Borek with Vegetables

Sebzeli Börek

We saw an extraordinary vivacity in our neighborhood this evening. Some people were setting up a music system in front of our building, some were placing plastic chairs in the shape of a circle. These are signs of a ceremony, so we thought that there would be an engagement ceremony or a party for a bride and her friends (called “kına” in Turkish), which is a common tradition held in the evening followed by the wedding ceremony on the next day. However, we were wrong.

While were trying to guess what was happening, the door bell rang. It was our neighbor from the first floor. She invited us to the ceremony they were holding for their son, who would join the army to carry out his military service. ıt is compulsory in Turkey for all males at the age of 20 to complete this military service. It may last from 5 months to 15 months according to the education level of soldiers and some other reasons. If they are studying or working at this age, they can delay it until a certain age.

In Turkey, people hold a ceremony, generally outside their houses for their sons just before he leaves his home and goes to the city where he gets the training. There is a music system or a timpanist is hired. Neighbors, relatives, the boy’s friends all gather here and they dance. The boy’s family serve some drinks. People dance, especially the boy’s friends and family members. Older relatives give some pocket money to the young as a gift. Then his family takes him to the bus station to send him off. His friends and some nighbors accompany them and they go on singing songs and dancing until he gets on the bus.

I prepared a quick borek with what I had in my pantry and took it to my neighbor and she served it to their guests. She also served pilaf with chicken and cold ayran. It was a great party for their son before his military service.

Ingredients
-    1 stalk leek, chopped thin
-    1 potato, grated
-    2 carrots, grated
-    1 big onion,diced
-    1 cup parmesan cheese, grated
-    2 tbsp olive oil for sauting
-    3tbsp olive oil for spreading between sheets
-    1 egg
-    ½ cup yogurt
-    5 phyllo sheets

Saute all the vegetables in olive oil for about 10-15 minutes. add some salt.

Mix egg, 3 tbsp olive oil and yogurt.

Preheat the oven to 180C (400F)

Lay one of the phyllo sheets and spread the yogurt mixture on it. Lay the other sheet and spread the half of the sauted vegetables on it, then sprinkle the half of parmesan and lay another phyllo sheet on it. Brush it with the same egg and yogurt mixture. Lay the other sheet and spread the rest of sauted vegs and parmesan. Cover this with the last phyllo sheet and spread the rest yogurt mixture on it. Cut it with a knife as squares or triangles before putting it in oven so that its inner part also cooks. Cook this in oven for about 50 minutes.

By the way, I’ll be away for a few days as I’m traveling to Istanbul today for a work. Besides this work, I hope I can visit some good restaurants. I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences.

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Summer Dream

Yaz Rüyası (Meyveli Kup)

I have a very special reason for making this fresh dessert. Guess what? One of my close friends got engaged! Their engagement celebration was last weekend, but as it was held in a different city far away from here, I couldn’t join it. I thought that I could  invite her and congratulate her with this “Summer Dream”. I would also invite her fiance, but he doesn’t live here, so my only guest was my friend.

I know she adores dairy desserts, especially Turkish pudding with rice. But this time I made something different because I wanted to use some summer fruits in my dessert. I bought the freshest fruits from this week’s open market: peach and kiwi. I used them raw so that we could feel their real taste and not to kill their freshness.

The original name of this dessert is coupe with fruit, but my friend wanted to call it “summer dream”. I loved this name more, so I used it as the title of this post. I’m sure she was influenced by the fruits I used, but I believe that she was more inspired by her dreams about next two months. Their wedding is going to be in August, so she is very busy with planning the ceremony and thinking about her future life.

