Food in Oman

 Moving to Oman I had 3 goals for my family. One of them is to help my picky eaters expand their pallet. I was struggling at home and felt like anything new I tried was given a negative opinion before it ever hit the table. Kids who were unwilling to taste food until they knew all the ingredients almost never ended up enjoying what they ate. I felt like there were some unhealthy trends that others (besides me) were integrating into our family. I hoped by eliminating the dependency of certain SAD foods maybe we could start fresh. I am reporting that I SEE PROGRESS! It's still not perfect but a couple of the kids are really branching out! 

Tonight's dinner was a beetroot burger with peri peri haloumi and slaw on a homemade whole wheat roll. That's maybe TMI. It was yummy. Most of the family loved it. Ok, I was trying to not call anybody out but the girls in our family are the ones who struggle and I will say Sennia asked for extra slaw and ate her food without a complaint. HUGE. Elise didn't gag and with a little ketchup *sigh* she finished strong. Alena loves bread and Halloumi and she ate everything separately. I actually didn't ask her if she liked it but I'm happy she got some great veggis in alongside her bread and cheese!

I will also say, I love cooking here. I've made some shifts in my grocery list. Some sacrifices for sure. For instance, spinach, chard, kale every hearty green I'm familiar with is $$$$$. Yep, 5 dollar signs. I was tempted to indulge in a little bag of rainbow chard today because it was only $3 for maybe 5 smallish leaves. Not the giant cellery sized leaves from the states, small flexible leaves. Instead I'm loving their version of arugula called rocula. It actually looks a lot different than our arugula but it has a strong pungent flavor to rival. Something I can't seem to wrap my head around is their dill. I've smelled dill from 3 different markets and none of the have a scent. I just can't seem to bring myself to buy dill that doesn't smell. I do love that there's mint everywhere. I'm incorporating it into my falafel and my spring rolls/egg rolls. 

Something else we're loving are the mangos and melons that are in season. The rock melons are wonderful and grown here in Oman. Oman grows delicious watermelon, and other random melons we're sampling.  The Pakistani mangos are part of breakfast almost every day. I need a picture of the yogurt containers. They're ENORMOUS and cost nothing. Mangos and yogurt are truly made for each other. I just wish it wasn't so much work to prep them!

One last picture just because I happened to have it. Some of the oranges here are intensely acidic. Matt bought an enormous box because they were very inexpensive. I think they were grown in Egypt. My kids can barely eat them because their lips burn and have to be washed. Oman does not hold any records for their hummus. If you've been to Jordan you know that Jordanians hold the gold medal for hummus. Thankfully we make pretty awesome Jordanian hummus ourselves.