Iraqi Luncheon with the gals

My best friend, a few other friends, and I started having monthly luncheons about a year ago. Each month, we choose a country, study about their cuisine, and make dishes with recipes from that country. We meet on a Friday afternoon at someone's house and everyone brings the food they cooked. We have made dishes from: Italy, France, Greece, Russia, Ireland, and Mexico. We went regional a few times and made dishes from Louisiana, Texas, and Hawaii. In July, we started calling our little group "The Global Gourmets". LOL

Here we are:

Here I am enjoying the luncheon

This is my best friend, Sandy

This is Cheryl

Paula is on the left; Debi is on the right

This is Lori, who joined us for the 1st time

This is Susanne, Morgan's Godmother

The 29th was the day of our monthly luncheon for August. The country we chose was Iraq, in honor of our troops.

The national name of Iraq is: Al Jumhuriyah al Iraqiyah

Their motto is: "Allahu Akbar" meaning "God is [the] greatest"

Iraqis are known for being very generous and polite, especially when it comes to mealtime. Meals are more often a festive, casual experience than a formal one. Many Iraqis were raised to feed their guests before themselves, and to feed them well. Most Iraqis hosts feel that they are failing in their role as hosts if their guests have not tried all of their dishes. In fact, proper appreciation is shown by overeating.

A typical Iraqi meal starts with a mezze (appetizer), such as kebabs, which are cubes of marinated meat cooked on skewers. Soup is usually served next, which is drunk from the bowl, not eaten with a spoon. A simple main course, such as lamb with rice is served, followed by a salad and khubaz, a flat wheat bread served buttered with fruit jelly on top.

Iraqi food is strongly influenced by its neighboring countries, Turkey and Iran. It is one of the few nations of the Middle East to lack a unique cuisine. Like the Turks, Iraqis like to stuff vegetables and eat a lot of lamb, rice, and yogurt. Like Iranians, they enjoy cooking fruits with beef and poultry.

We started our meal with kebabs and rice that my best friend, Sandy, made.

This was everyone's favorite dish of the day. She used beef and veal that were marinated in soy sauce, olive oil, lemon juice, ginger, pepper, and garlic. The meat was so tender and flavorful. Thekebabs also had tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, red onions, and sliced ginger on them.

The rice was Jasmine rice. It was delicious and a perfect compliment to the kebabs.

Next we had the cold yogurt and tomato soup that I made.

The soup was made with tomato juice, yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, chili powder, salt and pepper, and garnished with coriander leaves.

We followed tradition and drank the soup from the bowls. The soup was okay, four out of the seven of us liked it. I realized afterwards that I had not stirred the soup before serving it. I made it the night before, but should have stirred it again. The yogurt and tomato juice was separated in some of the bowls and that made a difference.

Next we had the main course which was a baked dinner made by Debi.

The dish consisted of eggplant, potatoes, ground beef, tomatoes, onions, and tomato sauce that was seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper, and allspice. I think everyone liked the dish except for Debi (who made it). I am a meat and potatoes gal and I really liked the dish.

The next course was a salad made by Paula, and a flat bread made by myself.

I could have eaten a whole plate of the salad which was simply cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, parsley, olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper. The flat bread was pretty good. I made it with whole wheat flour and it just tasted like a piece of wheat bread, nothing fancy.

The final course was dessert. We had quite a few:

Cheryl made the Dates Halva which was kind of between a cookie and cake. It had chopped dates, walnuts, almonds, ground cinnamon, and allspice. Then it was dusted with powdered sugar. This was a nice treat.

Sandy made candied orange and grapefruit peels and rose petals. You'd never know the peel of these fruits could be SO good unless you tried it! I'm not sure what she did to the rose petals (that she got from her rose bed), but I do know they were coated in sugar and were good.

Sandy also made the Cardamom cookies. They had cardamon and almonds in them. I liked these as well.

My dessert turned out terrible! I knew when I was making the vanilla cake that it was going to be a very heavy cake. It is heavier than a pound cake and very dry. I followed the recipe, so it was not my fault. You need the pomegranate sauce to get it down. BUT, I messed up the pomegranate sauce! It was over-cooked and became thicker than molasses. It had a very good flavor, but it was stuck to the plate. We had to heat the plates in the microwave before we could wash them! Oh well, live and learn. I had an off month with my dishes. I usually make great food. Maybe this will teach me not to use my friends as guinea pigs, but to try them beforehand.
Selling and drinking alcohol is still legal in Iraq, but since the rise of religious parties in this predominantly Muslim country, the trade has come under severe pressure.

Aside from legal restrictions, many liquor shops have been bombed in the past four years. Some who dared sell alcohol from their homes have been killed by religious militias, which use fear and intimidation to keep liquor out of areas they control.

The Iraqis drink more tea per capita than the Irish or British. They also drink a lot of coffee. So, we had coffee with our dessert.

Sandy was very sweet to host the luncheon with a few days notice. We had someone new join us this month, Lori, who is Cheryl's daughter. I have more pictures of us posted in an album, so check them out.

This month, we will be making Brazilian food. I need to start searching for some recipes!