Put chickpeas and chopped tomato, onion and greens in a bowl. Mix with a spoon.
For dressing, mix all ingredients in a cup. Pour it on your salad and serve.

We also serve it with lentil balls (mercimekli kofte). We generally make lentil balls more than needed to share with a few neighbors and there is a special presentation of lentil balls and onion salad on a plate to give it to a neighbor. Here is how. We line up lentil balls on a plate leaving the middle empty, then we fill it with a little onion salad, so it is onion salad surrounded with lentil balls.

You don’t of course need to make kebab or lentil balls to enjoy onion salad if you are a big fan of onion. These are just traditional ways of serving onion salad, and you can absolutely eat it with anything just like two of us. We love to have it both with meat and vegetable dishes or in our sandwiches. And it is super easy too! You can use either red or white onion for it, but my favorite is red. Do try it with your favorite dish!

Slice onions in half moon. Sprinkle salt and sumac and rub onion slices with your hand.

Toss in chopped parsley. Squeeze half lemon in it, add extra virgin olive oil and mix.

You can serve it with a few drops of pomegranate molasses.

Boil green beans until tender and transfer them into cold water so that they stop cooking and keep their color.

Wait them in cold water for some minutes and drain. Put them in a bowl.

Toss in onion, red bell pepper, corn and fresh dill. Add salt, sumac and lemon juice, mix.

Drizzle olive oil on the salad and top it with feta.

Serve it cold.

This is another favorite green bean recipe of us. How do you enjoy yours?

Personally, I believe that salad must be nutritious enough if it is the only dish as your meal. Otherwise, just a green salad may not give you enough energy and you get hungry soon.

This black-eyed pea salad could make a perfect lunch with the ingredients it contains as it helps you feel full for a long time. You can still serve it as a complementary dish to have a variety on your table.

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl except sliced tomatoes.
Mix everything for dressing in a separate cup and drizzle over salad.
Serve on a plate with sliced tomatoes alongside.

Cut broccoli into bite-sized florets. Wash them well.

Fill about a liter of water in a pot and put broccoli florets into it. Heat it and boil about 10 minutes until tender, but not mushy. Once it’s done, transfer broccoli florets in a large bowl filled with very cold  water. You can even add ice cubes to make it colder. Wait florets in this icy water for some minutes. And drain. It will preserve its bright green color in this way.

Mix extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, mashed garlic, salt and chili powder. Pour this mixture on broccoli florets, combine them well and it’s ready!

You can serve it with any chicken or meat dish or with fish.

Wheat has a significant place in our culture. There are many traditions and idioms related to it. One of these idioms is “Bugday basak verince orak pahaya cikar.” This can be translated as follows: Sickle becomes valuable only when ear of wheat apears. It means things which you find trivial at ordinary times gain value and importance when you are in need of them. For example, nobody needs coal in Summer and it is of no value and cheap then, but when Winter comes and when people need coal to heat their houses, it comes into a great value.

We love to use wheat in both side dishes and main dishes. I’m going to a colorful and flavorful salad with wheat today, no need to mention how healthy it is. To learn more recipes with wheat, check keskek and wheat pilaf, both of which are traditional wedding dishes.

Boil soaked wheat until tender, but not mushy. When it’s done, wash it with cold water and drain.

Combine boiled wheat, green onions, red bell pepper, mint, parsley, tomato, walnuts and sunflower seeds in a bowl.

Mix lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and salt. Pour it on wheat salad and serve.

You can have this as a side dish or have it as a nutritious lunch.

Radish always reminds me of Winter, it is like the symbol of this season. And we love to eat it raw as a side dish. Even we have a green salad on table, a plate of radish slices is often paired with it. Sometimes when we don’t have enough time to prepare a big salad with many ingredients, just a simple radish salad accompanies our dinner. These pink beauties will make your dinner healthier and tastier, so try it!
You can make this with white raish or black radish too.

Slice radishes in thin rings (I prefer not peeling them as I love their pink color). Chop green onion and fresh dill. Toss them in a bowl.

Mix lemon juice, olive oil, black and red pepper and salt. Drizzle this mixture on radishes and serve.

We love to have it especially with boiled chickpeas/wedding dish and pilaf.

You know Mom II (hubby’s mom) from my older posts where you can see some cartoons drawn by her. This canned fresh thyme is a gift from her. She is a big nature lover and a member of TEMA (The Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion, for Reforestation and the Protection of Natural Habitats). They visit small villages to enlighten villagers about erosion and importance of forests. As they love to be in nature,  they go to countryside on foot. She says it sometimes takes more than 2 hours. And she also has a small group with whom she goes hiking at weekend to mountains around her city to get familiar with trees, flowers and herbs closely. They have herb picking sessions. They even climb to the peak. She says the city looks splendid from there. And they pick fresh daisies, sage, St. John’s wort, thyme from there. She says the highest, the better as herbs are cleaner there as they are away from exhaust pollution. They dry these herbs and make their own herbal teas.

She picked this fresh thyme in one of these sessions last April and canned it for us. We have this fresh thyme at breakfast. Does it sound weird? But it goes perfect with a slice of bread topped with cheese or olives. Also, you know there are always sliced tomatoes and cucumbers at a typical Turkish breakfast and this canned thyme makes a perfect touch to these veggies. You can even use it as an addition to your salads, especially with meat or chicken dishes.

She said there wasn’t exact measurement for this.

Taze Kekik Konservesi
Ingredients
-    Fresh thyme
-    Extra virgin olive oil

Wash thyme well and dry it until it losts wetness. Separate  it into bite-sized pieces. Put them in a jar and pour extra virgin olive oil onto them until it covers their surface. And place the lid on jar and tighten it. That’s it!

You can take fresh thyme from jar whenever you want. I sprinkle little salt and squeeze lemon on it before serving. We don’t add these to the jar as they may cause decay.

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!

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.

Patates Salatasi

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