As I said I couldn’t join her engagement celebration, but she shared her happiness with me by bringing a few chocolate. During an engagement celebration in Turkish culture, chocolate or Turkish delight is served to guests. Future bride and groom keep some of them for their friends who can not join the celebration. They give these to their friends when they first meet them. They can even carry these in their bags to share with friends as soon as possible. There is another thing the future brides carry in their bags: a piece of red ribbon, again to share with friends. You may wonder what this red ribbon is. In engagement celebrations, the rings are tied to each other with a red ribbon. Generally a respected person put these rings on the bride’s and groom’s fingers and then cut the ribbon from the middle so that equal pieces of ribbon fall to their share. The bride to be keeps her part for a very good purpose. She cuts this part of red ribbon into small pieces and share them with her friends, the girl ones who are single. It is believed that they will find their soulmate with the help of this small piece of red ribbon. It is also believed that if the piece is short, they will meet him in a short time, if it’s long, it will take a long time for her to meet him. My friend was also carying pieces of red ribbon to give her friends, of course not for me as I’m already married.

So we celebrated her happiness together with this dessert followed by Turkish coffee. She told a lot of things about the celebration; how they danced, how people enjoyed themselves, and how she felt happy being together with  both her beloved and her parent. I wish her a happy life with her future husband.

Ingredients (servings: 5)
-    1lt milk
-    1 cup sugar
-    1 cup of water
-    6tbsp wheat starch
-    6tbsp rice flour
-    1tbsp vanilla
-    1 kiwi
-    1 peach

Chop the fruits as you wish.

Pour the milk inot a pot and mix it with sugar. Put the pot on medium heat. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, dissolve starch and rice flour in a cup of water. Add this little by little into the heating milk. While pouring it with one hand, stir it the milk continually with the other hand. Keep stirring it until it reaches the consistency of pudding. Add vanilla just before taking the pot from the heat.

Pour it evenly into small cups until half. Do not fill the cups completely. Put little chopped kiwi or peach on it. Then pour the rest. You will have fruits between two layers in this way. And you can decorate your dessert with the rest of the chopped fruits. Let them cool in the fridge at leat 3 hours.

Some time ago, Vanessa at http://mommygourmet.blogspot.com/ declared that she would hold a contest. The rule of the contest is to have a meal with a friend and write about this alongside the recipe. I’d like to send this post to her as we really enjoyed the evening with my friend.

Smart Peach

The beautiful peach decided to take a shower before someone ate her. The uncle farmer applied insecticide to her since it was a bloom. She washed and cleaned her body very well to get rid of all pesticides on her body. She knew that people would make compotes, jams of it or use it in various desserts or cocktails, and she didn’t want to be used without being perfectly cleaned. (drawing by mom)

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Lamb with Tomato

Fırında Domatesli Kuzu Eti

There are mainly two kinds of red meat in Turkish cuisine, lamb and veal. Many Turkish people love lamb more than veal. That may be the reason for its high price.

Nomadic people at Central Asia tamed sheep to use its meat, milk and wool about ten thousand years ago from now. And shepherding became common as a life style all around Middle East. Although there was a changeable climate in this region of the world, the number of flocks of sheep increased a lot. This may be the reason why sheep is the animal, which is mentioned the most in several holy books.

Before the process of taming, there were wild sheep on the mountains of Middle East and there was a tradition in that region of people, who were mostly Turks. They wouldn’t name their sons until he went to the forest alone and hunted an animal, mostly a wild ram. After this achievement, they would give a special name to their sons representing his heroic action. And the most common lamb cooking style of Turks was roasting it on wood fire as a whole.

A 2,5meter strong stick is needed for roasting the lamb on fire. The stick is inserted into the cleaned sheep. But cleaning process requires utmost attention. While flaying the animal, not damaging the underneath of its skin is so important. Any damages here prevents cooking it well. After discarding the innards and flaying, it’s ready to be placed over wood fire. After inserting the stick through the animal, you need to take care of the fire. It shouldn’t be just under the animal, but it should give its heat from corners and its heat should be low to cook the lamb very slowly. And if the woods are from a pine tree, it’s better. Then it is roasted by turning it over gradually.

This cooking style is not so common any longer as people are living in large buildings, but there are still some restaurants serving lamb roasted in this way.

Our favorite red meat is lamb as many Turkish people, but as we don’t have the chance of roasting it over wood fire, we cook it in oven.

Ingredients
-    4 lamb arm chops
-    5tbsp olive oil
-    4 cloves garlic
-    2 tomatoes
-    Rosemary
-    Salt

Wash and clean the lamb chops well. Wait them in 3 tbsp olive oil for about an hour.

