Borek with Stinging Nettle Herb

Isırgan Otlu Borek

We visited one of our relatives yesterday and we had great time in their garden. They have a fantastic garden full of flowers, some fruit trees and some herbs. You feel in heaven when you see all these together just a few kilometers away from the city center. They were so kind that they prepared numerous kinds of food and we had them in the garden feeling the heavenly scent of flowers. On the table were some herb salads, olive oil dishes and a cake.

Especially the salad of stinging nettle herb took my attention. I knew that it’s very healthy, but had never had enough courage even to touch them for the second time. My first touch, in my childhood, was a disaster! I was 9 or 10 and we were living in a house with a large garden. One day, I decided to clean our garden from weeds as a surprise for grandma. Unfortunately, my work didn’t last long as I felt an in tolerable pain in my hands. It was because the stinging nettle leaf I held, which is actually not a weed. The name of this herb in Turkish means “the herb which bites”. Stinging or biting, this herb absolutely gives a great pain when you touch it with naked hand. Later I learnt that this painful herb had a great number of benefits to our body.

Firstly, it renews the cells in our body and helps the creation of red blood cells. It’s also so effective in blood cancer treatment when eaten either raw in salads or cooked. Moreover, people can also have stinging nettle for allergies. Doctors accept that the tea of its leaves has a great curative effect on many allergies. Its tea does a lot more than this. It is used in eczema treatment, kidney stone treatment, rheumatism, anemia, and stomach ulcer. Not finished here; when you wash your hair with the water in which stinging nettle is boiled, you’ll never suffer from hair loss or dandruff.

After I learnt all these, I decided to have this herb in my ktchen. However, I couldn’t overcome my fear to touch it. However, I learnt from our relative that if you wait this herb in water with vinegar for half an hour, it loses much of its stinging. If you still don’t trust, like me, you can wear gloves while washing and chopping them. When it’s cooked, it no longer stings. Besides this tip, she also gave us a bunch of stinging nettle with a borek recipe, which she said more tasty than borek with spinach.

And I tried the things she told me; I put them in water and added 2 tbsp vinegar in it, waited for half an hour. Then, drained. I tested it with a small touch, it didn’t hurt! The result was perfect! But my hubby wanted me to wear gloves to chop them as a precaution. For me, it was unnecessary, but I wore and made this borek with stinging nettle herb. I didn’t saute its filling, just put them raw to keep their vitamins.

Ingredients
- 5 phyllo sheets
- A bunch of stinging nettle herb, waited in vinegar and chopped
- 2 middle size onion, diced
- ½ cup curd or feta cheese
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 egg
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 bottle soda (1 cup)

For its filling, mix the chopped herb, onion and cheese in a bowl. Add salt, black pepper and 2 tbsp olive oil in it. Combine all.

Lay 2 phyllo sheets on an oven safe pan. Cover their top with the filling mixture. Lay the rest of the phyllo sheets on it.

Mix egg and 2 tbsp olive oil and spread this mixture on top of all sheets. Cut it in triangles or squares with a knife. Then pour a cup of soda on it. This will help its rising and make all layers stick together. Wait it in refrigerator for 1 hour so that your borek absorbs all soda.

Preheat the oven to 180 C (350F). Cook it for 45 minutes until its top gets golden brown.

You can serve it with ayran or tea.

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Eggplant Feast

Zeytinyagli Patlican

When Summer is close, we start to cook different dishes from eggplants as we know that these are real eggplants not fake as in Winter time. And this one is our favorite. The best part of Spring and Summer for me is that I have more time in a day, it doesn’t quickly get dark here after March. Day time is longer than night time. I can’t take the advantage of open markets in Winter very often because generally when I leave work, it’s already dark and here open markets are “open” just during day time. But beginning from March, they are open longer and I enjoy shopping from open markets as I desire.

