I make this light dessert for two of us often to get some freshness in this hot season.

I love the purple color of mulberries, even when it dyes my hands and mouth! And you know this strong color” in fruits has many benefits to health.

Black mulberries are in season here and many people have already made its jam. You can get its recipe here.

If you don’t have strained yogurt, you can strain your regular yogurt. Put some yogurt in a clean cheese cloth and squeeze gently.

Mix 1 ½ cup yogurt and mascarpone cheese. Add black mulberries and blend them all until smooth.

Spoon 2 tbsp plain yogurt in each glass and smooth the surface.

Share yogurt-mascarpone-berry mixture to each glass.

Spoon another 2 tbsp plain yogurt on top of each.

Garnish with extra mulberries and fresh basil or mint sprig.

Let it cool in refrigerator and serve cold.

I was tidying the files on my computer this morning and found the photos of this pumpkin candies. I remember taking its pictures a few years ago when we bought it from a new dessert restaurant we discovered in Eskisehir. It is a special restaurant serving desserts of Antakya, Hatay (a city located on the South of Turkey). Antakya, which was first called Antiocheia in 300 BC , has a very large cuisine with several unique and scrumptious dishes. This pumpkin dessert is one of these unique dishes. It is the only pumpkin dessert served in Antakya, so when you order pumpkin dessert in a restaurant there, they bring this one. The pumpkin dessert I wrote about before here is the common one around the country, but it is not made in Antakya. They have this special candy like pumpkin dessert instead. Also, there are street vendors selling this pumpkin dessert in Antakya, and people can buy just one slice and eat it walking.

This pumpkin dessert is originally made from white pumpkin which is grown in Antakya. However, it can also be made with regular pumpkin if you can not find white pımpkin. It is not soft and it has rather a crispy texture unlike the common pumpkin dessert. What makes it crispy is slaked lime in its recipe. Lime is something that is commonly used in making jams of certain fruit or vegetables like eggplant or watermelon. You will read how it is used below.

Mix water and lime. Wait it 7 or 8 hours. Lime will sink and you will use the water on its surface. Pour this water on pumpkin slices and wait it about 7 hours. Then wash them well. Wait them in clean water about 1 hour.

Put them in a large pot, pout sugar and 200ml water on them. Cook about 1 hour until it has right consistency and pumpkin slices get golden. Add a few lemon drops and cook a few minutes more.

Let it cold. Don’t put it in refrigerator. Serve it as it is, it doesn’t need any topping, you just grab one slice and eat it.

How many of us eat enough fruit? We know it is good for health to eat fruit everyday, but we mostly forget or ignore this. However, one of my new year resolution last year was to eat as much fruit as I can. I can proudly say that I haven’t had a single day without fruit since then. As I am a teacher, I am mostly at school from morning till afternoon (sometimes till evening), so I prepare a fruit box for me every morning and take it to work. What does this box contain? Some fruits I put in my fruit box are apple, tangerine, carrot, kiwi, pear, plum, strawberry, apricot, banana, peach and grape depending on the season. Sometimes I put dried fruits like sun dried apricot and fig, which are my favorite.

You all know the cartoon ‘Popeye’ and his love of spinach. My fruit box is just like his canned spinach! When I feel tired after several classes, I open the box and eat what fruit I have that day and you can imagine what happens next if you know the cartoon.

When I have enough time in the morning, I even prepare a fresh fruit salad to put into my box. It is the easiest and healthiest dessert with the lowest calories.

Mine has no dressing, but you can drizzle a little honey on your fruit salad.

Chop all fruits except pomegranate in cubes or in the shape you like. Put them in layers in two seperate bowls.

Finally garnish them with pomegranate seeds and walnut.

Note: I use the fruits in my refrigerator, so you can make this salad with any fruit you have or like.

I already have a recipe of semolina halvah here, but mom’s is always better than mine, so I want to share her recipe with you, too. She used pinenuts in it as they are perfect couple with semolina.

Pinenuts, which are used in halvah and stuffed vegetables, are one of the special ingredients of Mediterranean cuisine, just like olive oil and garlic. The Mediterranean region and Aegean region in Turkey are a natural habitats for pinenuts, so it’s mostly used in the South and West of the country.  Pinenut trees can reach to 20 meters and they start to crop after 25 years. It’s such a long time, isn’t it?

