Middle Eastern Food

During the waning days of the 'cold war' with the USSR when I was still living in Oregon I found myself cooking a lot of Eastern European and Russian foods. Now that I live in Texas I find that foods from the Middle East are more to my liking because they are, for the most part, cool and refreshing. Sometimes I wonder if I am making a political commentary with the foods I choose - LOL!

During the hot summer months here I like to prepare a lot of chicken salad and both the hubby and I stuff pita pockets with it as it is a handy way to eat dinner and still have time to walk the garden in the evening - and do a little watering :~) I found that I can do a basic bread dough in the bread machine, roll out the pitas, bake them in a hot oven and still spend FAR less than the $2.29 per package the local grocery store charges. I found this recipe which produces really nice, tender pitas:

http://mideastfood.about.com/od/breadsrice/r/pitabreadrecipe.htm

I used 2 cups bread flour and one cup whole wheat flour and they are very good. I have a little countertop oven/convection oven that I use on the back porch during the summer, that way I don't heat up the house with the kitchen oven. I used the convection feature at 500 degrees and the pitas baked up beautifully in it. I can bake 4 pitas at once, the whole recipe makes 8 (or 10 small) pitas. Next time I think I will experiment with herbs in the dough.

We also like to use the pitas to dip up Baba Ganouj:

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001483eggplant_dip_baba_ghanouj.php

I added a bit more spice than the recipe calls for and I think the next batch I will use a bit more garlic too.

and Hummus:

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001844hummus.php

I think I will add more spices to this too.

My next recipe to try is falafel, I have bought the boxed mix in the past (just add water) but I am thinking making it from scratch might be a bit tastier.

http://mideastfood.about.com/od/maindishes/r/falafelrecipe.htm

We normally don't eat a lot of fried foods, but this is worth it.

Now that our temps are into the upper 90s and low 100s I will start keeping a container of plain yogurt with diced cucumber added to it. It's a great dressing (or condiment) with a lot of Middle Eastern food.