Then put them (with the olive oil) in a pot and cook over low heat for about 40 minutes. The pot should be covered during this time. When it reaches 20 minutes, sprinkle some salt on it and cover the pot again. Then check it if it softens enough. If it’s done, take it from the heat.

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F).

Peel and chop the tomatoes and garlic cloves. Saute them in 2 tbsp olive oil until tender.

Brush an oven proof tray with little oil. Place the lamb chops in it. Top them with the tomato sauce you prepare. And cook it in oven about 30 minutes. then garnish it with fresh or dried rosemary (I used dried).

I thought that it would be great to serve these with some roasted vegetables. I had been planning to try Jenn’s recipe of  Baked Zucchini Sticks& Coins for some time, so I decided to serve this scrumptious roasted lamb with baked zucchini sticks. I loved Jenn’s idea to bake them in oven as it requires no frying. I made some changes in her recipe and it was still fine. You can see the original recipe here. Mine is as follows:

Zucchini Sticks

(Kabak Çubukları)

Ingredients
-    1 large zucchini
-    ½ cup crumbled bread
-    3 tbsp sesame
-    1 egg
-    ½ cup crumbled feta

Peel the zucchini (Ileft some rind on it). Cut it in sticks.

Mix sesame and crumbled bread in a bowl.

In another bowl, beat the egg and add feta in it, mix well.

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F).

Lay a greased baking sheet in an oven tray.

Grab a stick, steep it into egg-feta mixture. Then coat it with sesame-crumbled bread mixture and place on the baking sheet. Repeat this until all sticks finish.

And cook them in oven 30 minutes.

As an alternative for Jenn’s Marinara Sauce, I prepared a yogurt sauce simply mixing a cup of yogurt with mashed garlic.  To serve the food, I put two roasted lamb chops, baked zucchini sticks and fresh dill on a plate.  Dipping these baked zucchini sticks into yogurt while having our roasted lamb made us feel as if we were in heaven.

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Fig Dessert

İncir Tatlısı

I wrote a little about dried fruit in Turkish culture before while telling about dried figs. We love eating it so much as plain, but I made something sweeter today. I know summer is very close and we’re going to have fresh figs soon, but I couldn’t wait until mid August, when we start to see figs at open markets. So when we still have time, I wanted to use the last dried figs in my pantry. But I must admit my friend’s effect on my decision to make fig dessert today. She loves desserts so much that she always craves for something sweet just after having lunch or dinner. And a cup of tea is an indispensable mate for her dessert.

We decided to have lunch at home together. We quickly prepared menemen (an easy dish of eggs, tomatoes and peppers) and enjoyed it with cacik (a cold soup of yogurt and cucumber). But I wanted to make a surprise for her by this fig dessert. As it’s very easy to make, she didn’t have to wait long for a cup of tea and a portion of dessert. It was the first time for her to have this dessert, but she enjoyed it so much that she got my word to make it again.

Ingredients
-    20 dried figs
-    A little pounded clove
-      ½ cup walnut, cut into four
-    1 cup water
-    1 cup sugar

Wash and clean the figs and soak them in hot water for about 20 minutes.

Drain the figs and insert your little finger to its bottom to make the hole bigger. You’ll fill the figs with walnuts through this hole. Place two or three big pieces of walnut into these figs.

Lay the filled figs in a pot, their stems look upward.

Add clove, sugar and water. Cook it on low heat until it reaches the right consistency for about half an hour.

You can serve it with a dollop of ice cream. As we didn’t have any ice cream today, we ate our dessert plain.

Fig Tree

I want to give another benefit of figs, which I forgot to mention in “dried fig” post. When you pick a leaf or the fruit itself from its tree, you see a white liquid just like milk dripping from it. If you happen to drop that liquid on your body, itching is inevitable for you. So you should be careful if you have that chance of eating figs from the tree. However, there is a secret of this white liquid,  which you may find weird. It is a great treatment for wart on skin. If you have any warts on your body, drop a few driblets of “fig milk” on it, you will see a clear recovery on your skin in a few days time. I took this photo last month for those who have never seen a fig tree. These figs are unripe, and we expect them to ripen in August.

