Rice With Currants
The raisin in the picture is one of the most common ingredients that we use in various dishes. We call it kuş üzümü in Turkish. Kuş is for bird, üzüm is for grape. I think it has this name as they are small enough for birds. However, I wasn’t sure how to call them in English. Turkish-English dictionaries say ‘currant’ for it, but when I searched on the net for the visuals of currants, they were totally different from this raisin. Finally Tracey from Tangled Noodle saved me from my confusions and clarified its English translation for me. Thank you Tracey! She says small variety of grapes called ‘champagne grapes‘ are referred to as ‘currants’ when dried. And with the link she suggested, I learnt that “Although it may be confused with common black, red or white currants that grow on bushes, it is similar only in shape and size, but is not the same type of fruit. The dried grape that becomes a currant is often used like raisins as an ingredient when baking cookies and sweets.” So I’ll call them currants from now on.
There are small grapes in a bunch of black grapes and they don’t have seeds as they are not matured enough. These small grapes are picked seperately and dried, then they become currants (kuş üzümü). They give a bit sweet taste to dishes. We use it in cakes, cookies and compotes, but in Turkish cuisine, they are much liked in stuffed vegetables and rice pilaf.
Tip: To clean currants from their straws, coat them with a little flour, put them in a strainer with big holes. When you shake it, the straws will drop with flour.
Kuş Üzümlü Pilav
Ingredients
- 1 cup rice
- 2 cups hot water
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp olive/vegetable oil
- 1 ¾ cup water
- 2 tbsp currants, straws removed and washed
- 2 tsp salt
-1 tsp lemon juice
Before washing, put the rice in a bowl, pour 2 cups hot water into it and add 1 tsp salt. Wait this for about 15 minutes. You’ll see how it turns out whiter within this time. Then wash it well.
Melt the butter in a pan. Add olive oil. When it is heated, add rice and salt to saute. Add 1 tsp juice of lemon. Lemon juice helps rice not to stick each other, which is so important for Turkish pilaf. Stir it continually for about 5 or 7 minutes on medium heat. Sauting the rice in oil is so important in making pilaf. Otherwise, rice will just be boiled and won’t give the desired taste. Then pour 1 ¾ cup water and currants, stir once and cover it. when it starts to boil after about 3 minutes, bring the heat to the lowest and do not open its cover for about 10 minutes until it absorbs all water. When there isn’t any water left in the pan, take it from fire. Put a big piece of paper towel just on top of pilaf and cover it again. Wait it for about 15 minutes so that the paper towel absorbs all the moist in it. Then uncover it and throw the paper towel away. It’s ready to serve.
You see how currants swell in pilaf although they are crinkle before being cooked. They look so cute that I can put them in any dish.
To serve it in the shape you see here, wet a small bowl. Fill it with rice and turn it upside down carefully on a plate.
Craving For Blue
Here is another cartoon by mom. I think she was inspired by the fascinating sea in front of her house. She loves to have a cup of coffee on her balcony watching and listening that blueness. I missed chatting with her there, I wish we can visit her soon. More words are unnecessary for this cartoon. Just close your eyes, imagine that bluness and feel the gentle breeze licking your face.
Carob Tea
Keciboynuzu Cayi
Are you familiar with the unique plant, carob? It is mostly grown in Mediterranian regions. You know I used to live in Tarsus, a city of Mersin, which locates in Mediterranian region of Turkey. I remember the first time I met with carob as a child when I visited my grandparents. There was a big carob tree at the square of the village where my granparents lived. I couldn’t believe that it was a fruit. It was as tough as a stone when I touched. And I wasn’t sure how to eat it. Then I saw some children from that village picking up carobs and eating it just like crisp biscuits. I took the first bite, it was so crusty, so it wasn’t so easy to eat it. But it was so sweet that I couldn’t help eating more. Children in that village would eat carob as a substitution for chocolate. Sounds more healthy, doesn’t it?
We call it Keciboynuzu in Turkish. This is a compound word; Keci means goat and boynuz means horn. When we combine these words it means the horn of goat. This name is given to this fruit most probably because of its shape and hardness. It is also called Harnup in some regions.
