The adventure begins...Qabuli Pulao

Qabuli pulao rice pilaf with meat, raisins & carrots

Monday through Friday, my husband wakes up with very specific words in his ear.  "5 days until Friday!"  "4 days until Friday!"  "3 days until Friday!" "2 days until Friday"  "Today is FRIDAY!!!!"  
Don't get me wrong, I love my life, Monday through Friday, but I really do LOVE weekends. Especially when they start off with Foreign Food Friday!  It's great as for multiple days I get to scan cooking websites from all over the world, sit around dreaming about new food, and then anticipate creating and consuming whatever we decided on.

As I mentioned last week, we became more organized in our tactic of what foreign food to eat by creating a plan.  Each week we will go through the alphabet and choose a country with the letter on dock.  Tonight we are on D trying out a plantain dish from the Dominican Republic.  

To catch us up, though, three weeks ago we began on A.  A great place to start.  Beginning with a dish called Qabuli Pulao from Afghanistan.  I have to be honest.  We didn't really start fully following the rules.  The dish called for basmati rice.  We used long grain.  It called for raisins.  We didn't have any, and I don't like them, so we skipped that part.  It called for 4 carrots.  We had 2 left, so just used those.  It called for lamb.  We used chicken.  Besides that, we followed it to a "T."

My favorite thing about Foreign Food Friday, is that we really have no idea if we did it right, so to us we are the best international chefs ever.  The meal turned out edible, kind of like a sweet rice and chicken dish, and we had left overs for a long time.  I'd suggest it, especially if you actually follow the instructions and don't substitute basically everything.  

Besides getting to eat the food, we get to pray for the country.

If you've never visited the site, go to Operation World right now.  It's an amazing resource that tells you all about other countries with videos, stats, pictures, and prayer points.

So as I end this post, please join us and be praying for the country to Afghanistan.  Here are just a couple of requests from their site.

Pray for...

The disabled. There are an estimated one million people suffering with disabilities, mostly with damaged or destroyed limbs as a result of war. In remote areas, many are still being injured by landmines. This is one of the world’s highest proportions of disabled people, in a nation with little provision for their care or rehabilitation.

Poverty and living standards. Most Afghans live in poverty. There is little employment. Many who fight for the Taliban do so largely to collect the wage offered. Some 80% of the population seek to exist by subsistence farming, but access to water is a problem, especially since almost all irrigation was destroyed by war. Fewer than 15% of homes have access to electricity. Yet employment opportunities are increasing, and the economy is improving in the stable areas.

Operation World, http://www.operationworld.org/afgh

Next up: Belarus - Vereshchaka and buckwheat pancakes