Fatoush-a your face.

   So i love Greece... today i made Lebanese food, duh (they're similar).
   Like a year ago (though really a few months) CP (so nicknamed because one time i was like, "what's your middle name?" and she proceeded to state her entire name followed by class president, and also can still recite her entire high school graduation speech, and is therefore title worthy.) gave me a bag of spices containing: Sumac and Baharat, a blend. So today i used them to make Fatoush (which is just fun to say) and Kofta with some tzatziki. I got the recipes off allrecipes.com accept the tzatziki, which really you have to just make to taste.

I have a ton of farm stands around me, but i tend to go to this one because it's close, cheap, and i didn't work there for four years. 

And hey, picnic salads! who doesn't need those. Anyway there's just something about the inside of a farm stand that i love, i think it's cheap wood.

So i get home, and i'm like, "Hey dad, there's a deer in the backyard!" and he's like, "Not again, they're eating all the roses! grab the bb-gun." but instead i grabbed my camera, and perfect timing for him to run out and yell "AARGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH-OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!" like a zombie werewolf.

Then he went back to painting the heating vents, and listening to thriller.

So Kofta!! I got a pound of ground lamb from the meat market, and added an undisclosed amount of Baharat and 2 cloves of garlic:

then squish it together and mash it against a kabob.

Chill for at least 30min then grill, but if its raining or it turns out you don't have any gas left in your tank because your dad forgot to go get it yesterday even though that was the one thing he had to do all day, cook at 350 degrees for 20min. Meanwhile make tzatziki.

So something you may not know about me is one of my favorite things in the world is tzatziki. The phrase: "does Tzatziki go with that?" comes out of my mouth more times then "your mom." Anyway you're supposed to let the yogurt thicken for a while, but 1: this yogurt is already pretty thick and 2: i didn't have a cheese cloth. But Phil was all, "Whatever, Yia used to use a washcloth anyway. How long do you think it'll take your mother to notice i painted this? i give her four days if ever." So i used a hand towel.

Then when properly thick add cucumbers and garlic and don't fucking skimp on that garlic. We use a whole head at the Pappas house, no joke. Which is awesome when you sweat it out the next day.

Also CP was like, "add mint." and i was thinking: "You crazy!" but really it's awesome. It makes it really crisp, like ice water? whatever. So i got some mint from the garden:

and made a note to weed it one day. Next is the Fatoush. I got my mom this mort and pestle for her b-day, and i've been DYING to use it. So

Pestle that shit! or mort? who knows. Anyway this is where the Sumac comes into play with garlic, parsley, mint, olive oil, lemon juice, salata y peppery, and muscles of steel! Good thing i have plenty of those in stock. Really though grinding stuff is hard, and you def feel it after a while. Then you have this:

Which is really pretty! So that's the dressing then you make a salad out of romaine, cucs, scallions, and these awesome strawberry tomatoes i got at the market. I wish i liked raw tomatoes, because i'm told these were quite the find.

Then you toast the pita bread, cut it up, and toss it up!

So buy now you should have cooked your kofta, and you can plate:

And yes, I'm well aware of what the Kofta looks like, but i assure you it tastes quite the opposite. So much so that i left the living room to get a plate, and when i came back my parents were almost done eating. Popou didn't even tell me i needed to add red pepper, which is a first, let me tell you. Also the Barahat tastes like christmas, and reminds me of this Afgan restaurant i used to live up the block from that was also delicious, and the Sumac is like something i've never tasted before, and much better here then in beer form (which was terrible). So yay, Try new things! The End.