As time passes, I’ve learnt that carob is a priceless fruit with its so many benefits. It is said that it contains more calcium than milk, so the women who hate milk could eat carob or drink its tea for their bone health. I learnt this tea from dad during their last visit. One day, he came with a bag of carobs and immediately entered the kitchen to make its tea. It was unbelievably great! We all drank it, but he said that he made this tea especially fro me and mom. You know women need more calcium than men.
While making this tea, he told that the seeds of carobs were used to measure the weights of things in ancient times. What is so special about its seeds is that their weigh doesn’t change in any conditions. With their constant weight, seeds were the only reliable thing to scale things.
When I made a quick search on it, I learnt that it is not only used in food industry but also in textile and paper industry. It includes a substance, which is so important for many produced foods. That substance is gum. This carob gum gives the right consistency to foods like yogurt, cheese (especially cream cheese), ice cream, ketchup, sauces, tomato paste, mayonnaise, pastries, etc. That’s why so many producers may use carob gum for these products. Have you ever thought that all these products indirectly contain carob?
I loved the tea dad made that day, it was so refreshing besides its healthy benefits. So I thought it’s worth sharing with you, if you have the chance of finding carob, you may try it. We drink it cold, but it’s also possible to drink it hot. It doesn’t have a specail recipe. Just wash them well, cut into pieces and wait them in hot water for about an hour or more.
Dad prepared it cold and it was fascinating to see how it changes the color of the water gradually. It also spreads its sweetness into water, so we don’t need to add sugar to make it sweet.
If you want to drink it cold, serve it with some ice in it. Do not forget to put one piece of carob in the glass while serving, it’s so soft now that you can esily eat it.
If you prefer it hot, then boil it for about 15 minutes.
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
Yellow Cherry Jam
Sari Kiraz Receli
Do you love cherries as much as I do? I really don’t know how to describe my feelings when I see a cherry tree full of cherries. Whenever I see such a tree, I realize how beautiful living is. This may sound nonsense, but I don’t have the same feeling for other fruit trees. It makes me so happy to see those little red things between green leaves on a tree. I suppose that this makes the tree happy as well. It looks like a bride in reds. Have I told before that red is the color of brides and newly married women in our culture? I think I love seeing cherry trees much more than eating cherries.
I would witness how cherry trees blossommed and then fruited as a child when we visited my grandma. There were immense cherry yards in the village she was living and I remember watching these yards with a great admiration. It is such a village that nobody has to get permission to get into someone’s yard and to taste some cherries, so we would enter one, taste some and then enter another to taste a different species of cherry. Grandma also had a cherry tree in her backyard where we (my cousins and I) enjoyed a lot. We would climb on the tree, which was my favorite method to taste fruits, and would chat there eating cherries. The funniest thing I remember is that we, as girls, would make ear rings from cherries by hanging them on our ears. We would love to feel swingings of cherries on our ears when we shake our heads. Would you do the same thing when you were children?
Besides their wonderful taste and beauty, it is known that cherries also have healing effects. It is known that they are more effective as painkillers than an aspirin. So if you have bad headache, please try eating cherries before taking any other painkillers. No need to mention that they are great antioxidants. Heavy smokers should eat cherries to get rid of the nicotine in their body. It also strengthens our immune system and our body against many cancer types. Grandma would also say that cherry stalk has many herbal effects,too. She would make tea boiling cherry stalks in water for about 10 minutes. She would say that this helped kidneys work well and cured joint calcification. I learnt one more thing from her that cherry stones keep heat for a long time, so she never wasted these stones. She would fill a heatproof bag with dried cherry stones and heat it in oven. She put this heated bag under my feet whenever I had stomachache. I’m always in favor of trying herbal healing before any medicine just like grandma as I believe that nature has all remedies if used right.
Cherries are mostly in various tones of red, but we have a unique species of cherries in Turkey, yellow cherries. They are so rare in our country that it is grown in few regions. I don’t know if it’s grown in other countries. It has a very limited season here, so if you see it at the market, you shouldn’t miss that chance. Yellow cherries are sweeter in taste, that may be the reason why people prefer mostly these to make jam. They make jam either from yellow cherries or sour cherries.