In Turkey open markets are not stable, they have certain places on each day of a week. The reason for this is to provide the same chance to all neighborhoods. As you know, everything is cheaper and more fresh in open markets, so people prefer shopping there. On Monday, the open market is in our neighborhood, close to our home and on Friday, it is close to the school I work. So today, after leaving school, on the way home, I popped round the open market and came home with several bags. I was a bit tired and I didn’t want to wait long for dinner, so when I saw some very fresh eggplants, I made up my mind. Although my hubby is a meat lover, he adores this eggplant dish and never refuses to eat it. Besides its hearty taste, the easiness of its preperation was my concern today.

And we had an unexpected guest for dinner. Our neighbor forgot her house keys and rang our bell just as we were sitting dinner table. She asked if she could wait until her husband came, we certainly welcomed her and put one more plate on the table. We had our dinner together and she said that she was so lucky to forget her keys as she had the chance of tasting and learning this quick eggplant dish.

Ingredients
-3 eggplants
-4 middle sized tomatoes, diced
-2 green peppers, chopped
-4 cloves garlic, sliced into two
-1 onion, chopped
-1/2 tbsp tomato paste(optional)
-1/2 tsp sugar
-1tsp salt
-1tsp black pepper
-4tbsp natural olive oil

Wash the eggplants and throw the leaves away. Do not cut the whole stems, leave a little piece of it. I didn’t peel them, but if you like, you can. Cut them in two from the middle horizantally. Then, grab the half with the stem and cut them  into four lengthwise until the stem. Do not cut them completely. As for the other half, you can cut them in finger shape. Wait these in a salty water for at least 15 minutes so that the bitterness of eggplants goes away.

Heat the oil in a pot and saute the chopped onion until golden. Drain the eggplants and add them in the pot. Cook them over medium heat until the eggplants change their color. Then add the paste, tomatoes, peppers and garlic. Sprinkle sugar, salt and black pepper and cover the pot. Cook them over low heat for about 40 minutes and do not open the cover until it’s done.

You can garnish it with some leaves of basil and if you serve a bowl of home made yogurt near it, it’s inevitable to feel in heaven.

The Perfect Couple

This was the first date of Miss Eggplant and Mr Cucumber. They came accross with each other in several open markets and covered markets before, and they were both impressed by each other. Eventually they could escape from the their stands and met at a solitary neighborhood. Miss Eggplant complimented Mr Cucumber about his cooling and skin beautifying effects while he flattered Miss Eggplant about her unforgettable taste when prepared with natural olive oil. He added “You are the best cure for skin cancer! We’ll make a perfect couple as we are both curative for skin.” They felt closer with these nice words and decided to go to a patisserie for a romantic chat. (drawing by mom)

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Savory Pastry

Tuzlu Kuru Pasta

My friend, my neighbor at the same time, called this afternoon and invited me to have Turkish coffee together. She’s very good at making Turkish coffee with a lot of foams on top and she knows I love it. As I mentioned in my “Turkish Coffee” post, it’s a tradition to drink this coffee with one or more friends, never alone. So if you crave for Turkish coffee, you should invite a friend.

You know Turkish coffee requires something sweet near it (a piece of chocolate, Turkish delight, chocolate cake, cookies, etc.), so I took some cacao cake that I made yesterday. Of course she greeted me with a big smilewhen she saw this cake. While we were having our well made coffee, we decided to make some savory pastries together. We love working together in the kitchen, so we enjoyed a lot playing with the dough and preparing these pastries.

Ingredients
-4 cups flour
-250g butter
-2 eggs
-1 yolk
-1tsp salt
-2tsp baking powder
-100g cheese, crumbled
-nigella sativa

Note: All of these should be in room temperature. We made about 40 pieces of pastries from these ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F)

Pour the flour in a large bowl and break two eggs in the middle of it. Add butter and salt, then mix them with your hands. Put the crumbled cheese and knead the dough well. You’ll see how cheese adds its taste. Make two big balls from this dough. Sprinkle some flour on the counter and roll them out one by one as big as a small plate.
Beat the yolk in a small bowl and spread it with the help of a brush on the dough you roll out. Then sprinkle nigella sativa on them. We used three kinds of nigella sativa here; white, brown and black.

Grab a cookie cutter with the shape you like and cut them carefully. We used a star shape cutter here.

Lay an oven proof paper on a tray and arrange the stars on it. As we love playing with the dough, we also gave some spiral shapes with our hands.

