Loving to cook and loving to try new recipes and living out in the country, a long ways from a large city that would have *everything*, I’m so happy for my well stocked pantry. There’s rarely anything I want to fix that I can’t either come up with the exact ingredients or find a good substitute for whatever I might be missing.
My newest obsession seems to be all the recipes at The Mediterranean Dish. Honestly, I couldn’t even sleep last night for thinking of some of the recipes I had seen there. This morning I was fixing breakfast — just plain old eggs and bacon . . nothing fancy. But, I was using the black iron skillet that I had used to brown the lamb and spices for the filling for the kibbeh yesterday. As I was heating up the skillet, Vince said “I smell kibbeh!” I said “Do you want kibbeh for breakfast now?” and he said “I surely wouldn’t mind it!” It makes me so happy that he loves the things I cook and he appreciates that I love to try new and flavorful dishes.
On the lunch menu for today was chicken and noodles, along with veggies. There are three chicken breasts in the fridge and I kept thinking about that . . chicken and noodles is good but after seeing all those exotic type dishes, chicken and noodles wasn’t getting me real excited. I searched for “chicken” at The Mediterranean Dish and this one jumped out at me – Za’atar Roasted Chicken. I had never heard of Za’atar til seeing it on her recipes but I’ve learned that you can mix your own or you can buy (order from Amazon for me) it already mixed. I was reading the recipe to Vince and when I got to “sumac”, he said “Good luck finding that around here!” Oh . . you don’t give me enough credit, my dear!”
Sumac
While I had it out, I went ahead and mixed up the Za’atar mix because so many of her recipes call for it.
Za’atar Mix
The chicken is marinating . . now I have to go to figure out what sides might work with this recipe.
Susan says
So will you shake that up to mix all the herbs? I never heard of it, either. I look forward to hearing what you make. I always thought sumac was poisonous.
montanaclarks says
Same here Judy–my friends joke that I could have a dinner party for 30 people and never have to go to the grocery store. When you live 22 miles from a mediocre grocery store and 55 miles from a decent one–you keep a well stocked pantry and freezer!
Sherrill Pecere says
You are SO FUNNY!! Who else (except maybe someone who cooks Mediterranean all the time) would have sumac–and there it is!! HA And yes, it does help to have someone who will try and eat almost anything. My DH was like that as well but I didn’t like to cook!