At the open market last week I had that chance and I bought 2 kilos of yellow cherries to make some jam. Unfortunately I didn’t think how I would pit them. In the evening, when I prepared the necessary cups in the kitchen and grabbed one cherry, I realized it wouldn’t be so easy to pit them. I wanted them remain as they were, but how? Believe or not, I spent great effort on scooping their stones. After some time, getting tired, I gave up and just cut them in half and easily removed the stones. I called mom in the morning and told my cherry adventure. She laughed at me and asked why I didn’t buy a cherry pitter. A cherry pitter? What was that, I’ve never heard such a thing! Gosh why didn’t I talk to mom a day before? Then she told me if I didn’t have that tool, I could use a paper clip as a hook to remove cherry stones. She claims it works perfect. It was too late for me! Oh wait! I’m planning to making jam from sour cherry as well when its season comes, I can try either of these methods then. If you know any other ways to pit cherries, I’d be glad to hear.
2 kilos (4,40 pounds) cherries make about 1 kilo jam.
Ingredients
- 2 kilos yellow cherries
- 1 ½ kilo (3.30 pound) sugar
- Juice of ½ lemon
Wash the cherries, remove their stalks and stones (either with Oxo Good Grips Cherry Pitter
Put the pot on low heat and boil it until it gets thick enough. Remove its scum occasionally. To understand if it has the right thickness, drop very little jam on a plate, turn it upside down. If the jam doesn’t run down easily, if it’s a bit sticky, that means it’s done. Add lemon juice, boil it another 5 minutes and take it from fire. do not boil it more after adding lemon juice. Otherwise, your jam gets too dark in color.
If your cherries are too soft, then after it boils for about 10 minutes, take the cherries from the sherbet with a strainer and keep boling the sherbet until it reaches the right consistency. ıf you boil the cherries with its sherbet for the whole time, cherries will be overcooked and all mashed. Then add the cherries and boil them for a few minutes more. And add lemon juice. Let it cool.
If you have a balcony or a garden, wait your jam under sun. This helps its consisteny, so don’t worry if your jam is not thick enough after boiling, just wait it under sun for a few days. Do not forget to cover it with a veil to protect it from any insects. Then you can put it in jars and keep it in a place without sunlight.
As a final note, I!d like to thank to Jenn from Bread + Butter. She is so sweet to share her award with me, I’m so honored. She has a fantastic blog with so many delicious recipes. Go visit her blog.
So according to the rule of this award, I’m supposed to name 7 things about me.
1. I love watching movies
2. The last movie I watched is Knowing
3.I am interested in literature, I love to read novels, short stories, poetries.
4.I sometimes try to write short stories.
5. I always read before sleeping. Reading Zorba the Greek
6. I LOVE eggs at breakfast.
7. I hate cleaning greens like spinach, parsley or fresh mint as too much dirt hides in them. But of course I do that cleaning
It’s absoultely so hard to decide on just 7 bloggers to share this award, so I want to share it with everyone I’m in contact with in this blog world.
Cherries in Winter
Cherries always complain about the limited time they have. THey can appear just in summer and they can’t see the other seasons of nature. They wait the coming of summer whole year.
It is unfair! One day, one of them hided from people and didn’t come out until winter. When everwhere was white with snow, she decided to go out. She wrapped herself up not to get cold and wanted to ski on frozen hills. She didn’t know how, she just wore a pair of roller skaters and started. Luck was with this little cute thing, so nothing bad happened to her. But she understood the difficulty of winter and told her friends that summer is always better for them. (drawing by mom)
Thimble Soup Video
Thimber Soup from zerrin gunaydin on Vimeo.
NOTE: Do not forget to turn on the volume to hear the music of a Turkish band, Bandista.
Yüksük Çorbası
This is another popular wedding dish in Turkey, but this time its region is different. It is called yüksük çorbası (thimble for yüksük, soup for çorba) as its shape is like a small thimble. This is a traditional wedding dish of Southern region of Turkey, especially of Çukurova area. It is mostly made in villages there. Everyone knows that yüksük çorbası will be served whenever there is a wedding in these villages as it is the main dish of the ceremony. Weddings are generally held in large squares of the village where all guests gather. And during the wedding, this traditional soup keeps boiling in big cauldrons on wood fire. Making this soup is not easy, so not only the families of bride and groom, but also their neighbors gather before the wedding day and make it altogether. As you can see in the video, the step which requires the most time is the filling the squares step. That’s why this step is done by all the women there while the final cooking/boiling step is done by one or two talented old ladies.
