Beetroot Sauce

(drawing by mom)

Are you those kind of people who love to snack while watching a movie or while working on your PC? If you are, what kind of things do you eat or drink? We sometimes have dried fruits with Turkish tea or cheese and red wine or beer and pistachio, crackers or chips. And we love to try new sauces with chips and crackers and our favorite ingredients in these sauces is strained yogurt, which might be called greek yogurt abroad.

I have heard many times that beetroot is on top of healthy foods. It is said that beetroot protects our body from diabetes and tuberculosis, helps liver work regularly and overcomes anaemia. Some doctors even claim that beetroot juice can be a remedy for cancer. So I’ve decided to have it more often in my kitchen. I’ve been trying to discover some new dishes with beetroot. Some fast food restaurants here have a pink sauce that is taking my attention and I love to have it in sandwiches or on baked potatoes. I’ve learnt that they make it by mixing yogurt and beetroot.

I had been planning to make this sauce for some time until last Friday. We made this pink appetizing dip on Friday and have it with crackers while watching a movie called Soul Kitchen by a famous Turkish director, Fatih Akın. It is an amusing movie about an unlucky man trying to save his restaurant. We enjoyed it a lot and it was also great to have something to eat while watching as there were always people eating and drinking something in that restaurant.

Pancar Sos
Ingredients
-    2 beetroots
-    2 cloves garlic, mashed
-    Fresh dill, chopped
-    ½ cup strained yogurt
-    1 tbsp mayonnaise
-    Salt

Boil the beetroots without peeling. When they are soft enough, take them from fire, wash and peel. You can drink the remaing water in the pot. I squeeze some lemon in it and I loveto drink it when it gets cold enough.

Grate or puree the peeled beetroots.

Mix strained yogurt, mayonnaise, salt and mashed garlic until combined very well. Then add the beetroot and chopped fresh dill. Put it ina bowl and serve it with crackers or chips.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Shepherd’s Salad

This salad is said to be the most popular and traditional Turkish salad. As the original names of dishes are as important as their flavor for me, I must start with a brief explanation on  its name. This salad is originally the main dish of shepherds. Shepherd is a person who pastures goats, sheep and cows on mountains. A village has generally only one shepherd and everyone entrusts their small and great cattle to him. He is of course paid for this. In ancient times, shepherds would receive some foods produced or made by the people in that village. These  might be wheat, flour, vegetables, fruits, molasses, dairy products, etc. Although there are still people who pay their shepherds with such foods, paying money is more common today.

A typical Turkish shepherd has a few dogs with him, and these dogs are called shepherd’s dog. This name is also the name of that breed. They are the best friends of him as they help him control the herd. Also, if the shepherd falls to sleep, these dogs become the guard of the herd and the shepherd. These dogs  protect them from wild animals or thieves.

Another important characteristic of a typical Turkish shepherd is that he plays a special instrument called shepherd’s pipe (kaval in Turkish). This instrument is made of a plant like reed. Especially sheep and cows love the sound of kaval. The rhythm of its music is so important as it makes the animals more submissive. The shepherd plays a slow music when the animals are drinking (is it the right verb here?) water from a river and he plays a more rhythmic music while they are grazing.

You can listen to and watch a Turkish man playing shepherd’s pipe in this video. You can also see a typical shepherd and a flock of sheep with a shepherd’s dog here.

Shepherds hit the trail early in the morning and he takes subsistence food in a bundle. His bundle contains tomato, cucumber, pepper, onion (the basic ingredients of shepherd’s salad) and a little bread. All of these vegetables are grown in the village yard and the bread is of course made by the women of that village. He chops these vegetables and eat them with bread for lunch, maybe some cheese or olives accompany this salad but nothing more.

Today, this salad doesn’t belong just to shepherds, all people living either in villages or in big cities love it. This salad is generally served with kebab or other meat dishes and grilled or fried fish. Also, shepherd’s salad is served before the main dish in restaurants to keep the customers busy with the salad while they are waiting for their order. We love to dip a piece of bread in this salad. Although we don’t want to finish it before kebab, it’s impossible to stop eating it. We sometimes order a second one to accompany our kebab or meatballs or another tasty meat dish. And there is always extra vinegar and olive oil in bottles on the table for those who want to add more of these in their salad.