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Celery Root Salad

Kereviz Salatası

One of my favorite vegetable is celery; I love both its root and stalk and use them in various ways. I know most people hate the smell of celery root or stalk while it’s cooking, but that’s what I love. That scent definitely makes me hungry. I generally use its stalk in some soups, and put its roots in some olive oil dishes or stews. This celery root salad is new to me, I learnt it yesterday and I couldn’t wait more for sharing it with you.

One of our relatives moved to their new house a few weeks ago. There is a lovely tradition here: If someone close to you (in terms of relationship, not distance) moves to a new house, you visit them with a gift for their new house. But you shouldn’t do this by the time they move as it takes some time to establish themselves in their house. Finally we called yesterday  and told that we wanted to visit them if it was ok for them, too. The lady of the house is so good at cooking that she always prepares amazing dishes whenever we visit them. So yesterday we knew that a fabulous dinner table would be waiting for us. We thought that the best gift for this couple would be a bottle of Turkish Efe raki as they both love it. When we were in the market to buy raki, I saw a pair of lovely wooden candlesticks just before we left. Of course we bought them as well.

It was a wonderful dinner and night together with them as usual. They were so kind to serve the raki we brought and to put the candlesticks on the table with lighting candles in them. In Turkish culture, if guests bring something to the house as a gift, they expect the houseowners to serve (if it’s a food or beverage) or use (if it’s an object) it in front of them. This is a sign of how valuable the guests are.

We ate all the dishes with a great appetite, but one of them was new to me and I still can’t forget its taste in my mouth. They were so generous to share the recipe, so I’d like to thank to them here. I made this tasty appetizer for dinner today to serve with a kind of meat stew. All of it was gone in just a few seconds.

Ingredients
-    1 celery root
-    3 tbsp mayonnaise
-    A handful of walnut, crumbled
-    ½ cup (greek) strained yogurt
-    3 cloves garlic, mashed
-    1tsp salt
-    Basil leaves for garnishing

In a large bowl, dilute the strained yogurt with little water. Add mashed garlic and mayonnaise, mix them well.

Grate the celery root in another bowl and then add it to yogurt. Do not wait the grated celery root long before mixing it with yogurt as it quickly starts to blacken.

Now toss the crumbled walnut, sprinke salt and stir. Place leaves of basil and some walnut pieces on the top before serving. This is a wonderful savory food to serve with raki.

Eurovision Song Contest

Celery and Turnip were so excited as this was their first concert before international spectators. Guess what? They were also in Moscow for Eurovision song contest. No, they weren’t contestants there, they were invited as honorary singers. All vegetables and fruits felt so proud of their friends when they saw them on the stage. When they saw the crowd clapping hands and accompanying their song, they decided to participate the next contest. They enjoyed all songs in the competition and they would like to congratulate Norwegians for being the winners. (drawing by mom)

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Turkish Bagel

Açma

Açma is said to be the second popular pastry in Turkey. You know simit comes first. Açma is very similar to bagel. Maybe the only difference is that bagel is boiled before baking. We don’t have this step for Açma. Besides, just like simit, açma is also consumed very often in Turkey. Bakeries or pastry shops always have simit and açma together on their stands. The dough of it is softer than simit, and the best part, we can make it at home easily. I can’t say the same for simit, there is always something missing in home made simit, that’s why we prefer to buy it from bakeries.

This açma recipe is from mom again. The first time I fell in love with her açma was when I was in primary school. Once in every week, mom (or guardian) of a student was responsible for bringing food to the classroom. The reason for this was to teach the meaning and the importance of sharing to students/children. As children, we would look forward to seeing what the food of the week was. It was a real joy for all of us to eat together. All foods were homemade, mothers would never prefer to buy prepared or packaged food, they would make everything themselves.

I think moms were so clever then as they would bring a few kinds of food including some vegetables that children generally had difficulty to eat. I remember that I started to eat spinach on such a food hour at school. It is a fact that children are easily effected by their friends. For example, when you force your children to eat something he hates at home, he’ll probably refuse the food. However, when you give the same food when he is with friends, he’s more likely to eat it because he’ll see that other children eat that food or he’ll see “eating” as a game he’s playing with his friends. Doing (eating in this case) something together with friends is more important than the food itself here.  Moreover, he also wants to show what a “well-behaved” child he is by eating what his mom/dad gives to him.

