Mmmmm, good!

Megan's coming over this evening, and rather than having a humongous New York steak grilled to perfection on my Big Green Egg, I decided to make some light, yet delicious food to snack on. But I still had the primeval urge to cook with fire, so I fired up the BGE to about 500°F and made some pita bread to go along with the hummus and parsley/tomato dips I'd already made.

I've liked this Mediterranean and Arabic style food ever since I went to Jordan for a couple of weeks in 1991. At that point, you could not buy hummus in any corner grocery store here - in fact I had never even heard of the stuff. But in Jordan, you never get to work (it was a working trip for me) without first having a plate of veggies and dips and flat breads with the locals. I liked the hummus so much that while still in Jordan, I went to the local Safeway (yes, they had a real Safeway in Amman) and looked around for the jars or tins of hummus. I couldn't find any, so I asked for it. They looked at me like the ignorant foreigner I was and told me that you don't buy hummus, you make it. I asked for a recipe, and they said that everyone had their own recipes, but the basic ingredients were chickpeas, sesame oil or ground sesame seeds, garlic, and lemon. So I bought all the stuff and made some back at the hotel. The stuff I made today has all of that, plus some sun-dried tomatoes.

I can't remember what the name of the other dip is, but I'll always remember it too, because it is the first dish I'd ever had in which parsley was a major ingredient. I think most of the parsley sold in America ends up as a garnish on a plate and then in the trash. Arabs consider parsley an aid to digestion, so they actually eat it. Until then, I didn't know how good parsley could be. I've modified the basic recipe of chopped tomatoes and parsley by adding goat cheese and garlic.

Good stuff!!