Mezze!

The February Daring Cooks challenge was a Mezze (pronounced "mez") table.  The requirements were to make Pita bread and homemade Hummus. The recipes as well as other links and information about Mezze can be found here. I chose to make four of the five given recipes for the challenge. The Cucumber Raita, Hummus, Falafels, and Pita bread. My husband and I have been to the Falafel King where we've had similar food to this, but I've never made any of it before. I must say, the Falafels I made, were WAY better. I would make them again.

I had a fun time with the Pita bread. I used to make a lot of bread during my 4-H years. In fact, I had the Champion bread one year - with my honey wheat that I made in a used coffee can. It was really good - and looked super cool. Anyways, kneading and making bread is somewhat therapeutic and by chance, it turned out great. I was able to roll it out easily and it wasn't too dry. (I tend to have trouble with things being too dry ever since I moved out to VT. Maybe it's just me.) The Pita bread didn't bubble up too much, like others did in the challenge. I'm not sure if rolling them out more thin would do the trick?

The Hummus was very simple to make. We were allowed to add our own flavorings - so I tried to think of my favorite kinds that I usually buy. I added cut-up sun-dried tomatoes and some cayenne pepper to the mixture as well as some salt and pepper. If I were to do it again, I would make a spinach and artichoke variety. I noticed some challengers put some olive oil on the top of the Hummus, which made it look more like the stuff you find in the store.

The Cucumber Raita was not good alone - but tasted much better with the Hummus and Pita. It reminded me of a really good gyro at the MN State Fair. I had added too much cayenne pepper and made it too spicy for my liking.

I really enjoyed this challenge, though it took me nearly all day to complete. The nice thing was that we had dinner ready that night.

One thing that was missing was the sliced lamb meat. That would have made it perfect!

In thought of Valentine's Day, I did make a couple heart-shaped Pita bread.