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| Tonight's dinner was hosted by Holly and Billy Likos. The dinner was Lebanese. I didn't get a lot of the recipes this month, so hopefully people will add to the blog with them. I also apologize for not knowing everyone's name that was there. It doesn't look like I took a picture of our dish so I will just the recipe. I adapted Chicken with Onions and Sumac from Saveur.com The recipe called for boiling a med roasting chicken with water, celery, onions, cloves, a cinnamon stick and peppercorns. Instead I put 8 chicken thighs in the pressure cooker with the above ingredients, with water to cover the chicken at high pressure for 15 minutes. Let cool on it's own. Remove chicken and let cool. Strain chicken stock. (There will be leftover stock). Heat 4 tbsp olive oil, and 1/3 cup pine nuts and cook, stirring constantly, until golden. Remove from oil. Add 1 sliced onion and cook until translucent, about five minutes. Add 3 tbsp sumac, 2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp allspice, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon. Remove from heat. Add 3/4 cup lemon juice. (I only added a little over 1/2 cup because that's all the lemons I had. I think it was enough) Add 1 1/4 cup chicken stock. Set aside. Heat oven to 350. Shred chicken and discard bones. Place in baking dish. Pour onion mixture over chicken and bake 25 minutes, or until slightly browned and liquid has reduced by a third. Top with toasted pine nuts. We served it with the pita recipe from September 2011 of this blog. |
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| Chicken Kebabs, not sure who made them... |
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| Koftas |
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| Dri's meatballs. |
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| The lovely Dri. |
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| More chicken kebabs, again unsure of who brought these... |
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| Tim and Tracy |
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Jennifer's tuna salad. Here's the link:http://m.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lebanese-Style-Tuna-Salad-with-Tahini-Dressing-10568 |
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| Pam's delicious chicken and saffron rice from " A hundred and One Middle Eastern Delight" which was her first cookbook purchase on her kindle. Put one whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces, skin on, into boiling water. Boil once and discard water. Put fresh water, a whole onion, peppercorns, cloves and cinnamon sticks in the pot and bring to boil. Put in the chicken and boil until tender. Add a few drops of saffron soaked rose water. Remove chicken and lightly brown under the broiler. Cook 10 oz rice in the remaining boiled chicken water and add 1 chicken bouillon cube and the rest of the saffron. Meanwhile fry 3 sliced onions, 2 oz golden raisins, 2 oz whole almonds, roughly chopped and 2 oz pine nuts in olive oil. To assemble put rice on a serving dish, sprinkle with 3 tbsp of chicken stock, top with cooked chicken pieces and cover with onion raisin and nut mixture. (This was the actual recipe, the following recipe was what Pam actually made) Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil 9x13 baking dish and set aside. In a sauce pan over med-high heat, dry roast almonds and pine nuts until fragrant. Add 1/2 cup olive oil and raisins and fry until brown. Set aside. Dump 1 box Casbah "saffroned Jasmine Rice" into baking dish and drizzle with bit of olive oil. Add 1 onion sliced into half moons and 2/3 of nut-raisin mixture. Pour 2 1/2 cups chicken stock evenly over entire dish. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake one hour, covered. REmove foil and continue baking until chicken is brown. Garnish with chopped parsley and rest of nut/raisin mixture. Pam's other dish was Cauliflower with Tahini (which I am in love with) from the same cookbook. She adapted this recipe so she wouldn't have to deep fry the cauliflower. Heat oven to 375. Divide 1 large cauliflower into small florets and spread on a rimmed baking sheet. Toss cauliflower generously with olive oil, sea salt and ground black pepper and place in oven. While cauliflower is roasting, mix together 3 tbsp tahini, juice of one lemon and 1/2 tsp salt. Adjust salt and lemon to tasted. Roast cauliflower, stirring occasionaly as it browns. Total roasting time was about 15 minutes. Place in bowl and cool to room temperature. Toped with 1/2 cup chopped parsley and drizzle tahini sauce over the top and serve. |
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| Kurt's cabbage rolls: These recipes are from www.lebaneserecipes.com There are three components to these rolls. First is the Lebanese Mixed Spices: Put equal amounts of the following: allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, fenugreek and ginger. Second, the filling. Mix together: 300g minced lamb, 1 1/2 cups rice, 1 small chopped onion, 2 chopped small tomatoes, 1 tsp dried mint, 1 tsp mixed spices, 1 pinch chili powder, 1 tbsp worcester sauce, 2 tbsp butter or oil and salt and pepper. Third, the sauce. Mix together 450g tin of crushed tomatoes, 1 large bulb of garlic separated and peeled, 4 tbsp tomato paste, 2 cups chicken stock, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp butter and salt and pepper. Fourth, the rolls. One head of cabbage. Separate leaves and boil for one minutes. Remove and drain. Spread 1 leaf at a time on a board and cut of thick part of stalk, keeping stalk to one side. Repeat for the rest. Fill with 1 tbsp filling and fold side in and roll like a cigar. Arrange stalks in bottom of a deep pan and add on top the garlic. Now stack stuffed cabbage into pan. Cover with heavy plate. Add sauce ingredients and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Serve hot. |
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| I love that the Wilson's are bringing a cookie to each dinner. Tonight, Lebanese cookies which were described as delicious buttery sand. Here's the link: http://homemade-recipes.blogspot.com/2009/11/lebanese-cookies-lebanese-cookies.html |
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| This is the McGarity's rice pudding. I don't have a recipe for this one. |
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| Jennifer and Laura |
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| Mr. Kingsley |
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| Holly, Matt and Theo |
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| I didn't catch their names, but they brought the wonderful lamb sausages/ meat rolls below. |
May is a particularly busy month for most of us, so the next dinner will be hosted by Jennifer Erikson on June 10th. The country: Norway I am already looking for recipes that don't include pickled fish...