When the tree has ripe pinenuts, people shake the tree branches to drop pine cones. These pine cones are laid under sunlight and the cones are opened with the effect of heat after some time. Then not to damage the nuts inside, cones are softened with water and nuts are removed from cones.  It’s not a very easy process. So pinenuts are very valuable and not cheap.

irmik helvasi
Ingredients
-    3 cups semolina
-    2 ¾  cup sugar
-    4 cups water
-    250g butter
-    ½ lemon
-    3 tbsp pinenuts
Put water and sugar in a pot and bring to boil. Put half lemon in this sherbet when it boils, and boil it about 5 more minutes. When it gets a little thick , it’s done.

Meanwhile melt the butter and saute pinenuts. When they get golden brown, put semolina. Stir it continually until it is cooked, otherwise it might burn easily. You will feel its tempting scent when semolina gets golden brown.it’s time to pour the sherbet, stir a few times. Take it from fire before it absorbs all sherbet, it must be creamy. Pour it in small bowls.

I love it when it’s warm, but it’s generally served cold. You don’t need to wait it in refrigerator though.

I had such a tiring day today at school. I had so many works to do, but little time. Today was one of the days that I wish it was possible to be cloned. One of me would prepare lesson plans while the other me would prepare exam questions or check students’ papers or do some other paper works or teach at class or cook at home. Wouldn’t it be great? Anyway, there was a very nice email waiting for me when I came home and turned on my PC.

Do you remember Sue? She is one of my lovely readers who sent me a porridge recipe a while ago to share with my other readers.  And I shared it here towards the end of the post. She made a great surprise to me by sending another recipe even with its pictures! How generous she is! I absolutely appreciate it much. This time she is sharing something sweet with us which looks so yummy and sounds flavorful with brandy. She wrote a very detailed recipe below. Thank you so much Sue for taking my tiredness and stress away by sending this heavenly dessert. I’m sure my readers will love it, too.

Çikolatalı Mus

Ingredients:

125g (4oz) Dark chocolate
1 Tablespoon Brandy (spillage acceptable – my Dad’s added comment)
4 Eggs separated (number 7′s)
1 Cup cream (250 mls)

Additional notes at end of the recipe regarding the Method and Ingredients.

Method:

1.  Chop / break chocolate roughly and put into large microwave dish or double boiler.  Melt in microwave on medium high (about 1 minute)

2.  In separate bowl whip cream.

3.  Separate egg whites and beat until soft peaks form in large bowl.

4.  Lightly beat egg yolks in small bowl and add brandy.

5.  Microwave chocolate pieces until soft and melted – medium high (about 1 minute). Can use a double boiler if you wish.  Remove chocolate from heat and cool slightly.

6.  Mix into the chocolate mixture the yolks and brandy, then beat until smooth and thick.

7.  Add whipped cream and stir / fold.

8.  Fold in beaten egg whites, half the mixture at a time.

9.  Spoon mixture into six individual dishes or one large dish.

10.  Refrigerate until firm.

11.  Just before serving top with grated chocolate.

Notes regarding Ingredients:

Dark chocolate - I have only ever used Cadbury Energy chocolate.  As a teenager making this back in the late 1970′s early 1980′s it was the only dark chocolate I was aware of.  This is not a cooking chocolate.  Not sure how it would come out with other types. The image is on the right hand side of the screen on this link

Eggs number 7′s.  I have just weighed one.  It is approximately 60 grams / 2 oz in weight.

Cream – This would be known as double cream in some countries.  Also, the one cup is an English cup, not American)

Notes regarding Method:

1.  Eons ago I used a double boiler.  That was when I was still living at home so I now improvise and use a metal bowl over a pot with a small amount of simmering water.  It is my Mum who uses the microwave and I realise it depends on the wattage of your microwave as to how long you microwave for – theirs is quite a high wattage.

3.  Egg whites – I find that if I can turn the bowl upside down and they do not fall out that they are beaten enough.

6.  So that no one else has to go through the same pain I did the first time I made this, do not add the brandy by itself to the melted chocolate first – it sets like concrete.  I found that if I add the brandy to the eggs or brandy after the egg yolks it mixes fine.