Place the tray in oven and cook them for 25 minutes. Do not wait them in the oven, take out immediately. When they get cold enough, you can serve it with a cup of tea at breakfast or at afternoon tea times.

And my friend was so kind to put some of these pastries in the cup with which I brought my cake.

Guest in Turkish Culture

There is a very nice tradition in Turkey. If you take something you make to your neighbor, she absolutely puts some food from her kitchen in the same bowl in return. It is a sign of generosity of both sides. Here you see a Turkish villager waiting for her guests (mom and I). It is also a part of our tradition to welcome our guests at or outside the door, which shows our respect to our guests. And we do the same while they are leaving our homes.

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Keskek

Keşkek is a special name of a traditional wedding dish. It is mostly made in Central Anatolia and Agean region of Turkey. Weddings in these places last a few days and during this time,  various dishes are served in front of bride’s or groom’s home. The wedding traditions may differ in regions but food serving is a fixed part of the tradition. As the word “tradition” points out, these are mostly forgotten in big cities, but people in towns or villages still live with them. Moreover, some young couples in big cities also want to continue their wedding traditions and they prefer holding wedding ceremonies in their hometowns or their villages.

There are a lot of different and interesting wedding traditions in Turkey, but I’ll write about one of them in this post. However, I should give a piece of background information about wedding traditions.

Before the ceremony, it is typical in Turkish culture that groom’s parents or the elderly members of his family visit  bride’s parents to know each other (of course after making an appointment). The first visitors always must be groom’s parents, not the bride’s. And it is a must to take something sweet with them such as chocolate, Turkish delight or a kind of Turkish dessert. After welcoming them, the girl makes Turkish coffee and serves it to the guests. Parents introduce themselves and then the boy’s parents state “the reason for their visit”. They say that their son wants to marry the daughter of the family and ask if they give permission to this marriage or not. The girl’s family wants some time to think about it and  boy’s family leave. In some regions, this event repeats a few times. No matter girl and boy already have a relationship, this is a permanent tradition before marriage, a Turkish girl should have the permission of her parents.

After everything is arranged and when the wedding day comes, both parents decide on where to organize the ceremony. In such cases, generally thy do what the girl’s family wants. If it is a traditional ceremony, then some cooks are held and they start to prepare some wedding dishes to be served in the wedding area. As I said, the main dish may differ in regions. The picture above was taken at the wedding of my friend’s cousine. You can see the cauldrons on wooden fire here and men and women work together.

In Central Anatolia and Agean region, Keşkek is generally the main dish. Besides it, chickpea stew, rice pilaf, a kind of meat dish, salad and ayran are also served. These dishes are all cooked in large cauldrons over wooden fire, so they are always more delicious than the dishes you make at home.

And in this picture which is from the same wedding, you see the big amount of keşkek and two men are continually stirring it to mash them as a small blender doesn’t work for such a big amount. Generally it’s men’s job to mash them  in this way because it really requires physical strength.  Even one man is never enough for this.

I’m not from Central Anatolia or Agean region, so I hadn’t known how to cook Keşkek until last weekend. Last weekend my husband’s mom suggested to make this unique dish together. She is from Central Anatolia and her mom, when young, was the best cook in their town, everyone would want help from her mom about wedding dishes. So my second mom learnt this dish from her own mom. No need to say that elderly women are always the best cooks!

Ingredients (serving:6)
-2 cups wheat (you see it in the picture above)
-8 cups hot water for wheat
-6 cups water for lamb chops
-6 lamb arm chops
-1 tbsp pepper paste or red pepper flakes
-2 tbp butter
-2 tsp salt
-2 tsp black pepper

Soak the wheat overnight. Wash it by rubbing the following day a few times until the water seems clean.

First boil the lamb chops in 6 cups water for about 40 minutes until tender.

Put it in a pressure cooker and pour  the hot water into it. When it releases its steam, bring the heat to the lowest and cook it for 50 minutes.

