Bademjan: Eggplant! Bread and Sugar.

So I had some eggplants (BADEMJAN) and looked up some recipes. Now, this is how I felt after realizing I didn't have many necessary ingredients for most of the recipes: 

This happens a lot. For example, I found a recipe for Pakistani style eggplant. Here's what I needed:

But here's what I actually had on hand:

So, instead of waiting around for my husband to go to the grocery store where he may or may not find all the ingredients, I just use what I have and make my own versions.

If you want to make Iranian eggplant, look up kashke bademjan and khoresh bademjan.

In the above pic you can see a type of bread called LAVASH: 

"Lavash is made with flour, water, and salt. The thickness of the bread varies depending on how thin it was rolled out. Toasted sesame seeds and/or poppy seeds are sometimes sprinkled on before baking...Traditionally the dough is rolled out flat and slapped against the hot walls of a clay oven. While quite flexible when fresh, lavash dries out quickly and becomes brittle and hard."

Now in the bottom photo is SANGAK:

"The bread is baked on a bed of small river stones in an oven. There are, normally, two varieties of this bread offered at Iranian bakeries: the generic one which has no toppings; and the more expensive variety which is seed bread (this is, topped with poppy seeds and/or sesame seeds). Sangak bread was traditionally the bread of the Persian army. It is mentioned for the first time in the 11th century. Each soldier carried a small quantity of pebbles which at camp were brought together with the "sangak oven" and used to cook the bread for the entire army."

In other random food notes: Here's my favorite Iranian cookie:

Some Iranians drink their tea with sugar cubes, putting one in their mouth and then sipping their tea until it dissolves. I don't enjoy the texture of this method, but it's fun for some! 

Another thing I noticed is that folks here may eat their french fries with a fork and put ketchup on their pizza (which usually has no tomato sauce on it!). 

That's it for now, Bye!