bright fuchsia color was just beautiful.  In fact, it was so good (and so pretty) that I even considered stealing the last bite away from Alex and eating it myself.  But I didn't.  I'm a good wife like that.

Recipe after the jump!

Spinach Salad with Walnuts (Salatet bil s'banegh joz)

First and foremost, isn't this salad beautiful?  I'm not sure that this picture does it justice but trust me, the colors are gorgeous in person.  The ruby red pomegranate seeds, white yogurt, and green mint just look so wonderful together.  And they actually taste pretty good together too.  But as pretty as the salad was, we both agreed that it needed something.  In certain bites where you had the proper balance of all of the ingredients it was quite good.  Then you would have another bite that would be somewhat bland and boring.  I guess that is what happens when you have a salad with this many ingredients.  It's pretty hard to make sure that each bite is perfectly balanced.  But even in the ideal bites you could still sense that the salad was just missing something.  Something with a little more bite or perhaps a little more sweetness.  Alex wanted the pomegranate seeds to be sweeter.  I thought the pomegranate seeds were sweet enough, but there was just something else it all needed to come together.  I just don't know what.

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Eggplant with Lebneh

Somehow we never cook Middle Eastern at home.  I don't know why.  Actually I guess I do know why - it's just not something that occurs to me when I am planning dinner.  I don't stock most of the ingredients and spices at home.  So I have to make a conscious decision and effort to make Middle Eastern food.  Generally it involves a shopping trip to Kalustyans and some degree of forethought.  Forethought isn't always my friend.  But I decided yesterday that we were going to make a vegetarian Middle Eastern meal - this eggplant dish and a spinach and pomegranate salad.  The meal evolved around this eggplant dish because we got three eggplants from our CSA last week and thus far had only managed to use one of them.  And I am trying to be extra good about using all of our CSA and farmers' market produce this summer.  I also needed to free up some space in our refrigerator, which is verging on crazy full right now.  So we picked up the few ingredients we were missing and we made ourselves some Middle Eastern food.  And this eggplant dish was the clear winner of our Middle Eastern experiment.  It was very easy to make.  And it was delicious.  I have never tried lebneh before but it was delicious, similar to Greek yogurt but not quite.  Both yogurts are tart and thick, but the tartness is a little different.  And I think it is even thicker than Greek yogurt.  But it was delicious on the eggplant.  The mint really was the perfect touch.  This recipe is definitely a keeper.  And it provided me with enough incentive to add more Middle Eastern recipes to our repertoire.  Just eggplant today, but who knows what we will be making tomorrow?

Recipe after the jump!

Spaghetti Squash with Moroccan Spices

Every once in awhile I stumble across spaghetti squash recipes that call for substituting spaghetti with spaghetti squash and dousing it with tomato sauce.  As if the kids wouldn't notice that their "spaghetti" is suddenly a completely different texture and has a strange non-pasta aroma to it...  I must admit that I am very skeptical of those recipes, partially because I know that spaghetti squash can be incredibly delicious.  For instance, this spaghetti squash recipe calls for a melted butter and Moroccan spice mixture.  It is amazing.  The spaghetti squash gets richness from the butter, smokiness from the cumin, a hint of spice from the cayenne, and then a blast of freshness from the cilantro.  Now I'm not an expert on what kids will and won't eat, but wouldn't you rather serve them (and yourself) something delicious?

Recipe after the jump!

Charmoula Lamb Chops

When I was younger I had a serious love of lamb and duck.  Chicken and beef were fine and all, but somehow I preferred less common variations on the same theme.  As I have grown older I have re-discovered chicken and beef, particularly when cooking for myself at home (partially because they are so much cheaper than the alternatives).  I would say that we make lamb about once every 3-4 months, and the same with duck.  And when we do make lamb, it tends to be ground lamb - perhaps lamb burgers or lamb kebobs.  In the past year I think we have only made lamb chops once and they were shoulder chops for our Indian Lamb Chops with Curried Cauliflower, rather than loin chops or rib chops.  So I guess in another 3-4 months we will attempt some lamb loin chops.  And after today's experiment I am looking forward to the loin chops!

