Heat olive oil and add carrots, cabbage and leek in this order. Let them cook for a few minutes.

Mix pepper paste and water until smooth. Pour it into the pot and add boiled lentils. Cover the pot and cook it over low medium heat for about 20 minutes.

Pour lemon juice, add salt and black pepper and cook it for 10 minutes more until all vegetables are tender. You can add a little more water if it absorbs all water and needs some more.

Serve this stew hot accompanied by a bowl of yogurt.

Green tomatoes took my attention first as they reminded me of the movie named “Fried Green Tomatoes”, which was my favorite as a child. I had always wanted to try this non Turkish dish,  somehow I couldn’t. I didn’t want to miss it this season though, so I bought a kilo of green tomatoes just to try once. I didn’t remember how they do this in the movie, so I fried them just like how mom fries cauliflower. The result was awesome! We loved that they were crunchy outside and moist and a bit sourish inside.

Put whisked egg in a bowl, panko crumbs in another bowl.

Heat corn oil in a frying pan over medium heat.

Dip tomato slices first in the egg mixture, then into panko crumbs and place them in hte hot pan. Fry them until golden on both sides.

Take them on a plate covered with paper towel to remove excessive oil. Serve with a mixture of strained yogurt, garlic, chopped fresh dill and red pepper flakes.

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat and saute onion and red bell pepper. Add potatoes and stir for a few minutes. Add a little water if necessary.

Add peas and hot water. Increase heat and bring it to boil.

Reduce heat to medium, add salt and black pepper; cover the pot and cook for about 20 minutes until patotoes and peas tender. Set aside to cool.

Mix lemon juice and the rest of the olive oil, pour it over the dish. Garnish it with fresh dill and serve.

We loved our new home so much that we haven’t had any adaptation problems. It is in a more convenient place. The rooms are well lighted and airy. We have two balconies and we have already started micro plantation there. We planted mint and basil seeds and young tomato plants in pots and put them in our balconies. It’s a great feeling to grow something in your balcony, especially from seed!

Anyway, I can say that we are much happier in our new home and I’m ready to go on sharing recipes, food and culture related topics with you.

These zucchini coins were made about a month ago on a day when we didn’t want to spend much time for cooking as we had lots of other things to do. It’s super easy and surprisingly tasty! If you like fried zucchini, but don’t want it to be unhealthy (you know frying is not that healthy!), try this oven baked version!

Heat oven at 180C.

Mix grated tomatoes, pepper paste, mashed garlic, thyme, black pepper, salt and olive oil in a very large bowl. Toss in thinly chopped (not peeled) zucchinis. Mix them with your hand so that zuchhini coins are coated with the sauce.

Brush a baking tray with olive oil. Place zucchini coins in it. If there is any tomato sauce left, pour it on coins. Bake about 30 minutes until tender.

You can serve it with yogurt.

It’s not traditional to serve okra with unripe grapes on it, but I love to have them whole when eating okra. Besides, I think they make the dish more colorful with their bright greenness.

Check out tips for cooking okra here.

Heat olive oil and saute onion until golden. Add green and red peppers, stir.

Toss in tomatoes and garlic and cook for 10 minutes over medium heat.

Put okra on them and do not stir.

Pour verjuice on okras right after putting them in the pot. Verjuice will prevent it from getting slimmy. Cover the pot and cook for about 10 minutes.

Pour ½ cup hot water in the pot and add chickpeas, black pepper and salt. Let it cook until tender for about 20 minutes.

Serve it hot with a garnish of a few unripe green grapes.

Lamb is always the most preferable meat in Turkish cuisine and almost all Turkish people love it. Lamb is at the same time the most expensive meat here, so although it is the most favorite one, unfortunately not all people can afford it. As for the health issue, lamb is not the best meat because of the amount of fat it contains. There is no doubt that lamb is more fatty than beef, so it is indeed good for people’s health not to eat lamb very often.

To balance so healthy with not so healthy, stuffing artichoke with lamb is a gret idea! Also, it will fascinate your guests at a dinner party.

