Daring Cooks Challenge: Mezze

I know I don't usually post on a Sunday, but I recently became a Daring Cook through a very cool group called the Daring Kitchen, which brings together thousands of food bloggers from around the world and challenges them to cook one new thing every month, and today is the reveal day!

This was my first challenge, and I had a ton of fun with it. The 2010 February Daring COOKs challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugid.

I served my mezze as the first course of my first dinner party.

The pita was certainly a challenge as I couldn't get it to puff, but it was still delicious (came out kind of like foccacia).

For dips I made topped the chumus topped with olive oil, toasted pine nuts, and za'atar, and also a roasted red pepper spread (see recipe below).

Being a Daring Cook is fun--looking forward to the next challenge!

Roasted Red Pepper Spread

Ingredients:

3 red peppers
1 tsp olive oil
1 small garlic clove
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions:

1. Broil red peppers, turning occasionally until the skin is blackened. Place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for 5-6 minutes. Cool slightly, peel off skin and remove stem, seeds and ribs.
2. Blend peppers with remaining ingredients until smooth.
3. Serve with pita, pita chips, crackers, crudite or other item conducive to dipping.

The cost:
red peppers: 3.00 (on sale for $1 each)
other ingredients: <.50

Grand total: $3.50ish; serves 8-10 as an appetizer

Reader Poll: Dish Inspiration Challenge

I found this fun new blog recently that challenged readers to think of a hobby other than cooking, and then create a dish inspired by that hobby.

I thought about this for a while--I've been focusing on cooking/baking and general food-related stuff for the last few months, so it took me a while to figure out a hobby of mine that does not involve food :-p

Anyway, I'm taking a poll. Which of the following hobbies would you like to see me use as my inspiration for a new dish?

Playing guitar
Listening to music
Reading
Graphic design
Photography
Traveling

Feel free to comment here, or tweet me @RellaBellaK!