nomnomnom

One of my favorite hobbies these days is cooking. I LOVE LOVE LOVE to cook (and to eat, obviously!). However, I must admit that I am not terribly adventurous when it comes to cooking. I can make some mean southern food, I can rock the basic meat and potatoes and veg and if you want italian food? I gotcha there. but honestly, I don't branch out much from there. I never really learned to make mexican food, because I grew up in Texas and there's a mexican joint on every corner. And honestly, it was cheaper to just buy a taco from the neighborhood place than buy all the ingredients yourself. The thing is, while I love Thai, Indian, Greek, Mediterranean, Spanish food etc etc, I'm just not familiar enough with the ingredients to make dishes myself.
Part of my 2011 bucket list is to make dishes from different cuisines that I don't normally cook and find 3 keepers.
Last night was attempt #1. I made the indian dish Tandoori chicken with white rice and homemade naan.
I admit that i sorta cheated a little, in that I bought a Tandoori spice blend from The Spice House instead of all the individual spices that blend together to make the dish, but despite that, it was still something new I'd never attempted to cook. I am pleased to report that the dish was a huge success! The hubs and a friend both gave it a 7.5 and I gave it a solid 7. We all agreed that the dish could use a little more heat (as it spice). Now that I know that this is a dish that is here to stay, I can justify buying individual spices that made up the blend and can alter the recipe a bit to add a little more heat. I'm pretty excited about this victory and am looking forward to trying additional Indian dishes.
A few photos from last night's table...

Thanks to everyone who sent me messages and FB notes and comments and such regarding the anniversary question. The hubs and I decided on a nice little way to remember the anniversary of our first day, which is today! We plan on cooking up the same dish I made on our first anniversary of dating, Chicken Spaghetti Carbonara, which is freaking rich and luscious and to die for! hopefully I can talk him into a re-shoot of these fine photos from that meal...