Today we spent the afternoon cooking colorful delicious food with friends, followed by a leisurely lunch with plenty of great conversation. We spent the rest of the evening wearing goofy clothing and watching the Oscars and bad Youtube videos over commercial breaks while snacking on cheesecake and junk food. A good day.

Here’s what we ate for lunch, which will shortly be posted as recipes (except the Avgolemono soup, which got mixed reactions at the table and a thumbs down from me, so it won’t be posted as a recipe):

• Avgolemono soup (chicken & rice soup with egg and lemon in it – Greek)
• Psari Plaki (baked fish with vegetable sauce – simple, a new favorite – Greek)
• Chickpea & Carrot Tagine (quick, easy, vegetarian, delicious – Moroccan)
• Orange & Date salad (quick, easy, colorful – Moroccan)
• Pita Quarters with Za’atar (quick, easy, – multiple countries)
• Broccoli – because we could. 🙂

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I started with the chickpea tagine because I know my friend loves it and I’ve been wanting to cook it. I always make the orange salad with it whenever I can, and also wanted to make a fish dish for her. The soup was something I’d been interested in trying, but was too bland and the texture a bit strange. It was a fun process, though. I’ll compare other recipes to see if there’s something we can do to rescue the leftovers.