Çoban Salata
Ingredients
-    3 big tomatoes
-    1 medium cucumber
-    2 green peppers
-    1 big onion
-    Half bunch of parsley
-    2 tbsp sumac
-    1 lemon
-    1 tbsp vinegar
-    2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
-    Salt to taste
-    Olives to garnish

Chop the tomatoes, cucumber and peppers in equally small cubes. Do not peel the cucumbers and tomatoes. Put the chopped vegetables in a bowl. Dice the onion in the same way, but before adding them in the bowl, rub them with sumac. Chop the parsley and mix all of them.

Now squeeze the lemon, add vinegar, olive oil and salt to the salad. This salad is not served in a bowl, a boat shaped dish is used instead. And you can garnish it with a few olives before serving.

Note: I would like to thank to Tangled Noodle, one of my blogger friends. She honored me so much not only by trying one of my recipes but also by writing on my blog in details in her last post, Food By Friends: Give Recipe. I felt like a famous cook when reading her post. My cheeks got red many times each time I read a nice word there. So many thanks to her for starting her series of ‘Food by Friends’ with my blog. She shares her observations and experiences related to food. Reading her posts is always so enjoyable and informative for me. I learn even some ethnic dishes of Philippines from her, but haven’t tried them yet as they always include an ingredient that I can’t find in Turkey. However, she shows in her blog that we can substitute these ingredients with similar ones, so I have more courage now to try one of her recipes. If you still don’t know her blog, go check it!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

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)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

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

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

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)

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Spinach with Yogurt

Yoğurtlu Ispanak

We thought that we’d been living the last days of winter, but this morning we understood that it’s too early for winter to leave us. It was so cold and snowy again this morning. So I thought we still have time for cooking fresh spinach.

There was an open market in our neighborhood today and we bought some winter vegetables from there such as spinach, leek, celery, carrots. And we gave the priority to spinach. I generally prefer cooking it with eggs or making borek with it, but today I tried something I learnt from mom again. While she was giving the recipe on the phone, I didn’t think it would worth writing it here as it was so simple. I think the word “simple” exactly defines it.  And mom must have realized my thoughts on her recipe as she continually added how tasty it was.

I decided to give this spinach salad a chance. We made it as a side dish near pasta topped with white cheese. And it becomes one of our favorite. It was incredibly delicious.

I have still some suspicions on eating spinach and yogurt together, I made some search but couldn’t find a consensus on it. Some say yogurt makes it healthier, some say yogurt decreases its vitamins. I decided not to be so cautious this time for the sake of this hearty spinach salad. We love it so much that we’ll make it often.

Ingredients
•    500g spinach
•    1 cup yogurt
•    3 cloves garlic,mashed
•    2 tsp red pepper flakes
•    3 tbsp olive oil
•    2 tsp salt

Wash and clean the spinach very well. Put it in a pot, add salt on it. I prefer not chopping them. Cover the pot and cook it over medium heat until the spinach leaves change their color to dark green and become soft. Do not add any water as the leaves release their own water. Don’t overcook them, 10 or 15 minutes will be enough.

Take the boiled spinach leaves on a plate. Set it aside.

Mix the mashed garlic with yogurt and pour some on the spinach.

In a small pan, heat olive oil and fry red pepper flakes. Drizzle it on spinach and yogurt.

You see how simple it is, but I can gurantee you’ll be a fan of this side dish/salad just like us after trying. Of course if you don’t have any problems with vegetables.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Piyaz

Piyaz is the name of an appetizer or salad made of dried beans. In Turkey, it is generally served as a salad near grilled meatballs. They are one of the best couples. You can ask for piyaz in all meatball restaurants here. Besides, you can also have it as a main dish if you don’t feel like having a big lunch or dinner.

Ingredients
•    1 cup dried beans, soaked overnight
•    2 scallions
•    A few leaves lettuce
•    A few leaves of parsley
•    A few leaves of fresh dill
•    1 red bell pepper
•    1 lemon
•    2 tbsp olive oil
•    salt

Drain the soaked beans and put them in a pot with  some water. Boil it until soft.

