Week 2: Greece

This past week, we chose Greece as our country of the week. We again breathed a sigh of relief--yet another country that was somewhat of a not-too-different country for us to try.

I was pretty stoked that we drew Greece--I even have a recipe book strictly devoted to Greek food (that Meredith gave me--thanks!!), so I immediately consulted it:

Although there were some great recipes in there, most of them were a bit too out there (i.e. exotic or authentic) for the whole family to be willing to try. While I was searching my book, mom was Googling recipes and found some more strong contenders. Most of mom's finds, however, left me scared stiff--they were mostly seafood. Seafood is something I've never cooked before (except for Gorton's frozen fish from the box); what made me most apprehensive, though, was the type of seafood dishes she was finding: fish stews. Although I'm all about the ATWin52 project widening our horizons and stretching our tastes, I desperately pleaded that we not have a fish stew--something about the idea just did not sit well with me--I kept thinking that fishy fish cooked in broth = fishy fish and fishy broth--I just wasn't quite at the point of embarking on that adventure! So mom made the suggestion that if we're having Greek food, our protein needed to be seafood or lamb (like seafood NOT cooked in stew); although the roasted/grilled seafood idea was appealing, I opted for lamb. Albeit I am not a huge fan of lamb either, but I was very willing to make the sacrifice so as to avoid the seafood stew. 

The one lamb dish inspiration I got from the book was "Oven-baked Arni," which was basically roasted leg of lamb. We concurred that plain-old roasted leg of lamb was a bit too ordinary (not to mention expensive!), so we continued to Google around for lamb recipes. What we decided on was Arni me Fassolakia (αρνί με φασολάκια if you'd like to get technical), literally "lamb with beans." Like last week, what I ended up cooking was a mix of two recipes (Recipe #1 | Recipe #2). Arni me Fassolakia is really a fairly simple recipe--a lamb stew with potatoes, tomatoes and green beans. Acquiring the lamb for the meal was quite the adventure (including my car giving out at the Lowe's Foods), but after going from place-to-place to find reasonably priced lamb and getting the meat off the bones, the rest of the meal was a breeze. What made it special was the lamb and the seasonings (parsley, mint, dill and cinnamon).

The Arni me Fassolakia simmering away

Overall, the family liked the Arni; it's a feat in and of itself when we can find something new that the whole family will enjoy! The first bit of feedback I received from Rick was "is there peanut butter in this?" to which I aptly replied "umm...no!" He noticed the sweetness of the cinnamon and after I pointed that ingredient out to him, I think he got it. Mom didn't love the flavor of cinnamon mixed in with the savory ingredients, but she finished her meal along with Rick (score!). Rick commented that he wished the stew "had a kick to it" (a spicy kick, that is). Courtney seemed to enjoy it as well; I personally thought it needed a bit more of the herbs than the recipe(s) called for, as well as more tomatoes and salt (I always want more tomatoes and salt, so that might not be a fair comment!). This is definitely a recipe I'd be willing to try again!

The finished product

Thanks to everyone who's been keeping up with the blog and making some great suggestions on Facebook (and props to Courtney for the great photos!)! Although we didn't have any spanikopita or galaktoboureko (or "galactic burrito" as Olga dubbed it), we may be able to sneak those in next time! Keep the suggestions coming--although we may not plug them in right away (since we're trying to avoid foods we've already experienced), we'll definitely keep them in mind to try in the future! And, as always, if there's a country you'd like to join with us in experiencing, just let me know and we'd be happy to share the experience--at the table--with you!

Stay tuned--this week's country is being drawn later this afternoon!

Week 1: Mexico

Last night, we jumped into our journey by visiting the cuisine of our first country: Mexico.

Our family was quite relieved to have a somewhat familiar selection for our first week--it took the edge off of the xenophobia we were experiencing, that's for sure! While Mexico is a country whose cuisine is familiar to our family and yours, no doubt (Taco Bell and Moe's--yum!), I was determined to find a recipe that was new to us. Finding a new Mexican recipe that everyone in the house would eat was quite a challenge: Rick doesn't like cheese, Mom doesn't like cilantro and Courtney doesn't like onions. That made finding an agreeable recipe a treasure hunt in itself.