As it’s a wedding ceremony, the number of guests is more than two hundred. Both people of that village and the people living in villages nearby are invited to this ceremony, and this number increases. The number of guests increases a lot more if the host of the ceremony is well known around the area. The higher the number of people joining the ceremony, the more reputable the host is.
Yuksuk corbasi is served to these guests on a tray by young men of the village. A handkerchief is tied on their arms to show that these young people are voluntary waiters of the ceremony. If people have something to ask for something, they call one of these voluntary young people.
Meanwhile, there are two men playing drum and horn (image source is here) and if people want, they dance. Generally the first people who start the dance are the groom and his friends. While they are dancing, generally the groom’s family members throw banknotes towards the dancing people. This is like a show of reputation and power. A little boy who is appointed by the drummer picks these banknotes and gives them to the drummer. They share the money at the end of the ceremony.
After having a bowl of yuksuk corbasi, the guests congratulate bride and groom or their parents and leave.
Besides its fame on wedding ceremonies, this dish is also made in cities in daily life as the city people have no chance of joining wedding ceremonies at villages. It is very similar to manti (another traditional Turkish dish which is famous in Central Anatolia), but their cooking styles are different.
Ingredients
Its dough
- 4 cups flour
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups water, increase if needed
- 2 tsp salt
Knead the dough well by mixing all the necessary ingredients. While kneading,, wet your hands occasionally and you can add more water if it doesn’t reach the right consistency. Knead it until it doesn’t stick to your hands. Divide this dough into big equal pieces. The dough we knead makes 4 equal balls and a small ball. Sprinkle some flour on them and cover them.
Its filling mixture
- 3 small onions, chopped
- 1lb ground beef
- Half bunch of parsley, chopped
- 1 dessert spoon salt
- 1 dessert spoon paprika powder
- 1 dessert spoon ground blak pepper
- 1 dessert spoon pepper paste
Mix all these ingredients for the filling mixture.
Sprinkle some flour on the counter. the one you take on it and sprinkle flour on it, too. Then press on this dough and flatten it. Then roll it out in a circular way. (See the video above). While rolling, sprinkle little flour on it occasionally so that it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin. When it gets as thin as we want, sprinkle flour on it and fold it as you see n the video. And cut this first into stripes, then into squares. Take one square, put little filling mixture into it and combine its four corners to give it a thimble shape. If you like, you can combine its two corners to give it a triangular shape. Put the ones you finish on a large tray, do not overfill the tray, otherwise they all stick to each other.
Its final cooking
- 2 cups meat broth
- 2 cups chickpeas, boiled
- 1 lemon
Put water (about 4 cups) in a pot. Add meat broth and chickpeas, bring it to boil. when it boils pour lemon juice and add salt. Then put the dumplings in the boling water little by little. After about 10 minutes, they’ll start to float, which means it’s done. Take it from heat and pour 1 cup of cold water into the pot. This will help the dumplings not to stick to each other.
We generally put about 3 cups of dumplings to make this dish and we leave the rest to put into freezer to cook later. If you want to do the same, just cook the rest of the dumplings in oven until they are light brown. Let them cool and then put them in freezer in freezer bags.
Now we can prepare its sauce.
Its sauce
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 dessert spoon pepper paste
- 1 dessert spoon dried mint
- Paprika powder and ground black pepper for your taste
- 2 tomatoes, grated
Note: If you don’t have pepper paste for the sauce, you can substitute it with red pepper flakes or paprika powder.
Heat the oil, put the pepper paste in it and mix. Add grated tomato and spices. It’s ready after 3 minutes. Pour the sauce into the soup and stir. It is ready to serve.
You can also prepare a bowl of yogurt sauce to serve with it.
Yogurt sauce
- 1 cup yogurt
- 3 cloves garlic, mashed
Mix these together until smooth and serve in a seperate bowl. If you want, you can also drizzle some yogurt sauce on this soup and enjoy it more. Personally, I love both versions, so I have half of my soup plain and then I put some yogurt sauce on it and double my joy for the other half. I don’t exclude none of the versions in this way.
Stuffed Bulgur Kofte Video
Stuffed Bulgur Kofte from zerrin gunaydin on Vimeo.
