We the Foodie People...Week 1: Assyrian

Ben and I have started a new project...or maybe the word experiment would be a better fit. As we were sitting down to dinner a few weeks ago, we started discussing our love of food...not just food, but good food. Both of us enjoy trying edibles from different cultures and would love to travel the world and taste the many different flavors and unique dishes that are offered each country. However, neither of us are millionaires and therefore cannot afford to drop everything and go. So, we decided to bring the cultures home to our own dinner table.

The experiment? There are 26 letters in the alphabet and many countries that begin with each letter. So for each letter of the alphabet we've chosen one country in the world. Each week, we will do oodles of research, find authentic recipes and cook the food from one country for an entire week. Since neither of us are big breakfast people, we're only making dinner dishes from each country, except for Saturdays..and on Saturday we've planned an authentic breakfast (which will be our brunch), a big dinner and authentic dessert.

Of course, we had to pick a pretty busy month to start our project, but c'est la vie...our schedule is always busy! Each week we will experiment with the food and plan to blog about them the following Monday...complete with pictures and sometimes a favorite recipe! Yes, I'm a few days behind, but with 24 pies to bake for a wedding this weekend, our week has already been crazy...

Last week, though, was our first week, so beginning with the letter "A" our food choice was Assyrian...and now for the pictures!

Day 1: Marinated beef, Potato Piroshki, an Assyrian salad, Lavash (from the Assyrian market) and hummus. I completely forgot to snap a picture that first day (actually, we had company over for dinner, so I was a bit preoccupied...), so the picture above is what I had for lunch the following day...gotta love leftovers!

Day 2: Khipti ~ An Assyrian soup/stew dish that has sautéed onions, these meatball things and a tomato sauce which is served over baked rice. As side dishes, we had another Assyrian salad and Lavash...which we used to scoop up the Khipti.

Day 3: Lamb Kebabs, Tabouli, more Potato Piroshki, Lavash and dips. Ben's family came over for dinner that evening, which is one of the reasons why we had the Piroshki again...they were so good that we had to share!

Day 4: We had leftover Khipti. We also drank Assyrian tea all week (which is SO good that we've continued to drink it!) You don't sweeten your tea, you put a special sugar cube in the front of your mouth so that when you sip your tea, each drink is sweet!

And our big dinner consisted of Koobideh, Shiraze Salad, Baked Rice, Grilled Tomatoes, Lavash and you guessed it...Piroshki! We had two leftover from the other night and we couldn't let them go to waste!

We celebrated Ben's birthday on Monday of last week, and he really wanted Italian, so we only had five Assyrian nights. However, they were all really good, and it was hard to decide which was our favorite dish. But we both agreed that the marinade on the beef the very first night was soooo good, that we're going to share the recipe here...

Marinade (approximate amounts):
2 c. yogurt
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
salt & pepper, to taste

Garnish:
Cilantro, chopped
lemon wedges

All of this cooking makes a body tired...and speaking of tired, Lilyana is ready for her nap.
Check back later to see family updates and on Monday we'll debrief you on our week in the British Isles!