8.  Wish I had thought about using a rubber scraper / spatula before now for folding – alot easier.

10.  Depending on what else is sitting in your fridge covering the bowl/s with glad wrap / cling film or similar helps keep out other aromas from the mousse.

11.  My mum tends to grate the chocolate earlier in the day and keep in the fridge in a small covered container.  We both use the grated cheese side of a grater to make the grated chocolate.

Notes Other: The chocolate mousse is better if it can be made the day / evening before.  Nice with a bit of added whipped cream.  If in individual dishes looks pretty dolloped on top with the chocolate sprinkled on.  Am guessing brandy essence could be used instead of real brandy.  Not sure have never used it.

Update: Sue, the owner of this recipe, wanted me to add a note here. She says Extra Heavy Double or Heavy Whipping Cream might work better for this chocolate mousse.

I was looking over previous posts in my blog and realized that I haven’t told about lokum yet. So what am I waiting for? Lokum is known as Turkish delight in English and around the world. However, I will use its Turkish version, lokum in this post. Lokum is a Turkish traditional confection which is like a jelly candy.It has a soft, elastic texture and coated with powder sugar or coconut. You must see its bright jelly when you bite. There are hundreds of variatons, so you can see lokum in various colors, sizes, shapes (in cubes or rolls) and flavors. Some are softer, some are thicker, some are flavored with fruit, rosewater or gum mastic, some have pistachios, hazelnuts or walnuts and some are plain. But their main ingredients are the same: sugar, starch, water and citric acid.

Its origin goes back to Ottoman times and it was the major delight for most of its people. Its reputation continued after the collapse of Ottoman Empire. As its ingredients were so simple, it was affordable for everyone and this made it their sole dessert. People would celebrate every important event with lokum. When they had important guests, they would serve lokum after dinner. Children’s eyes would light up when they were given lokum in cute hand made handkerchieves during festivals. People would take a package of lokum to the family of their bride to be at their first meeting. It means they want to have a conversation as sweet as lokum. And it was a good way to persuade the family to approve the daughter’s marriage with their son.

Today it still plays the leading role for important events for tradition lovers. As chocolate has a stronger industry network, it seems like lokum has been dethroned by chocolate. It can be said that tourists visiting Turkey eat lokum more than local people. However, it still keeps its crown for a few events. There is an islamic ceremony called mevlit, which  is a poem telling about the birth of the  Prophet Muhammed and it is held by most of the people in memory of someone in their family or when they are newly married or when they buy a new house. People invite guests to listen to imam who says this poem aloud with a melodic tone. And lokum is served to guests after he finishes the poem.

Also, it is still the greatest treat to serve with Turkish coffee. If you think chocolate goes perfect with Turkish coffee, I strongly recommend you to try it with lokum. Turkish coffee was served sugar free and people would balance its bitterness with lokum in their mouth. They would keep sucking a cube of lokum in their mouth until they finish their coffee. It’s not the method we use today as sugar in coffee is optional, but it’s still great with Turkish coffee.

Also, lokum is a word used for metaphors in Turkish language. Lokum-like person means a person with a good character, lokum-like peach(or any other fruit) means it is ripe enough, lokum-like lamb(or any other meat) means it is cooked very well.

Finally, I would like to share the recipe of my favorite snack with lokum: Get two biscuits, put a cube of lokum between them and press gently. Your lokum sandwich is ready!

I will not give an exact recipe of lokum as it’s not something we make at home, so try to find it at nearest Asian market or online markets.

Okay, this is not something I made. And this will not be a post in which I give a recipe. It will be a kind of description post. As I am from Tarsus, a small town in Mersin, a Southern city of Turkey, it is a must for me to tell about this amazing sweet snack called cezerye in Turkish. Cezerye is a specialty sweet in Tarsus and Mersin. When people visit these cities, they buy pacakages of cezerye to take with them and give their friends. My parents live there and always bring a package for us whenever they visit us.

