Food Friday

Those of you who read my Food Friday posts regularly might be surprised to know that I was a vegetarian for most of my college years. During my early  years of my marriage I cooked chicken only rarely and  beef only once in a blue moon. 

These days though my Shabbat cooking is nearly always meat based. Having a vegetarian guest always has me scrambling.

Tonight one of our guests is vegetarian. Her husband is a meat eater. I pulled three pounds of chopped meat out of the freezer and assumed I would make meatballs and veggie friendly side dishes.

My husband began waxing poetic about how wonderful chicken is and how much he likes chicken. He also talked about how he thinks of meatballs as being a first course and not a main dish. 

I got the point. He wanted chicken. I decided to make up the thee pounds of chopped meat into Middle Eastern flavored  torpedo shaped meatballs  with bulgher wheat, parsley and mint. Those will get served as a side dish (and most will be put away in the freezer for another meal).

So despite the snow, I went out and bought a chicken. The flavor you ask? Hot smoked paprika and Meyer lemon. I will serve the chicken whole on our orange ceramic platter and surround the chicken with the meat torpedoes.

I wanted to make a side dish that felt a little special so I made stuffed mushrooms.

They are stuffed with a mixture of shallots, ground dried mushrooms, mushroom bottoms, parsley and fennel seeds. The mushrooms were poached in red wine because the wine was sitting in the door of my fridge . 

I will  make hummus so our guest has some protein in the meal. I'm also making a big salad. I roasted the beets to slice into the salad later. 

Our guests are bringing dessert.

Shabbat Shalom!