Place artichokes in a pot, pour water, cover and boil until it absorbs water and gets tender. If you have fresh and whole artichoke, you can chop its stalk and put in the same pot.

For the filling, heat olive oil over medium heat, add chopped lamb, black pepper, cumin and thyme. Saute a few minutes. Then add peppers and saute them all until lamb pieces get tender enough. Finally, add salt and cinnamon. Put it aside.

Stuff artichokes with this filling and put them back in the pot you boil them, cover the pot. You can add little water in the pot if necessary. Cook about 5 min over low heat.

Serve them hot with chopped artichoke stalk and carrot on the same plate.

Heat olive oil and saute onion and carrot. Add celery root and apple, stir. Pour water and bring to boil.

Whisk egg yolk, lemon juice and flour in a bowl. Dissolve this mixture with a few ladles of boiling water of the stew mixing very quickly. Pour it little by little to the stew.

Slice the squeezed lemon into four and toss it into the stew. Add salt and stir. Take it from stove. Add chopped fresh dill.

Serve hot with pilaf and yogurt.

I made something different this time. Hubby bought a big package of brussels sprouts, and it was impossible to finish them by adding into salads. And I decided to make a main dish with these cute balls. And I thought they would be perfect pairs with meatballs in the same size. So this is how this dish came out. It turned out to be a wonderful dish and I’m sure it will take its place on our table again very soon!

I’ve heard from Daily Spud, a fellow blogger of mine and one of the best Irish food bloggers, that St. Patrick’s Day is very close! This is a special day celebrated in Irish culture. I would like to join this celebration by sending this tasty brussels sprouts with meatballs to Paddy’s Day Food Parade held by Daily Spud in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. I can’t wait to see other foods at this parade at her blog on March 17. Don’t forget to check her blog on that special day to enjoy all the foods at the parade!

Wash brussel sprouts well, you can remove the first layer of leaves from each if they are not good in condition.

Put them in a pot with some water and boil until a little tender. Don’t overcook them because this is just the first step of cooking. They will be cooked with meatballs for the second time later.

When they are done, transfer them directly into very cold water. Wait them there while you are preparing other things.

And do not waste the water you use to boil the sprouts. You will use some of this water in your dish.

You can start preparing meatballs now. Combine all ingredients for meatballs very well.

Make balls from this mixture. Try to make them as big or small as sprouts.

Heat olive oil in a pan and toss meatballs into it. And fry them turning them over a few times. Then take them over a paper towel to remove excessive oil.

Now you can start making the dish combining these meatballs and boiled sprouts. To do this, heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a pan. Saute onion and carrot in it.

Throw meatballs and sprouts into the pan. Stir.

Mix pepper paste and the boiling water of sprouts in a bowl and pour this into the pot. Sprinkle black pepper, cumin and salt. Squeeze lemon and cover the pan. Cook it for about 15 minutes over low heat.

Garnish it with green onions before serving.

You can serve it with pilaf and yogurt or cacik.

We have a small radio in the kitchen and it is a great assistant when cooking. Listening to music when preparing breakfast makes me ready for the day and listening to news when preparing dinner helps me catch up with the day. So I heard a survey when preparing dinner today. It is about eating habits of women from different countries. According to the result of this survey, French women don’t eat everything on their plate, they leave some of it. American women eat it all, they don’t leave anything and Turkish women not only finish what they have on their plate, but they also eat the food their children leave on their plate. Funny but true! I mean it’s true for Turkish women, but I don’t know about the other two.

So do you eat up everything on your plate or leave some of it?

I don’t remember how many times I have heard that cabbage has so many benefits for health this year. Our favorite cabbage dish is stuffed cabbage rolls, but I can’t make it as often as I want because of my limited time. And I have discovered a great alternative cabbage dish to stuffed rolls: Cabbage stew! It wasn’t a dish I had made before, it just came to my mind all of a sudden when I was trying to decide what vegetable to buy at bazaar one day. Cabbages on the stand looked so fresh and small enough for me to carry. I was tempted to buy a head, but I didn’t have time to make stuffed rolls. Then I thought a stew with cabbage, ground beef and bulgur could be as tasty. There would be no stuffing and rolling, but the same taste with almost the same ingredients with our regular cabbage rolls. You can guess the vendor was also trying to persuade me to buy while I was planning how to cook this stew in my mind. I’m glad I bought cabbage that day and made this stew because it has become one of our favorite dish now!