Açma was one of the foods my mom brought to my classroom and as far as I remember, all children loved it. I’m sure she would have been so successful if she had opened a pastry school, but she just prefered to be my teacher. Açma was the permanent food of her, other foods ( the ones children would hate) may change. She would sometimes bring something with spinach, leek, pea, celery, any vegetable. And as a reward at the end, she would serve a dessert like pudding or chocolate cake. We always owe a lot to our moms!

And here is the recipe of Açma:

Ingredients
-    4 ½ cups flour
-    1 package dry instant yeast (7g or 10g)
-    1 egg
-    50g butter for its dough
-    50g butter to spread on the dough pieces
-    1 ½ cup warm milk
-    1tsp salt
-    ½ tsp sugar
-    1 egg yolk
-    Sesame
-    Nigella sativa

Note: All the ingredients should be at room temperature.

Sieve the flour in a large tray and mix the yeast in it. Then add 50g butter, egg, warm milk, salt, and sugar. Knead them all for about 10 minutes. It should be soft but not sticky. Cover the dough and wait it for about 40 minutes. You will see that it rises to two times of the original size.

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).

Cut the dough in 8 portions. Sprinkle some flour on a clean counter and roll out one portion about 8inches wide. Spread 1tsp butter on it and wrap it. Try to make it a bit longer by spinning, then make it a circle by combining its ends. Do the same for all portions.

Place these on a greased baking sheet in an oven tray. Be careful, there should be enough room between each as they will continue rising. Cover the tray and let it rest for half an hour.

Mix the egg yolk in a small bowl and brush it on each ring shape açma. Sprinkle sesame and nigella sativa on each. Cook them for 20-25 minutes.

You can serve these with a cup of Turkish tea at a tea time or breakfast. I also put one or two in a package and take to work if I don’t have time for breakfast at home.

Mom Duck

Mom Duck is so good at making pastries. She prepares different kinds including açma, bagel, borek, pie and cookies everyday. She thinks that the best welcome for her children is with a kitchen full of pastries. When her children are about to come, she brews some Turkish tea to serve with pastries. She prepares the table putting some cheese, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, olive, strawberry jam (her children’s favorite) and pastries of the day. Coming from school so tired, the children immediately sit for a feast and summon up their energy to do their homework. This is the most valuable time of the day for the mom duck watching her children in such a joy. (drawing by mom)

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Green Beans

Taze Fasulye

This is one of the most common summer dishes in our culture and we adore it so much that many people put some green beans in deep freezer to cook in Winter. As we think that frozen vegetables lose their vitamin and taste, we don’t prefer it. To tell the truth, we tried it last summer in little amount, but we didn’t like its taste, and learnt that they don’t keep vitamins when frozen, so we decided not to freeze vegetables again.

Summer is back these days, so we are lucky enough to find green beans at our open market. Monday was the day of open market in our neighborhood, but as I had a lot of work at school, my husband had to do shopping alone. He hates shopping at open market alone, so I was wondering what he would buy. He is not a big fan of vegetables unlike me. I’m sure if he had to go to a butcher, he would be happier. Anyway, when I came home from work, I saw a very funny scene. He was stringing some green beans with a confused expression on his face. He said that he asked her mom how to cook green beans and he learnt that stringing is the first step. However, the beans were so fresh that he couldn’t find any string on beans. He didn’t know that this was perfect for beans. I must admit that he made me so happy by buying green beans. No need to mention how I felt when I saw him dealing with a cup of beans. I thought it was time for me to put my hands in the plough, and cooked a delicious dish.