NOTE: Do not forget to turn on the volume to hear two Turkish folk songs which I love a lot.
icli kofte
icli kofte is one of the most special dishes of Turkish cuisine as it’s not so easy to make it. One should really want it and believe in herself to be successful. To reach the best result, you should try making it more than once. But when you taste it once, you will absoultely see that it is worth.
icli kofte is especially made in the Southern part of Turkey. It has some varieties according to the area it is made. Some people stuff it with just ground meat while in some places it can’t be called icli kofte without walnuts in its filling. In some places, people put ground meat even in its dough but in some areas this one is thought to be heavy, so it’s not prefered. Some people also use meat with its grease for its filling, but again others think that it makes the dish too heavy and fattening. Some people fry these koftes whereas others boil them in hot water. In this recipe you will read the icli kofte made in city of Tarsus, with a mixture of walnuts and ground meat for filling, no grease in it, no meat in its dough and boiled koftes.
As it is a very special dish, when people have important guests for dinner, they make icli kofte for their guests to show how they are important for the house owner. This important guests may be the parents of their daughter-in-law or son-in-law. It is very important in our culture to host such guests with dishes which are difficult to make. You can not just serve a delicious spaghetti to these guests. It means you don’t give enough importance to them. It is the same for a newly wed couple. If they invite especially the husband’s parents, the daughter-in-law must show how important they are by making difficult dishes. Also, if we have guests from a far away city, we generally make icli kofte. As you understand, this is not an ordinary dish, so it is always eaten with more than two people. Noone prefers eating it alone or with just wife and husband. When families get together, they make it together and eat together.
In Turkey, women love to help each other in making such difficult dishes. You may call your friend or neighbor to make it together, she will gladly accept. You make it together for your guests and when your helpful neighbor is leaving, you give her a bowl of what you prepeared together as a thanking.
In the past, there was a funny tradition about this difficult but tasty dish. Women would put a piece of gold in one of these stuffed bulgur koftes, but tell noone. Even they themselves wouldn’t know which kofte had the gold. And while eating, everyone would wonder the lucky person who would have the gold in his or her kofte. We still have this tradition in some areas. Similar to this one, but less dangerous for our teeth, people now put a chickpea to surprise their guests. As you see, eating icli kofte becomes a funny activity entertaining everyone.
Today most restaurants serve icli kofte as an appetizer, but they don’t taste as good as homemade ones. They are served cold and dry, but it must be warm enough to feel its perfect taste.
Ingredients
For its filling:
- 1 kg (2 lb) ground meat (beef), lean
- 1 kg (2 lb) onion, finely chopped
- 125 gr (4 oz) margarine or butter
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup crumbled walnuts
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp paprika powder
- 2 tsp thyme
- 3 tsp salt
- 1/2 tbsp pepper paste
- ½ cup parsley, finely chopped
- 2 green hot pepper, finely chopped
For its dough:
- 2 cups ground bulgur
- 1 cup semolina
- 1 cup flour
- 2 cups water
- 2 eggs
- ½ tbsp pepper paste
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp paprika powder
For boiling:
- 1 lemon
- 1 tsp salt
- A pot of water
First, we prepare its filling mixture so that we have enough time to let it cool. This is so important as we can’t stuff the dough balls with the mixture if it’s still warm. It must get thicker while waiting, that’s why we use margarine or butter. If you use any kind of oil, you have difficulty in stuffing.
Put ground meat in a pot and cook it over medium heat until it absorbs the water it releases. Then add chopped onion and stir occasionally. Add margarine or butter into it and stir. When the margarine melts and is absorbed, add salt and 4 tbsp olive oil. Put pepper paste and stir. When it is completely combined, add chopped parsley and green hot pepper. Season it with cumin, black pepper, paprika powder, thyme. Then add a cup of walnut and stir. Take it from the heat, do not let parsley and green pepper cook well. Now stir it to combine all well. Let it cool. The wait may be longer than 2 hours as the mixture must be cold and thick enough. If you like, you can prepare this filling mixture overnight.
Now it’s time for the dough. Put bulgur in a tray and soak it with cold water. Then put semolina in the same tray seperately and soak it as well. 2 cups of water is enough for both of them. Cover the tray and wait for about 15 minutes. After this time, season it with the spices. Then break the eggs. Combine them. And finally, put flour and knead it well.