These Charmoula Lamb Chops were delicious.  Charmoula (or chermoula) is a sort of Middle Eastern variation on chimichurri that is used in Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian cooking.  In this charmoula I used mint, cilantro and parsley in addition to evoo, garlic, shallot and lemon juice, but I have seen other recipes that are vastly different.  I even found a recipe that called for red bell pepper.  But it is my understanding that the common components to any charmoula are herbs, oil, lemon juice and spices.  I love that this charmoula is fresh and flavorful.  It really makes lamb, which can come off as a little heavy and greasy, taste vibrant and fresh.  The only problem is that the chops could have used a hint more char.  That was partially my fault because I was afraid to really turn the heat up without burning the herbs in the marinade or overcooking the lamb, since I prefer it medium-rare.  But a little more char is definitely in order in the future.  A grill would really help with that, but unfortunately I don't have access to one.  I think this dish would be a really nice dinner party entree.  I actually said the same thing about the Rainbow Trout we made last night, but I think this would be even more ideal.  The dish is elegant and refined, as well as delicious. 

Recipe after the jump!

Merquez Sausage Sandwich

A few years ago I discovered D'Artagnan's sausages.  I have tried several of the different varieties, including the wild boar sausage, the Andouille sausage, and the lamb merguez sausage.  Thus far, the merguez has been my favorite.  It's nicely spicy and incredibly flavorful.  Generally I cook the sausages in skillet and then serve them with a couscous I like to make with a combination of sauteed yellow onions, currants, toasted pine nuts, and flat-leaf parsley.  The sweetness of the currants pairs with the spicy sausages, and the couscous soaks up all of the wonderful sausage juices.  But last night I wasn't feeling the couscous (which is good because when I looked in the cabinet I discovered we were out of currants).  Instead I took some inspiration from B.Cafe and whipped up a mergeuz sausage sandwich on nice crusty bread, which we topped with sauteed red onions and garlic scapes, plus a nice fried egg (I love fresh organic eggs - they have such wonderfully rich, orange yolks).  I served my sandwich open-faced because for once I didn't want all of the bread, but Alex wanted an actual sandwich so that's what he got.  

This sausage sandwich is seriously yummy.  The egg yolk give the whole dish some extra richness, and provides it with something of a sauce.  The sauteed onions and garlic scapes provide a bit of freshness and another layer of flavor.   Then there's that delicious sausage.  But this certainly isn't a light meal - you need to serve it with a nice arugula salad to cut the heavy, rich flavors.  We were out of arugula so I served it with a big bowl of nice cherries from our CSA, and that also helped to balance out the richness of it all.

Recipe after the jump!

Lamb Kebobs and Quinoa Tabouli

Traditionally tabouli (or tabouleh) is almost all vegetables with very little fine bulgar.  Since I don't have any bulgar in the apartment, but I do have quinoa, I decided to substitute quinoa for the bulgar and ramp up the amount of quinoa a bit to make the salad a little heartier without messing with the traditional flavors of tabouli.  I love the freshness of the tabouli, so I didn't want to mess with that at all.  I just wanted to make it into more of an entree salad and less of a side dish.  Plus I really love the taste of quinoa, so I wanted to make sure that it didn't get lost in all of the vegetables.

Generally I design my meals around the protein, but this time the quinoa tabouli came first and then I had to decide what protein to serve with the tabouli.  Kebabs seemed like a natural choice.  Luckily I had some ground lamb in the freezer that I have been talking about using for a week or two now.  So I threw together some ingredients for the kebabs with the help of my food processor and we had kebabs.  I think the flavor of these kebabs is fantastic.  You get the hint of spice from the cayenne, the warmth of the allspice and cinnamon, and plenty of fresh herb flavors from the parsley and cilantro.  Don't chop the pine nuts too finely because they provide some much needed texture.  The pita keeps the kebabs very moist, but can make them feel a little mushy.  You want to sear the outsides of the kebabs so they have some nice crust and texture to them for some contrast to the moist, soft interiors of the kebabs.