Drain the beans and put them in a bowl. Then chop scallions, lettuce, parsley, dill and pepper in the same bowl. Combine them well.

Squeeze one lemon into this mixture, add salt and olive oil and mix them with a spoon. Take this salad on a service plate. You can garnish it with some slices of turnip or tomato and lemon.

In some restaurants (especially the ones in Antalya), serve this salad with a little tahini sauce on them.

Some of them garnish it with some slices of boiled eggs seasoned with black and red pepper.

If you make meatballs or a meat dish, you should give this salad a try.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Grilled Eggplants

I can eat everything made from eggplant/aubergine. This vegetable attracts me first with its purple color, then with its so special taste. This attractive vegetable is low in calories and it has a lot of benefits for our health. It relaxes nerves, decreases blood pressure and the level of cholesterol in blood.

Maybe that’s why Turkish cooks make over 100 types of eggplant dishes. Some people like it in different types of salad, some in stew, some like it with meat, some like it fried, some like its pickles… You see we can count a lot of different types of dishes made from eggplant. I love all of them. In this post, you will see eggplants in appetizer form. It is like a salad of grilled vegetables, but we call it eggplant salad or grilled eggplants or babagannus in some regions. Eggplant is the main ingredient here, you may omit any vegetables for this salad, but not eggplant. This appetizer is best when vegetables are grilled on a wood fire. So if you have a chance, try it and see how its taste changes.

Ingredients

•    4 chubby eggplants
•    2 green peppers
•    1 red pepper
•    2 tomatoes
•    4 cloves garlic
•    A few leaves of parsley, minced
•    ½ lemon
•    3 tbsp pomegranate sour sauce
•    Salt
•    3 tbsp olive oil

Grill eggplants, tomatoes, green and red pepper in oven, in a pan or on grill. Chop all of them in the shapes you like.  Mash the garlic and combine it with this mixture. Then add the minced parsley in it.

Now it’s time for its sauce. Mix pomegranate sour sauce, lemon juice, olive oil and salt in a small cup. Then pour it on grilled and sliced vegetables. Combine them well. And it’s ready!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Coleslaw Recipe

This is another simple but delicious salad recipe. It goes very well with any kind of main dish. You can also make a sandwich with this salad by adding some cheese.

Ingredients

•    A small red cabbage
•    3 scallions
•    1 lemon
•    2 tbsp olive oil
•    1 teaspoon salt

Slice the red cabbage. Sprinkle salt and squeeze lemon on it. Wait it for at least half an hour.

Then chop the scallions and add it on the cabbage. Dress it with olive oil. If you like, you may also add some yogurt for dressing.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Eggplant/Aubergine Salad Recipe

This innocent vegetable is mostly known as harmful because of nicotine in it. However, it has a lot of benefits to our bodies as it includes vitamins A, B, and C. It has antioxidant compounds and it also helps lose weight. Moreover, it relaxes nerves.

Besides these benefits, its taste is so unique that there are about 60 different dishes made of it. It is said that if you are a smoker, you love eggplants, too. I think it’s not true for me. I love all dishes of eggplant although I can not bear even the smell of cigarette.

Here is an easy appetizer/salad recipe made of eggplant, which may go well with meat.

Ingredients

•    4 eggplants
•    2 garlic cloves, mashed
•    Fresh mint leaves
•    3 tbsp olive oil
•    ½ lemon
•    1 tbsp vinegar
•    salt

Wash the eggplants, pierce a few parts of each eggplant with a small knife. (In this way, eggplants will be easily roasted).

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Then place these eggplants in oven tray and roast them 20 minutes. (you can do this also with your grill).

As soon as you take them out of the oven, peel them (don’t forget to blow on your hands as they will be very hot). Then dice them on a shallow plate.

In a small bowl, put olive oil, vinegar, mashed garlic cloves, lemon juice and salt. Mix them together. Add fresh mint leaves in it and mix.

Finally, combine the roasted and diced eggplants with this mixture.

It sounds appetizing, doesn’t it?

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Next Page »