There are several shops in Tarsus that make and sell cezerye, but one of them named Gorallar is the best. It may sound a very simple carrot sweet, but there is absolutely a flavor difference among cezeryes produced by different shops. I’ve had the chance of tasting several different cezeryes and absolutely  found the one made by Gorallar the most scrumptious. Unfortunately, they don’t give the exact recipe, they keep it as a secret. When you ask for its recipe, they just say that they mix carrot, sugar, nuts and cinnamon. I’m sure it’s more than this though.

Another reason why I love especially this candy shop is that they have a very nice package. When you open its cover, you see some beautiful photos of important and touristic places in Tarsus. Let me give their names. From left to right: Cleopatra’s Gate, Grand Mosque, St. Paul’s Well, Donuktas The Roman Temple. Many tourists visit Tarsus to see these places every year. St. Paul’s church and well have the utmost attraction among these. I think it is such a nice detail to place these photos inside a sweet package.

Moreover, Gorallar gives you a booklet informing you about the origin of cezerye. And you find more information about Tarsus history including St. Paul’s Well, St. Paul’s church, Celopatra’s Gate, Eshab-ı Kehf(Cave of the seven sleepers), Doctor Lokman, The Sahmeran Legend etc.

So what is cezerye? Let me quote it from this booklet:

Cezerye, which was according to the rumors recommended to patients by “Loqman The Wise”, who lived in Tarsus, has highly nutritious and aphrodisiac effect besides its healing effect. Cezerye, whose main ingredient is carrot, contains a number of minerals and vitamins A1, B1, B2 and E, consisting of its composition of dry nuts and spices. Also it contains no cholesterol.

The booklet also says that cezer, the root of cezerye means carrot in Arabic. So it might have been invented by Arabic people as there is still an Arabic population in some regions of Tarsus. Although It’s not written in this booklet, I must say that the lusciousness of cezerye is hidden in spices in it. These spices are not said aloud, as it’s their secret, but dad says it contains cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, and clove. Maybe amounts of these spices determine the outstanding taste of their cezerye. Also, it has varieties with walnut, pistachio and hazelnut (my favorite). It is sold either in big pieces (as in my package) or in rectangular and thicker bars (as in the picture of the recipe I’ve found for you).

Cezerye is generally bought from shops and as I’ve said above, not every cezerye tastes the same. So it’s a bit risky o try it at home. This time ‘homemade foods are always better’ doesn’t work, so I’ve never tried it at home. We are lucky enough to buy them here. Maybe you can find it too at online markets selling Turkish foods. However, I searched a recipe for you and find one here in case you want to try it yourself. I will translate it for you.

Ingredients
-    400g carrot
-    200g sugar
-    100g walnut, crumbled
-    Grated coconut
-    A little water

Grate carrots and put it in a large pot. Melt sugar in a little water and pour this into the pot. Boil it over medium heat. Do not pour much water at the beginning  as carrots also release their juice. Adding little hot water when necessary is better.

Boil it stirring occasionally until carrots melt and it has a mastic thickness. To understand it is okay, take a little piece with a spoon and roll it between your thumb and forefinger. If it sticks on one finger when you give up rolling, it is done.

Take it from fire and throw crumbled walnut into the pot and mix it well. Wet the counter and pour this carrot paste on it. Give it a rectangular shape with a spatula. Don’t make it too thin. Let it rest and get cold.

When it gets cold enough, wet a knife and cut it in rectangles. Wet the knife often when cutting, otherwise the sweet sticks on it and it gets hard to cut.

As a final step, coat the carrot bars with grated coconut and then serve.

Sleeping in such a room placed in a heavenly area was fantastic, but waking up was more impressive. Scent of pine trees and sounds of  birds and grasshoppers coming from pine trees in the morning make you open your eyes easily. You never feel reluctant to wake up here.

Knowing that you will have a great breakfast under pine trees feeling the breeze from sea is another impulsion that makes you get up quickly. I wish I had a picture of the whole breakfast, but I’ve given my excuse above.

After getting enough energy at breakfast, we were ready to go to the beach, waiting for us at the end of this greenness. No need to mention how blue and clean the sea was. From pure green to pure blue might be a summary of this place.

As we don’t like sunbathing, we turned back to our room when we got tired. In front of our room was a hammock among trees. Would you prefer lying under sun or in this hammock facing the sky and tree branches?

