A New Year and new hopes, dreams, ideas, invites and cooking adventures.  To start of the New Year right, I invited my aunt Havva’s family along with my parents to host a traditional Turkish sit down dinner.  Since my aunts father in law is visiting and he visits so rarely I took upon this opportunity to host a graceful dinner.  In rare occasions like this,  I love our Turkish hospitality.  When great friends and/or immediate families are visiting we take the opportunity to invite them to our homes and show our respects.  If anyone of you have visited Turkey, I am sure you have experienced this first hand.  It is such a warm, humble and welcoming feeling.  For me this dinner was a special one because Grandfather Haci Muzaffer, resembles my own late grandfather in more then one way.  As he sat, chatted and played with daughter I thought about my own grandfather and how delighted I would have been to have him here with us.

Since it the New Year and we are all weight and health continuous, I opted to keep the menu light and yet still delicious. The above picture is Meat Dolma made by mom.

Middle Eastern aka Gray Squash – Stuffed with chopped meat, onions, pine nuts

Oven Roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes with Rosemary 

Brussels sprouts with onions & carrots

Oven roasted, Yellow & Green Zucchinis and Oven roasted Eggplant

Not Pictured but served along with:

Turkish Peasant Soup
Turkish Style Lamb Chops
Jasmine Rice cooked Turkish Style
Which recipes would you like first? Please leave a comment below.

We love our Sunday breakfasts and brunches, this past weekend we had some great company that joined us.  I would like to thank them from here for coming and sharing their Sunday with us.  I can assure you we had a wonderful time and hope to do it again really soon.  Aleyna and Aras, my cousins son played very well together, but since my lovely daughter woke up at the crack of dawn with my mom, she fell a sleep by noon.  She loves visitors and runs around being a silly hostess.

Lately all I’ve been doing is sharing these sweet recipes with you all, this time I’ll share a simple and easy salty dish.  Well it really it is not that saltly buy more savory.  Serve it warm with a few pieces of toast and your guest will be delighted. 

You see this dish is suppose to be cooked in a tart shell, but I honestly did not have the time to prepare the shell. I prepared and baked it like a frittata and it was also accompanied by a vegetable quiche. 

Oven Baked Caramalized Cauliflower
               adapted slightly from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

• 1 small head of cauliflower (about 1 pound), cored, cut into 1-inch florets
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 large onion, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced
• 2 large eggs
• 1 (7- to 8-ounce) mascarpone per original recipe
  mixture of 1/2 cream cheese and 1/2 sour cream or 1 200 grams Turkish Labne will work fine
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon of dry mint
• 1 cup grated Gruyère cheese or kasari
• salt

Preparation:

1. Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 425°F. Toss cauliflower with 2 tablespoon olive oil in large bowl. Spread on large rimmed baking sheet, spacing apart. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast 15 minutes (mine took about 25 minutes) turn florets over. Continue roasting until tender, about 25 minutes longer (added another 15 minutes). Cool cauliflower, then thinly slice. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F.
2. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add onion; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook until onion is deep golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 40 minutes. Cool slightly.
3. Brush bottom and sides a baking dish. Spread onion on to the bottom. Arrange cauliflower evenly over.
4. Whisk eggs, milk, mint ingredients in medium bowl. Stir in Gruyère or kasar. Pour mixture over filling in the pan.
5. Bake until top is golden and center is set, about 25-35 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool 15 minutes before serving.

 

This is not a simple chicken and rice dish, it is actually very flavourful and very filling. It is very simple to put together and serves very well.  Any sort of Indian rice works, it can be substituted with Jasmine rice or what ever sort of rice you prefer to use.  Just make sure to use the correct amount of water for the rice, other wise it will end up being soggy and mushy.

BASMATI RICE with CHICKEN, SAFFRON & SPICES

Ingredients
         For the Rice

• 2 cups of Basmati rice
• 4 tablespoons of canola oil
• 4 pods of cardamom – broken exposing the seeds
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 cups of chicken stock + 2 tablespoons of boiling water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 teaspoon crumbled saffron threads
• 1 cup slivered almonds – toasted

         For the Chicken

• 1 5lb large chicken or 2 small 2-3lb chicken
• 5 cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 8-10 cups of water

Preparation

Chicken
Place chicken in large cooking pot, add in water, cloves, cinnamon sticks and bring to a boil until chicken tender and easily comes of the bone. Cook for about 1.5 hours.

Remove cooked chicken from pot leave a side and let cool, making it easy for deboning. Strain 4 cups of the chicken water through a sieve – will be used in making the rice. Debone the chicken meat from the chicken bones breaking it into small pieces and set aside.

Basmati Rice
Soften saffron in hot water (2 tablespoons) in a small bowl.

In larger cooking pot over medium-high heat up the oil, add rice saute, stirring, until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Add water 4, saffron mixture, cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, until water is absorbed and rice is tender, 18 to 20 minutes. Let rice stand, covered, off heat 5 minutes.

Remove cinnamon sticks and cardamom pods.  Fluff rice with a fork and mix in the toasted almonds, add in the deboned chicken meat and mix gently. 

Plate & Serve warm.

This is the simplest & quickest recipe ever! Chop, saute and let cook! Cooks in less then 20 minutes and it tasted incredibly delicious.  It can be considered a quick pantry dish – now thats an idea.  I originally did not intend on making a meat dish for the breakfast.  See, I had a box of  mushroom in the fridge that needed to be used and I just quickly threw this together.  It would go great with a side of pasta or pilav, serve for lunch or dinner.

CHOPPED MEAT, POTATO & MUSHROOM DISH

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion chopped finely
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 box of mushroom – sliced thin or cut in quarters
• 2 potatoes – peeled and chopped into thin slices
• less then a 1lb. of ground chopped meat (beef or lamb – mix is fine)
• salt
• blackpepper
• 1 teaspoon of oregano – oregano compliments any meat dish very well.
• 1 teaspoon of sweet smoked paprika (optional)

Preparation:

1. In a medium skillet (with a cover) over medium heat, saute the chopped onion with the olive oil.  about 2-3 minutes
2. Add in the thinly sliced potatoes, mix and continue to saute. about 3-5 minutes.
3. Add in the chop meat – mix and continue to cook.  Breaking down the chop meat with your wooden spoon so you have small pieces of chopped meat. Not Chunks!
4. Once the chopped meat is half way cooked, add in your sliced mushroom and give it a nice stir.
5. Add in your salt, black pepper, oregano and paprika.  Mix well and cover the skilled let cook until the mushrooms and potatoes are soft.