Ingredients
-    500g green beans, cleaned
-    1 onion, diced
-    2 tomatoes, diced
-    2 tsp salt
-    ½ tsp sugar (or ½ sugar cube)
-    3 tbsp olive oil while cooking
-    1 tbsp olive oil to drizzle on the dish when cooked

If the beans are too long, cut them in two or more pieces. Lay one line of beans in a pan ( I used a flat pan).
Add some of the diced onion on it and some tomatoes on onion.
Then lay the rest of the beans as another layer and the rest of onion and tomatoes on it. Sprinkle salt and sugar.
Then pour 3tbsp olive oil over them.
Cook it on medium heat for about 30 or 40  minutes.
When it is cooked drizzle 1tbsp olive on it. You’ll see adding olive oil as raw definitely enhances your dish.
You can serve it with pilaf and yogurt.

Dandelion

This is a photo taken by my friend Özlem last weekend. I didn’t think that a photo of dandelion could be so impressive before seeing this. She took this photo at a park of our city. The weather in this city is so changeable that it may turn dark and rainy suddenly on a beautiful sunny day. You can see the dark clouds on the sky here. Dandelions always remind me of my childhood. We would pick a dandelion, make a wish and blow on this flower. If we could blow all of its hair at once, it meant our wish would turn real.

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Liver Saute

Ciğer Sote

I know that many people hate eating offal, but there are still some people who really enjoy eating it like me. I love them as long as they are cooked well. Liver is my favorite and we cook it in different styles. However, we shouldn’t buy liver at any butcher, experts say that we should buy liver from a butcher we know. There may be butchers who try to sell a liver of an unhealthy lamb or veal. You know, liver is a very vulnerable organ, and it’s easily effected by a disease the animal has. So if we’re not sure about the healthiness of the animal, we shouldn’t buy. Or if the liver is officially approved as healthy, there is no reason for not buying and cooking.  Luckily enough, our butcher here always work with a vet.

In the eastern part of Tukey (in cities of Diyarbakır, Van, Şanlıurfa, etc). Believe it or not, they serve sish kebab or liver saute and they have a plenty of customers.This is associated with people living there. Having liver for breakfast is something very odd for us, but I have some friends living there and it’s so ordinary for them. To tell the truth, I’m open to different eating cultures and habits, so I can try it one day if I visit one of those cities.

Not for breakfast but as a main dish of dinner or lunch, we sometimes fry it and call it “Albanian Liver”, sometimes we saute it, sometimes we grill liver like sish kebab. I love all of these versions. I wrote about Albanian Liver a few weeks ago, this time it is Liver Saute’s turn.

Ingredients
-    200g liver
-    1 big onion, chopped
-    2 green pepper, chopped
-    2 middle sized tomatoes, diced
-    2 tsp salt
-    1 tsp cumin
-    1 tsp thyme
-    1 tsp rosemary
-    1 tsp red pepper flakes
-    2 tbsp olive oil

Wash the liver and chop it in cubes. Heat the oil in a pan and toss the chopped live in it. Stir it for about five minutes.

Then add tomatoes first, cover the pan and cook it over medium heat for another five minutes.

Finally add onion and peppers, and season it with spices. Cover the pan again and cook it over the lowest heat for 10 minutes.

You cangarnish it with greens like watercress, serve it with rice pilaf and season salad.

Having Dinner Together

It is so important for the duck family to have dinner together. The meaning behind it is more than eating. They miss each other during day time and they look forward to having dinner together. They sit around the table and share their feelings and experiences of the day while eating. Therefore, they never prefer having dinner alone. They always wait for the other to sit for the dinner. Especially mom and dad love this time of the day as they have the chance of talking and listening to their child. If he has a problem, they look for a solution together. The child duck is aware of the importance of this special time, so he always prefers to ask permission for anything when they all sit for dinner and start to eat scrumptious dishes of the day. He is so clever that he knows they can’t say ‘no’ with the effect of tasty dishes on his mom and dad. (drawing by mom)

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Chuk Chuk

Do you remember my friend Jyldyz from Kyrgystan? Previously, I published two of her recipes here. One of them is Ash Plov, and the other is Khirgiz Manti. They were just wonderful and we loved them. Her recipes add a great variety to my recipes here, which are all from Turkish cuisine. I’d like to thank her again for being so generous to share her mouth watering recipes with us. Here is a very Kirghiz dessert and I’m sure we’ll all love it too. I made it yesterday night (yes night again!) and we ate it all. It was a night when I craved for something sweet and my husband suggested Jyldyz’s recipe. Luckily he reminded me of this yummy dessert, otherwise I was planning to have a bar of chocolate.