When it’s cooked, take the pressure cooker from the heat and when it gets cool enough, open it. Stir it with a big spoon and add 4 cups of meat broth (the water in which you boil the lamb chops) into the boiled wheat. Then add salt and stir it again. Taste it and if you think the salt is not enough, add some more. Lastly, mix it with a blender until it gets chewy.

For its sauce, heat the butter and add ½ cup meat broth (the water in which you boil the lamb chops) and pepper paste or pepper flakes.

For its serving, take some keşkek ( the mashed wheat) in a bowl and pour the sauce on it, sprinkle some black pepper and put one piece of lamb chop on it. You can serve it with ayran.

As it includes energizing ingredients, keşkek is mostly prefered in Winter when it is made at homes. But if it’s a wedding day, season doesn’t matter.

Turkish Wedding

In traditional wedding ceremonies, all relatives are ready to help. Bur the boys of that family have the big responsibility. They serve dishes in a tray you see in the picture. They work like waiters on that day. Also, they are responsible for organizing the place of the ceremony by carrying chairs and tables here and there depending on the number of the guests. And the number of the guests is never less than 100 hundred people.

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Potato Salad

Patates Salatası

We didn’t have enough time to prepare a dish for dinner this evening. We were so hungry that we needed something quick, but of course it wouldn’t be a kind of prepackaged food. Do you have any guess what we do whenever we feel too tired to cook something suitable for “dinner” concept? In Turkish culture, a perfect dinner should include a kind of soup as a starter and as a main dish meat or chicken or vegetable stew should be on dinner table accompanied by a kind of salad or yogurt. No need to mention desserts for a wonderful ending. However, we don’t always have time for all these courses as we are working. Fortunately, our culture has a great solution for people in need of quick dishes. That is; Breakfast at Dinner Time!

The meaning of “breakfast” is broad in Turkish language. It doesn’t mean only the meal eaten in the morning. If you have tea, cheese, olives, sliced tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers on your table, it is called breakfast no matter when you eat them. These are the indispensable foods of breakfast. And of course it’s up to you to enrich your breakfast with some pastries or different versions of egg or other food “inventions”. The most common food of this untimely breakfast is potato salad. So this evening, we decided to have a breakfast style dinner and as a preperation, we just boiled potatoes and eggs, which means we didn’t spend so much time on it. I should add that Turkish people apply this type of breakfast whenever they don’t have enough time or ingredients for a demanding dish.

Ingredients
- 4 middle sized potatoes
- Half bunch of parsley
- 2 scallions
- 1 onion
- 1 green pepper
- 2 tsp sumac
- 2 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 eggs, hard boiled
- 1 tsp dry thyme

Boil the potatoes until soft. Meanwhile, you can prepare other ingredients.
Dice the onion into a bowl, cover it with sumac and crumble them together so that sumac and onion combine well.
Chop scallions, pepper, and parsley and add them in the bowl.

When potatoes cook, take them from the heat and wait them in cold water to peel them easily. When they are cold enough, peel and cut them in big cubes and toss them in the bowl. Add red pepper flakes and salt and combine them. Take the salad on a plate.

Slice the hard-boiled eggs and put them near the salad. Drizzle olive oil on the salad and egg slices. Sprinkle some pepper flakes and dry thyme on eggs. And your potato salad is ready to be the main character of your breakfast.

Note: Some people prefer slicing eggs into the salad and mixing them altogether, but I love to see egg slices seperately, that’s why I put them near the salad.

The Egg Pushing The Door

There is a Turkish expression; “when the egg pushes the door…” which means not fulfilling a work in a given time and trying to complete it when its deadline is so close, in a very limited time. I find it very funny to have a parallelism between an animal’s laying egg and an unplanned person.

Image source is here

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Purslane Salad

Semizotu Salatası

My favorite time of the year has started in Eskişehir, so I feel more energetic and happier when I go out as I see a lot of trees full of blooms. And believe me it’s really hard not to touch and smell them. Whenever I look at these trees, I feel that I’m in heaven and I’m refreshed. Yesterday was the bazaar day of our neighborhood and when I went there to fill a small shopping bag, I imediately realized how impossible it was. I definitely needed a big one. I love all kinds of greens and this time of year welcomes several kinds of greens. When I saw that almost all stands are in green, I started to imagine a lot of dishes from them. I generally make different kinds of borek, salad, appetizer, soup, and stew from different greens. Yesterday I bought a bunch of purslane, fresh basil, dill, mallow, lettuce, garden cress, chard, parsley, scallions, fresh nettle, fresh thyme, you see I bought almost everything green.