And we had our routine after dinner walk on this path and on the beach watching the beautiful sunset.

As this is a food blog, now let me share a recipe of another Turkish dessert called revani, which I made some months ago. I don’t have any idea what it means, so I can’t translate it. I know there was a Turkish poet with that name years ago, but I’m not sure if there is a connection between him and this yummy semolina dessert.

Revani
Ingredients
For cake
-    3 eggs
-    ½ cup sugar
-    1 cup yogurt
-    1 cup sunflower oil
-    3 tbsp flour
-    1 cup semolina
-    1tbsp vanilla
-    ½ tsp baking soda
-    1 tbsp baking powder
-    1 tbp grated lemon zest
For syrup
-    3 cups sugar
-    3 cups water
-    ½ lemon

Start with preparing syrup. Put water and sugar ina pot and bring it to boil. Let it boil for about 5 minutes, then put half of a lemon in it. You don’t need to squeeze it. This is to make the syrup a bit thick. You will also give a fresh zest flavor to your dessert in this way. Boil it for about 3 minutes and let it rest.

Preheat the oven at 180C.
It’s time to prepare the cake now. Beat eggs and sugar well. Add yogurt and oil and mix. Then put the other ingredients and mix them all.

Oil a small oven tray (I used a square one) and pour the batter in it. Bake it until golden brown. Take it from fire and pour the syrup cold on this cake. It’s important that the syrup is cold enough. If it’s still hot and if you pour it on the cake, your cake gets doughy.

When the cake absorbs most of the syrup, you can sprinkle ground pistachio on it before serving.

I have the photos of some sweet foods which I made before, so I will share them with you for the last time. Actually, I wasn’t sure about writing on them but my husband encouraged me to do. And the first one is this pear dessert which we loved so much as it was so easy to make and not heavy.

Fırında Armut Tatlısı
Ingredients
-    3 pears
-    3 tbsp butter, at room temperature
-    2 tbsp sugar
-    Pomegranate seeds for garnish

Preheat oven at 220C.

Wash pears and cut a bit from their bottoms to make them stand still. Oil an oven tray. Then coat pears with butter. Use your hands to do this.

Put sugar on a plate and coat pears with sugar by rolling them in sugar. Then place them in tray. Cover it with aluminuim foil. Bake it for 20 minutes. Then uncover and bake it for 15 minutes until tender.

Take a pear on a plate. Take a little of its juice from tray and drizzle it over pear. As a final touch, scatter pomegranate seeds on it and serve warm.

We didn’t want to use whipped cream not to make it heavy. And you see there is little nigella sativa on it. It was a bright idea of my husband. He wanted to make it healthier by adding this miraculous spice. We’ve learnt that it has numerous benefits to our body as it is antioxidant and anticancer and as we love its bitter flavor, we use it in small amounts in several dishes. You can find more information about nigella sativa here.

As we were talking about these, I learnt that Foodbuzz is sponsoring a posting challenge and Top 9 takeover (The theme is Banana Split) to help raise money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. So I thought we shouldn’t wait any longer to make this awesome summer dessert. We will be so happy to be involved in such a great cause. If you also want to feel part of it, visit http://www.kelly-confidential.com/foodbuzz and create your own banana split to help Electrolux and Kelly Ripa raise money for this cause.

Dondurmalı Muz
Ingredients
-    1 banana
-    3 scoops vanilla ice cream
-    1 tbsp honey
-    1 tbsp caramel sauce
-    1 tsp pistachio
-    1 tsp crumbled hazelnut
-    ½ tsp nigella sativa
-    3 sour cherries (We took cherries from the cherry jam we made a while ago)
Place ice cream scoops next to each other in an oval dish.
Peel the banana and cut it lengthwise. Put each half on each side of ice cream line.
Drizzle honey and caramel sauce over ice cream and banana slices.
Top each scoop first with pistachio then with cherries.
Finally sprinkle crumbled nuts and nigella sativa randomly.
You can wait it in freezer for 3 minutes before serving if you want your bananas as cold as ice cream.
Mom II wanted to contribute to this post with a drawing. Look at this cool artist with his pipe! And who can show a more beautiful banana than the model here.