Ingredients:
-2 cups high quality flour
-1 cup sugar
-5 eggs
-1 cup fruit-drops (you can use dried fruits, raisin, apricot, almonds, nuts, walnuts etc.)
-1.5 cup honey
- 2 cups vegetable oil (for frying)
-1 tbsp baking powder
-A pinch of salt

Break fresh eggs into a bowl, add some sugar ( a little), and mix them.  Combine flour, salt, baking powder and make soft dough. Divide dough into several pieces, roll it out into a layer about half a cm wide, and cut into short noodles. Fry the noodles in the boiling oil. When the fried dough is ready, the pieces become yellow-reddish in color and crispy.
Mix honey with sugar and boil the mixture in a separate bowl. You can test if the honey is ready this way: take a drop of honey with a match and if the jet of honey trickling from the match and becomes brittle after cooling down, then it’s time to stop boiling. You shouldn’t boil the honey for too long as it can slightly burn, become dark and spoil the taste of the dish.
Put the boiled noodles into a bowl, pour the honey (hot) and mix well. After that put the mixture on a tray or a flat plate, wet your hands with cold water and shape chuk-chuk as you wish (it can be a pyramid, a cone, a star, etc.). You can decorate the ready chuk-chuk with fruit-drops and let them harden. To harden the shape of your chuk chuk can help the refrigerator.
Chuk-chuk is served either in the whole or cut into pieces.

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Stuffed Zucchini

Kabak Dolması

This zucchini stuffed with ground meat and rice is in our top ten list of our kitchen. As I wrote before, zucchini is not our favorite vegetable and we always look for some different recipes for it. However, this stuffed one is an exception. This is one of the most common traditional Turkish dishes and we adore it so much that I often make it. I should have put it here before, but we were so impatient to wait for taking a photo when I made it. I made it at night this time not to eat it before the photos as we take photos during day.

Ingredients (servings: 2)

-    4 middle sized zucchinis
-    1 tomato
-    2 onions, diced
-    ¼ cup rice
-    150g ground meat
-    2 tbsp tomato paste (1 for filling, 1 for sauce)
-    1 lemon, squeezed
-    A few leaves of dill, minced
-    A few leaves of fresh mint, minced
-    5 tbsp olive oil
-    Salt
-    Black pepper

Wash the zucchinis and cut them into two. Then grab a small spoon and scoop out their pulp. The walls of zucchinis shouldn’t be too thick or too thin (about ¼ inch). Sprinkle a pinch of salt inside each of them.

For the filling; Mix diced onions, rice, ground meat, 1 tbsp tomato paste, lemon juice, minced dill and fresh mint, 3 tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp salt and black pepper in a bowl.

Stuff the zucchinis with this mixture, but be careful, it shouldn’t be too tight because when rice and ground meat cook, they’ll get bigger. You can gently press on the filling while stuffing the zucchinis. Place each stuffed zucchini upright in a large pot.

Slice the tomato and put a slice on each stuffed zucchini to cover the filling mixture.

Dilute 1 tbsp tomato paste with water and pour it into the pot. Then pour some water (shouldn’t cover the zucchini, leave it when the water reaches the middle of zucchinis). Cover the lid on the pot, put it over the lowest heat and cook it for about 1 and a half hour.

You can serve it with some yogurt and garnish with dill leaves.

Spring Flower

We went to Turgutreis/Bodrum last weekend and we had great time there as Spring had already come there. Here, we still have cold weather, so we can’t feel that we’re in spring months. One day we wake up and we feel the warmth of Spring, the other day we wake up to a very cold day. We’ve been witnessing a very changeable climate these days, which is a bit fearsome. So when we went to there, we inhaled the Spring hapiness. There were so many lovely flowers that I spent a lot of time watching and taking photos of them. I wish I had the ability of drawing and painting these beauties. I believe that these fantastic flowers will be propitious for this blog. I want to share them with you. This one is an example.

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