Recipes after the jump!

Fattoush (Toasted Pita Bread Salad)

I don't think words exist to describe how enamored I am with this salad.  I knew I liked fattoush, but I'm coming to realize that I really LOVE fattoush, or at least I really love this fattoush.  Usually I order fattoush when I am ordering falafel or shwarma, but I am going to make it at home from now on because it really is that much better.  Homemade fattoush is so much brighter and fresher, with crazily vibrant flavors.  You have the sourness of the lemons, playing off the brightness of the herbs, the freshness of the cucumbers, the tartness of the ground sumac, the peppery spiciness of the arugula, and the sweetness of the tomatoes.  It's brilliant.  I'm fairly certain that I have never had such a delicious salad before in my life.  Or at least not in the past few months because I can't honestly remember any salads in any real detail from before then.  This salad is perfect on a day like today where somehow it is gloriously sunny and 90 degrees outside.  In April.  I would complain about the evils of global warming screwing up the weather, but I am too excited by this salad.  I couldn't have made a more perfect lunch if I tried.  I love it when that happens.

Recipe after the jump!

Merguez Lamb Burger on Pita

I was shopping at Bloomingdale's today and we stopped in at FLIP to grab a milkshake.  There was an Eastern Burger with an exotic lamb blend, herbal yogurt dressing and a tandoori onion ring, rolled in naan flatbread.  That got me thinking.  I had been planning on serving a Greek-inspired lamb burger with feta cheese, spinach, red onion and a play on tzatziki sauce, but that Eastern Burger sounded way better.  So after a successful conclusion to our shopping trip, I decided to make a play on a merguez sausage kebob/burger that I would wrap in some nice pita I purchased on Thursday.  But I decided to go ahead and use the spinach and shaved red onion that I had been planning on using with my Greek burger.  And then I made a sauce for the burger with the Greek yogurt I had been saving, mixed with harissa and lemon juice.  So good!  I love burgers, but this recipe is one of my most successful for a first time attempt.

Recipe after the jump!

Yogurt-Marinated Chicken Kebabs with Aleppo Pepper

Yogurt-marinated chicken is one of the world's best culinary inventions.  First there was tandoori chicken, delicious if done properly.  Then I started stumbling across other yogurt-marinated chicken recipes from all over the Middle East and India.  This is our new favorite yogurt-based recipe.  The yogurt marinade renders the chicken super moist, and it gives it a nice tangy flavor.  The lemon is nice and bright, plus the pepper gives it some wonderful slightly sweet heat.  It is such a wonderful blend of flavors.  I love trying new things - new seasonings, new cuts of meat, new everything.  That's how we end up with half of the produce in our refrigerator during the summer, and how we accumulated most of the spices in our kitchen cabinet.  And while I considered buying Aleppo pepper just to make this recipe, I decided that it was slightly silly to buy a spice that I had only ever seen once in a recipe.  Plus the alternative works beautifully in this recipe.  So I stick with the dried crushed red pepper (homemade by a family friend and super spicy) or cayenne pepper, plus sweet paprika blend.  I'm not sure how the recipe would taste with the Aleppo pepper, but I can attest to the fact that it is delicious with the substitution.

My favorite way to prepare this dish is to make the marinade while I am cooking dinner the night before, and then allow the chicken to sit in the marinade overnight.  Last night Alex whipped up the marinade while I started on our Hummus with Cinnamon Lamb and I was excited all day just thinking about the yogurt marinating away in our fridge.  But I have tried marinating it for just a few hours and it tastes wonderful that way too. 

Recipe after the jump!