You see the sympathetic woman who grows these greens in her own garden in her village and comes to the city to sell her crops at bazaar. She was so friendly that when I asked her if I could take a photo, she nodded and immediately posed. We talked about these greens for a while, I asked what she cooked with these and learnt some new recipes from her. The thing I love about these open markets is this friendly chat I can have with vendors.

I was alone at lunch yesterday, my first choice was the purslane as I adore the savory taste of it, so I planned to make a purslane salad for a light lunch. Generally, I simply chop purslane, tomato and mix them. However, I added  some other greens this time, so you may also call it green salad. But I didn’t use all the greens in this salad as I’ll need them later for some other dishes.

Ingredients
-    Half bunch of purslane
-    A few leaves of fresh basil (the purple one in the picture)
-    2 scallions
-    1 tomato
-    A few leaves of dill
-    A few leaves of parsley
-    1 green pepper
-    2 tbsp boiled corn
-    A few pieces of cheese, sliced in cubes
-    1 lemon
-    2 tbsp olive oil
-    ½ tsp salt

Chop all the greens and tomato in big pieces in a bowl, if their leaves are big enough (like the basil leaves in my salad), don’t chop them, just put the leaves as they are. Add boiled corn, lemon juice and salt in it and mix. You may serve it on a plate or in a bowl. Just before serving, drizzle olive oil and put the cubes of cheese on it. If you don’t want a vegetarian salad, you may substitute cheese with cubes of boiled chicken breast.

This was my lunch, but you can also serve it as a salad near a kind of pasta or meat dishes.

Water in Need

It was too late for Mr. Pear to grow some greens in his yard, Spring has already come. He waited for a little rain all Winter, but as a result of the climate change all around the world, it didn’t rain enough in his village. He was so worried, and he couldn’t imagine a world without water and greens. Despite these obstacles, he wanted to take the risk and wanted help from his neighbor Mr. Cucumber for cultivation. They were ready even to give their own drinking water to their crops. All they wanted was to present some greens to humans at an open market. (drawing by mom)

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Dried Fig

Kuru incir

I want to introduce the kinds of dried fruits used in Turkey in my blog and dried figs will be the first today. Dried fruits have an important place in Turkish kitchen, I don’t know if other cultures have the same habit of getting prepared for Winter during Summer. In Summer, people in Turkey are just like ants as they love spending time on kitchen preparations for Winter. What are these preparations? They dry fruits, vegetables, they make pepper paste and tomato paste and dry it under sun. They make the utmost benefit from the sun as the climate is so convenient for drying things. However, those living in big cities don’t have a chance of doing these at home, so they buy from a supermarket or go buy it from villages nearby. As you all know, buying something from its origin is always the best.

Dried fruits are used in different ways. They can be used in compotes (stewed fruit), in cakes, in desserts, in some dishes or they can even be comsumed plain.

Mom brought these dried figs you see in the picture from Aydın, the city of Turkey which is famous for its figs. She bought them from villagers at bazaar, so they are all natural unlike the ones sold in supermarkets.

Tons of figs are sent to other cities of Turkey and all around the world from Aydın. As you know, fig is a Summer fruit and when I was a child, I used to look forward to climbing its tree and eating kilos of fig on it in Summers. Its leaves make you itch, but it didn’t matter for me as a child.

Towards the end of Summer, people in Aydın start to dry figs for winter. They pick figs and lay them on a piece of cloth in a field and these figs start to dry under sun and then they are coated with flour to prevent any decays. Dried figs are as tasty as the fresh ones, so these are like a kind of dessert even plain. And you can eat them as a healthy snack between meals. Moreover, it has also several benefits for our health. It is rich in proteins and vitamins which renew cells in the body. It helps our digestion system with its fibrous structure, protects our body from bacterium, reduces the level of cholesterol in blood.

