Middle Eastern Dinner Party

While Deb and I were in the Middle East, we fell in love with the food. We took a hummus making class and tried all the recommended food. We were in love. While at the market we both bought teas and spices to take home and decided that we were both going to put on Middle Eastern dinner parties with our friends and try cooking this yummy food ourselves.


Took about 4 months, but we both finally did it. Deb did hers first and sent me a picture of the food she made. Seeing the picture of her yummy food got my motivated to put on my dinner party as well. So I sent a message out to my crew (which I see less and less of now... pretty much just when I throw my dinner parties). I had done Christmas Dinner parties and my summer dinner parties and my fall pumpkin dinner parties. I have even done a few tea parties. This was the first middle eastern one and I was excited for the challenge.

Like Deb, I decided to keep to the Middle Eastern Staples... although I went a lot more all out than Deb did. Doesn't her looks pretty though? That girl knows how to take pictures of food. I haven't mastered that art yet.

I decided to make the same thing Deb did (homemade hummus, falafel's, cucumber and tomato salad and pita's) although I bought my pita's but I did put out that same green spice for the pitas like she did above. That stuff is tasty. I decided to also make chicken shawarma which turned out awesome and I brewed up some of the tea that I brought back. For desert, yogurt with halva on top (I LOVE halva)

And of course I can't put on a dinner party without also creating the ambiance. So we sat in my basement on the floor around the table and ate with our hands. I hung one of the tapestries I bought in Israel that I love and hung some lights and lit some candles. Used one of my scarves I got from there as the table cloth. And Stacey always provides the music and found a Middle Eastern playlist to listen to while we ate. It was pretty awesome actually. And speaking of Stacey, he knows me well and knows that I always bite off more than I can chew and knows I always run late with everything I end up making... so he came an hour early to help me cook and set up. He's a gem. Plus it is more fun to cook with someone else and have some help than to do it all yourself.

All in all I loved the way it all turned out and the food was.... FANTASTIC. I will be making it all again and I guess that means I should post the recipes as well. I actually used the same humus recipe that I posted on my blog years ago. Love that humus. I will post the chicken shawarma and falafel's recipes later. Oh.. and my crew told me this was my yummiest of all of my dinner parties so far. So I think that means it was a success. I have already suggested to my family that we should do it for Sunday dinner one week. P.S. I sent a picture of my spread to Deb. She loved it. I also sent a picture to Eli and he was very impressed... so if an Israeli is impressed, I did ok for myself.