Cooking

My love of eating is not isolated to restaurant or take-out, I also love to cook.  When I first started cooking for my husband, we had three revolving dishes:  Spaghetti with and without meat in the sauce, chicken and rice in a mushroom sauce (I think it was actually called easy chicken) and chicken and broccoli pasta.  All of them contained less than five ingredients.  Wow, it was exciting!  As my palate expanded so did my experimentation with cooking.  I now make my own marinara (full of chucks).  I learned to cook multiple filipino dishes (thanks to my mother-in-law) and I am now trying other cultures.  My latest is middle-eastern.  I started making my own hummus a few years ago, thanks to a very simple recipe given to me but one of the nurses I worked with.  (Thanks Wafa!) Although my hummus is really good, I was nervous trying anything else.  My colleague Christine, who is from Iraq, introduced me to Teta foods.  They have everything from Shish Tawook, and Swarma marinades to Fattoush dressing.  It made eating middle eastern at home easy but I wanted to try something from scratch.  Today, I made Hashwi!  It is super yummy.  Here is the finished product:

I have to iron out a few kinks but it tasted pretty authentic.  (I will have to have some friends try it to verify that).  I am a happy girl tonight!