Mahmudiye

Recently I have developed interest in Ottoman Cuisine. Unlike traditional Turkish Cuisine, Ottoman cuisine is more like a fusion kitchen. The first recipe I want to share is called 'Mahmudiye' which is a chicken dish with honey. It reminded me some Asian recipes.

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast (it is better if you use both leg and breast, but I only had breast at home)
• Butter or olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/2 onion
• 3-4 dried apricots
• 3-4 dried figs
• 1 plum or 2 prunes
• 1/2 ounce raisins
• 1/2 ounce almonds
• 5 grams of honey
• Basil
• Parsley
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Oregano

Preparation

First boil chicken breast and then make small pieces out of it with your hands. Don't throw away the water.

Then chop figs, apricots, plum and onion. Put raisins and almonds in warm water and wait about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes take out the almonds and peel them.

Take a large pan and put some olive oil in it and after heating the oil add minced garlic and onions. Then add ingredients in this order: chicken, almonds and fruits and cook them in high heat couple of minutes.

Then add parsley, oregano, salt and basil and roast couple of more minutes and add black pepper and honey. Finally add warm water that you boiled chicken in it and after it boils reduce the heat and simmer about 10 minutes. You can serve it with rice pilaf, enjoy!
 

Cauliflower Pizza

I do not eat bread anymore, however I really miss pizza.So, I decided to make a healthy pizza with cauliflower and it turned out great!

Ingredients

For the base

• 1/2 cauliflower
• 1 boiled potato
• 2 eggs
• spinach (optional)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• parsley
• salt
• cumin
• red pepper
• black pepper
• oregano

For topping

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• Salt,pepper,oregano
• Spinach
• Onions
• Pepperoni
• Grated mozzarella

Preparation

Steam and chop cauliflowers and mix them with chopped potato, eggs, spinach, parsley, olive oil and spices. Pour it into a baking pan. Bake it in 400 F preheated oven around 30 minutes. In the mean time to prepare the sauce mix tomato paste and salt, pepper and oregano and some water. Put the sauce on the cauliflower base. Add mozzarella, onions, spinach and peperoni. Broil it 10 minutes and your pizza is ready. It will have a better texture the next day. Enjoy!

Cocoa Balls

Recently I have decided to eliminate  sugar in my life, after I discovered how the industry is trying to make us sick by feeding us with these junk food and make money our from our illness. I don't usually eat desserts, the only dessert I used to eat regularly was dark chocolate. But even if the high percentage ones have sugar in it, so I decided to make my own no sugar chocolate. I found couple of recipes online and tried. It was a successful attempt to soothe my craving. I used only mulberry and raisins cause those are the only ones I had at home, if you have any other kind of dried fruit such as dates you can use it. But be careful, dates will be sweeter.
*This recipe is for 20 balls

Ingredients

• 1/2 ounce of peanuts
• 2-3 walnuts (you can add more)
• 1 ounce of hazelnuts
• 1.5 ounce of dried mulberry 
• 1 ounce of raisins 
• 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• Coconut (optional)

Preparation

First put nuts into a food processor and grind them about 1 minute. Then add dried fruits and grind them one more time.

Lastly add egg and cocoa powder and grind one last time.

Take the mixture in a bowl and knead it.

I did small ones and had 20 of them. You can make bigger balls. You can sprinkle some coconut on top f them if you want.
Bake it about 20 minutes in a 350 F preheated oven. If you don't want to put egg you don't need to bake it. You can just chill in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter

I wanted to buy peanut butter the other day, but when I saw that most of them contain at least 25% of sugar, I decided to make my own. I would have done that before if I knew it was that easy!




Ingredients

• 1 cup of peanut
• Honey or molasses (optional)
• Salt (optional)

Preparation

Take a large pan and roast peanuts. I have roasted a little bit more than I have to, so mine was a little darker. Roasting couple of minutes will suffice.

Then put them into a food processor and grind them until they become creamy. Add honey and salt if you want. Your peanut butter is ready.

Enjoy!

Chia Pudding

I try to avoid sweets lately. So I decided to make a light dessert with no added sugar. I had some fruits and chia seeds. I thought why I have never tried chia pudding and here we are! I hope you enjoy:)

Note:This recipe is for 6 to 8 cups of puddings

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of chia seeds
• 1 cup of yogurt
• 250 ml almond/coconut milk
• Honey/mollasses
• Strawberries(optional)
• Banana (optional)
• Shredded coconut(optional)
• 1/2 cup of water

Preparation

Soak Chia seeds in water and wait about 30 minutes. Take a large bowl add yogurt, almond milk and chia seeds and refrigerate one night. Next day, put some of it in a smaller bowl, add some honey and stir. Serve it with some fruits and coconut. The reason of the owl shape is that I put the pudding into freezer in a silicone mold one night.