Although it has a large amount of sugar in it, it’s not harmful as it’s all natural sugar. Doctors recommend those who hate milk to eat figs, which contain the necessary calcium for health
In Winter people generally consume dried figs plain or with walnuts,  they make jam of it, they make desserts of it, or they use it in cakes. We love dried figs so much that we always have a jar of them on the kitchen table to reach easily whenever we crave for a snack or dessert. So these dried figs can replace candies, chocolate or other junk food.

Fig Tree

There is an idiom in Turkish culture: to plant a fig tree in one’s yard. It means to make something very bad for someone, to give harm to someone. The reason behind this idiom is that roots of a fig tree are very strong and they can spread easily. If we imagine that someone plants a fig tree in your yard, your house will collapse soon because of the roots of the tree.

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Albanian Liver

Arnavut Cigeri

We decided to have raki for dinner tonight and one of our favorite appetizers (savory foods) to eat with raki is Albanian liver. It certainly goes perfect with raki. We used to buy it prepared until today. I don’t know why we didn’t try to make it at home before.
How did I decide to try it at home? I came accross with this so appetizing dish in three different restaurants in this week when we went those places during lunch break with friends. The one who ordered it wasn’t me, but some friends. As I had got the flu, I prefered some healing soups. (I’m still trying to recover with some herbal tea and honey mixture, the worst is the headache!) And while watching them eating Albanian liver, I thought that I should share this incredible taste with you. And as usual, I asked its recipe to the chef of one of those restaurants. And we made it to have with our raki for dinner today.

According to the chef, the most important point of this appetizer is the freshness of liver. As it is difficult to find fresh meat in supermarkets, he sugessted buying liver from a butcher.

Besides being an appetizer for raki, it can also be eaten as a main dish with rice pilaf near it. It is served with fried cube potatoes in some restaurants while fried onions accompany in others. But in both cases, there should be a salad or piyaz near it. If you prefer eating it with your raki, then optionally you can pour little yogurt on it.

Ingredients
-    500g veal or lamb liver
-    ½ cup flour
-    1 tsp salt
-    2 tsp red pepper flakes
-    1 cup vegetable oil
-    1 onion

Peel the membrane of the liver and remove the nerves from it. Then dice it. If your butcher does it for you, then skip this part.

Put he flour in a bowl and toss the diced liver pieces in this flour, they should be coated well with flour. Sprinkle salt and mix again.

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the liver pieces for 2 minutes, not more.While frying, turn over continually. If you overcook, it will be too dry and hard to eat. Another important point to make it is that you should fry just a handful of liver pieces together. You shouldn’t try to fry all of them at once. The outer of them should be crispy and the inside should be soft. When they are fried, take them with a colander on a plate.

Slice the onion in rings and after all liver pieces are cooked, fry these onion rings in the same frying oil and put them near the liver as a kind of garnishing.

Take 2 tbsp of that frying oil in a small pan and fry the red pepper flakes. Then pour it on the liver.

Finally, you can garnish it with any kind of greens like dill, parsley, scallion, garden cress, etc.

I know it doesn’t sound so healthy, but I think we can give this reward once or twice a month.

Hospitable Turkish People

Turkish people are famous with their hospitality. When they have a guest for dinner, they try to serve various dishes and expect their guests to eat all they have on their plates. Finishing what you have on your table means you are satisfied with the dishes and if you ask for more, it’s even better. This makes the hostess happier, she takes it as a compliment.

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Leek With Olive Oil

Zeytinyagli Pirasa

Leek is one of the vegetables that many children hate eating. In Turkey, moms struggle a lot to have their children eat it. There becomes an invisible fight between moms and children and the winner of the fight depends on moms’ different kinds of methods. Some moms threaten them to tell their father that they don’t eat leek. Some remind their children of poor people who can not find any food. Some make leeks talk to their children, leeks say that they feel so sorry when they are refused and they ask crying why children don’t love them. You decide which method is more effective.

