Natalie & Christopher in Germany

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We are Natalie and Christopher. We blog about life in the suburbs of Orlando, FL with no kids and one dog. Thanks for checking in.

Our Nowruz Dinner

Our Nowruz Dinner

After a lifetime of friendship with my fetus friend, I’m an honorary Iranian. I love Nowruz, Persian New Year. The years that I’ve been able to party with her family have been some of the most fun days of my life! This year I decided that my parents needed to experience my mini Nowruz party, so I spent the day cooking my favorite Persian dishes and setting up my first-ever Haft-Sin table.

The primary items on a Haft-Sin table are Sabzeh – wheat, barley, mung bean, or lentil sprouts grown in a dish, Samanu – wheat germ sweet pudding, Senjed – oleaster, Serkeh – vinegar, Seeb – apple, Seer – garlic, Somagh – sumac.

On my Haft-Sin table:

  • Fresh tulips that I picked from a tulip farm, hyacinth from the front yard, some greenery from Trader Joe’s, lego flowers, and a green ball to represent sprouts (sabzeh).

  • Vinegar (serkeh)

  • Apple (seeb)

  • Garlic (seer)

  • Ground sumac (somagh)

  • Candles

  • Coins

  • Goldfish (I didn’t get a real one obviously, and I used the most American stand-in, Goldfish crackers.

  • Chocolates

  • A Bible

It was really nice setting up the table and thinking about all the promises of Spring.

Now for the delicious part, food!

I made hummus including homemade tahini because I had plenty of sesame seeds and why not?!

Then I made mast o khiar, a Persian cucumber yogurt dip. I forgot to take pictures of it specifically, it’s the white dip in the middle of the big food picture.

Next, I made my first attempt at Tahdig. Tahdig is a delicious layer of crispy rice at the bottom of the pot. It’s so good, that people legit fight over it. It didn’t set into a full crispy layer, but I did get some crispy pieces so I’ll take it. This rice was incredible and I will 10000% keep trying until I get a proper tahdig.

The first meat I made was Persian Saffron Chicken (Zereshk Polo Ba Morgh). I dream of this chicken, and it’s the first time I’ve made it myself. It’s so freaking good.

The star of any Persian meal, in my opinion, is kebob koobideh. I could eat this kebob every.single.day. My Iranian “dad” (fetus friend’s dad) makes such amazing kebob that I have been scared to try making it even though it’s a really easy recipe because I was afraid of messing it up. But let me tell you, it is easy, tasty as fuck, and you can do it.

Last, I made pita. This was so easy and so delicious. There is a lot of downtime for the pita to rise/rest, but it’s worth it. I will probably not buy very much pita in the future, because this was so good.

This was a huge undertaking, it took me about four and a half hours of straight cooking, so it’s obviously not an everyday spread, but it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed sharing my favorite Persian holiday and foods with my parents. Happy New Year.

Tulip Picking in Nashville

Tulip Picking in Nashville

Nowruz Mobarak

Nowruz Mobarak