I did find something, though, that I knew everyone would like--Pibil Pollo (or Pollo Pibil). For those of you that know some Spanish, you've already figured out we had chicken. Pibil Pollo is a chicken dish marinated in a bitter citrus and chili pepper sauce and steamed/roasted in banana leaves (traditionally). "Pibil," I had assumed from the point I first found the recipe, referred to "bitter citrus" or something like that. "Pibil," however, actually refers to the traditional method of cooking the dish, which requires (as discussed) wrapping meat in banana leaves, cooking in a citrus sauce and roasting in an underground barbecue pit. As you may have guessed, I did not obey the underground-roasting technique (Pibil defined)--and although we looked for banana leaves, we settled to wrapping our chicken in foil.

Red Chili and Citrus Marinade with lime, orange and grapefruit

I merged the two recipes I found online for our Pibil Pollo, borrowing techniques and flavors from the two to create my own rendition (Pibil Pollo recipe #1 | Pibil Pollo recipe #2). Regrettably, I could not seem to find epazote without visiting a specialty grocery store, so we left it out. Next time I make this (which I do believe there will be a next time), I'll be sure to put it in. And hopefully I'll be able to find banana leaves, as well. I think that the family enjoyed the recipe (except for Rick pulling off the roasted tomatoes--what's that about?)--since I only marinated the chicken for 90 minutes, the flavor wasn't quite strong enough. Another few steps for next time will be letting this marinate for 2 days as Recipe #2 suggests and using the cooking technique described in Recipe #1 (oven-steaming).

Pibil Pollo with rice and black beans

Overall, the first week was a success! We'll be drawing the next country tonight so we can have the weekend to visit those specialty grocery stores. Follow me on Twitter for the next country and include the hashtag #atwin52 to join in the conversation!

First Things First

This year, my family is going "Around the World in 52 Meals"; in other words, once a week we'll be preparing (or, in some instances, purchasing) meals from countries around the world. Today, we sat down and made a list of countries to choose from--think we've got a pretty good list!

 Here it is all typed out:

North America USA Canada Mexico Caribbean Polynesia Jamaica

Australia Outback Mainland Oceania

South America Nicaragua Argentina Brazil Suriname/Guyana Cuba Venezuela Colombia Panama Bolivia Chile

Africa South Africa Morocco Egypt Senegal Tanzania Congo Zimbabwe Swaziland Nigeria Sudan Chad

Asia Turkey Russia Nepal Hong Kong Philippines Japan China Thailand India Israel Saudi Arabia Afghanistan

Europe Ireland Scotland France England Switzerland Germany Greece Italy Spain Czech Republic/Slovakia

So how it'll work is that we'll draw a country name from the hat (well, actually a plastic container) at the beginning of the week and after drawing, I (or in some cases someone else in the family) will find a recipe from the country and prepare it later on in the week. If we happen to draw countries from the same continent two weeks in a row, we'll put it back and draw another. There'll be a few exceptions to drawing names (like making Scottish food like vegetarian haggis on Robbie Burns Day), but most weeks we'll stick to the plan. I'll post photos of the food and a link to the recipe and let you know what we thought about that country's cuisine. While it's true that you cannot judge a country's cuisine by one dish, I firmly believe that this project will give us more cultural insight as well as stretch our palettes!

As much as I'd like to claim the idea as my own, I suggested we adopt the idea from a contestant on Jeopardy some time a few months ago. While the contestant is now going across the country by cooking foods from state-to-state, I think it will be quite enough of an adventure with the list we have.


I look forward to hearing your input and would love to see suggestions for recipes if you already have favorites from our list of countries! (And also, give me a heads up if you want to be a part of any of these meals--maybe we can make a party of it!)


Here's to a fun and exciting trip!