You may ask the method of my mom. I think she was luckier as we had some vegetables in our garden including leeks and she used to take me with her to pick some leeks. She used to love the vegetables she grew with dad so much that she used to pick all vegetables by flattering and talking to them. As a child I thought that these vegetables were like members of our family, so never refused eating it. And I understood how delicious it is when I grew older, it’s one of my favorite dishes now. Most children feels the same when they grow, but of course there may be some stubborn ones.

Olive oil is the key point of this dish. If you have the chance of finding natural olive oil, it becomes more tasty. It is served  cold or warm (but not hot) as a main dish or a side dish/appetizer.

Ingredients
-4 leeks
-1 carrot
-1 lemon, squeezed
-1tsp salt
-1tsp sugar (or one cube sugar)
-1/4 cup rice, washed
-1/4 cup water
-1/3 cup olive oil

Some people also add onion, but as leek itself is coming from onion family, I think making it without onion is better.

Cut the tops of the leek and wash them well. Cut them into diagonal slices. Set them aside.

Peel the carrot and cut it vertically into four pieces, then slice them as big as a half finger.

Put half of the olive oil in a pot and saute the carrot slices first. Add sugar and then the leeks. Stir them well and add the lemon juice and cover the pan. Cook it over medium heat for 15 minutes and then add rice, water and salt in it. Bring the heat to the lowest and cook it until the rice cooks. After it is cooked, let it cool in the pan. And finally drizzle the rest of the olive oil on it before serving. This is another important tip; when you add some raw olive oil before serving, all the dishes with olive oil tastes even better.

Mom And Child Leeks

The child leek comes home with a big disappointment and tells her mom that she doesn’t want to go out any more. It is her first day at school and she’s learnt that children don’t like leeks. It is a shocking reality for her as she’s always dreamed of meeting some human friends and presenting its taste to them.

When the mom leek sees her daughter at the garden gate with a down face, she decides to ask some help from her. She wants her daughter to forget her sadness for a while. While they are hanging the washed clothes together, she tells her daughter that all children will love them if they are cooked right. (drawing by mom)

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Open Sandwich with Tomato

Domatesli Kanepe

I was working on this Sunday, so unfortunately we couldn’t have a big breakfast. You know it’s so important for me to have breakfast with a lot of items, it’s like a feast for me at weekends. I got up early yesterday morning with no desire of going out. But I had to!

When I went out, all these feeling disappeared as I saw that it was a lively Spring day. And I really enjoyed walking to work. But this is not the thing I want to share with you today. I’m planning to add some Spring pictures soon, but not today. Today’s surprise is from my husband. He called me before lunch break and wanted me to return home for a late breakfast in the break. Normally I wouldn’t go for such a short time, it was just one-hour-break. However, he persuaded me by telling that there was a surprise waiting for me. I understood the advantage of living close to my work and went home at lunch break.

By the time he opened the door, I understood what his surprise was. These open sandwiches with tomato! One of my favorites. And he had already brewed the tea. So this late breakfast with these small, crispy, hot sandwiches (not lunch) made me feel better. It also helped me feel Sunday although I worked.

Here is the recipe of these yummy open sandwiches by my husband.

Ingredients
-1 loaf bread
- 2 tbsp butter
- 4 tomatoes
- 2 green peppers
- ½ tbsp tomato paste
- ½ cup cheese (any kind you like), crumbled
- dried thyme

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).

Slice the bread in small and thin shapes. Lay an oven proof paper on a tray. Array the bread slices on it. Top each slice with 1tsp butter. 2 tbsp will be enough for all slices, so try to put it equally.

Peel tomatoes and squeeze its water, you may leave a little water inside, but not much. If you don’t squeeze it, the sandwiches may be lumpy. Chop tomatoes and peppers in a bowl. Mix tomato paste with them. Sprinkle a pinch of dried thyme. And put this mixture equally on the slices.

Crumble the cheese (he used white cheese and it was little salty, so he didn’t add any salt to this tomato mixture. If your cheese is not salty, add a pinch of salt to it). Then put cheese on the slices with tomato-pepper mixture.

Cook them for half an hour and serve hot with a cup of tea for breakfast. It also makes a perfect snack. Enjoy!

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