Take a piece of dough, bigger than a walnut. Shape it in your hand. Start pressing your thumb into this piece of dough and turn it around itself to shape. This shell should be as thin as you can make. Then put 1 tbsp of the filling mixture into this shape and close the shape again with your hands. (See the video.) Your hands must be wet to shape the dough, so put a bowl of cold water near you to wet your hands occasionally while shaping it.
After you finish all the dough, heat water in a pot and bring it to boil. Pour lemon juice and add 1 tsp salt into the water. This will protect the koftes to lose their shapes. Boil them about 10 minutes. when they are cooked, all of them starts to float in the boiling water. You can also check if it is cooked with a special method. Take one of them on a plate, press the slotted spoon on the kofte gently (See the video.)If you hear the kofte is whispering when you press, it is done. If you don’t hear this sound, let it boil a few minutes more.
As the process of making icli kofte is difficult and long, I wanted to show you the steps of it in this video. Luckily mom and dad visited us and we had the reason for making icli kofte to celebrate their visit. I learnt how to make icli kofte from mom, the greatest cook I’ve seen. So in this video she is making icli kofte and I helped her. It would be so hard for me without her. When we were making it, dad was around us waiting for the time he would eat one. At last, we finished and we served it to dad. You see how he enjoyed his lunch. We of course use fork and knife in everyday life, but traditionally people eat icli kofte with hands. You can also squeeze lemon on each kofte while eating.
Warm Salad
Sıcak Salata
This salad is a very special one for me as I learnt it from dad. The word ‘salad’ is generally used for various combinations of raw vegetables like tomatoes, lettuce, scallions and other greens or combinations of raw fruits. However, this one is totally different. It takes the name of ‘warm salad’ as it is cooked, none of the vegetables in it is raw.
This warm salad is made especially in Mediterranean region of Turkey. In rural areas of this region, people work in agriculture and in forest. Agriculture workers cultivate lots of fruits, vegetables and cereals. As for the forest workers, they are devided into two groups. Some log the full grown trees like pine to send the logs to the industrial area while the others plant new young trees in places of these logged trees to renew forests. Warm salad is so important for these workers. They usually get up so early in the morning and almost never hit the road without having warm salad as breakfast. As it is hot and spicy, after eating it, workers do not get cold while working. It is both filling and easy to digest when compared to raw salads, so workers in this region prefer it.
Dad worked in that region as a teacher years ago and he had good relationships with the people of the region. He always tells us how those people were so respectful and hospitable to teachers. There used to be one school in such rural areas, so teachers of that school were so precious for them. There were generally two or three teachers and they were always invited to a house of someone for dinner. People would always bring some products of their areas to teachers. As a result of this good relationship, dad learnt this warm salad from these people during his working years in that region and it became one of his favorite food at breakfast. I remember that he used to wake my brother and me up with the fantastic smell of this salad. Noone can resist dipping a slice of bread in this salad at breakfast. At first, one may think that this salad can not be for breakfast and it is more suitable for lunch or dinner, but it makes you addicted after the first try.
Ingredients (serving: 4)
- 4 tomatoes
- 2 sweet green peppers
- 4 small hot green peppers
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp paprika
Wash all vegetables. To peel the tomatoes easily, wait them in hot water for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a pan. Chop sweet green peppers and saute them. Put the hot peppers in the pan as a whole, do not chop them. Then peel the tomatoes and dice them. Cut the garlic cloves into two. Put tomatoes and garlic in the pan, stir and cover it. After about 15 minutes, add salt, cumin and paprika, stir and take it from heat. Serve this salad on plates and put 1 small hot green pepper on each. If you can’t eat it spicy, you may not add those spices.
Preperation for Summer
As it is summer now, all vegetables and fruits start exercising to look fit. They didn’t do any sports during winter, so they gained weight and now it’s time to lose those weights. They find it so boring to exercise alone, and the clever tomato suggests doing it together. she reads on a paper that you are more successful in losing weight when you exercise with others. That’s why they decide to meet and jog together. However, it’s still not easy for tomato to jog as much as others, she gets tired easily as she is to weak to carry herself. Someone must tell her that people love her plump. (drawing by mom)
To have a reddish color in quince jam or compote, put its seeds while boiling.