When planning the recipe, I wasn’t sure if we would love it because cabbage stew is not one of those much liked dishes in Turkey. But I was determined to cook and see myself if it could become a hit or not. How could a dish with ground beef and cabbage become tasteless? To our surprise, it was superb! As it is very easy and doesn’t require a lot of time to cook this cabbage stew, I’ve made it several times since then. Try it when cabbage is still in season!

Chop cabbage roughly and put them in a large pot with water. Pour vinegar on them and wait until you make other preparations. Then drain.

Heat olive oil in a pot. Saute onion and carrot a few minutes. Add pepper paste and mix.

Put ground beef, stir and cook it until it absorbs the water it releases.

Toss in chopped cabbage and bulgur. Add salt and spices.

Cook it over high heat for about 5 minutes. Pour hot water, squeeze lemon on it, stir, cover the pot and bring to the lowest heat. It’s done in 30 minutes.

Serve it hot with a bowl of yogurt. I love to squeeze extra lemon on it, so you might try it too!

Cauliflower is not a favorite vegetable of most people, maybe because of its tastelessness,  you know it doesn’t have a distinctive flavor. Some people may also not love its scent when boiling. I know a great tip to remove that nasty smell: Put half lemon into its water and then boil. Your kitchen will never smell  that bad with the help of this lemon. We will throw it away when cauliflower florets are done.

This cauliflower casserole is the dish which made us love cauliflower, even get addicted to it! I learnt it from a colleague. We would hardly have cauliflower before I learnt how to make this tasty dish from her, so I owe her a lot! A I know it’s a healthy Winter vegetable, I tried several recipes and they couldn’t make this magical effect on us. I’m not that picky, there is no vegetable that I don’t eat. But I enjoy some of them more, cauliflower was absolutely not of my favorite vegetables. My husband would have more difficulty in eating this lovely but bland flower like vegetable. Not anymore! He now asks when we will have cauliflower next. So if anyone in your family has a problem with cauliflower, try this recipe. I promise it will become one of your favorite vegetables.

Note: Cauliflower means Karnabahar in Turkish, which means ‘Spring in stomach’. Isn’t it so cute? Let cauliflower bring Spring in your stomach with this tasty casserole too!

Cut the cauliflower head into bite-sized florets. Wash them well. Put them in a large pot with half lemon and pour water onto them. Boil until florets tender, but not mushy. Cooking for 15 minutes after boiling will be enough.

Take it from stove and drain. Don’t pour any cold water on them. Keep them as they are.

Meanwhile prepare the ground beef mixture in a separate pot. Put ground beef in a pot, cover the pot and cook it over medium heat until it releases water and absorbs back. Stir it occasionally. Then add olive oil, chopped onion and green pepper, stir. Don’t cover the pot at this step.  Toss chopped tomato after a few minutes. Mix pepper paste and hot water in a bowl and pour it into the pot. Cover the pot and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

Then add salt and a generous amount of ground black pepper. Cook it for about 10 or 15 minutes more.

Preheat oven at 200 C.

Transfer the boiled cauliflower florets into a baking dish (I used an oval casserole dish) when they are still hot. We don’t need to oil the dish. Toss half of grated kasar cheese on them. This cheese gives a great flavor to cauliflower, so don’t skip this ingredient.

Then spread ladles of ground beef mixture to cover the clauflower florets. Press on it with the reverse side of a spoon to make it tight so that it will be easier to share it on plates when serving. Bake it for about 20 minutes.

Take it from oven and layer the rest of cheese on the top. Bake it until the cheese melts for about 5 minutes.

Serve it hot. You can slice it in squares and share it on plates. A small bowl of yogurt will make a perfect pair with this wonderful cauliflower dish.