Beet Salad

Ingredients

• 3 medium beets
• 2 cups of plain Greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt

Preparation

Boil the beets until they get soft but not too much and grate them.

In a small bowl mix yogurt, minced garlic and salt. Put the grated beets in a glass pan, add yogurt mixture and mix. You can decorate with dill or parsley.

Enjoy!

Quince Dessert

I am excited to share this recipe. I was waiting for a long time to try it out, but it is not easy to find quince in US. Finally I found them in Middle Eastern farmers market.

Ingredients

• 4 Quinces
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 2 cups of water
• Turkish clotted cream or whipped cream
• Cloves (optional)
• Couple drops of lemon juice

Preparation

Peel quines and cut them in half, don't throw away the seeds.Take a large bowl, put some cold water and lemon juice, keep the quinces in this bowl about 15 minutes. Then take a medium pot and lay quinces at the bottom, add the seeds (this gives them red color), 2 cups of water and spread sugar on top of the quinces. You can add cloves at also if you want.

Cook it on medium heat until it boils, then lower the heat and simmer it about 2 hours until quinces get soft and red. 

It is best served with Turkish clotted cream. You can find the recipe for that here Turkish Clotted Cream. But if it is too much trouble, you can use ice cream or whipped cream as well. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I wanted to try pumpkin cheesecake for long time and finally gave it a shot. In the meantime, I was curious about this delicious dessert's history and made a little research. 

Cheesecake has a long history to Ancient Greeks to Romans who named it 'Placenta' in 1st century A.D. Then it spread to Great Britain and Western Europe around 1000 A.D and US around 20th century. 

Ingredients

For the Crust

• 2 cups of crumbled crackers or oat cookies
• 1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

For the Filling

• 1 egg
• 2 packs of cream cheese (16 oz)
• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 1/3 cup of whipping cream
• 1 cup of mashed pumpkins
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon flour or corn/wheat starch
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

To make the crust I prefer to buy oat cookies and crumble them myself, but you may use crumbled crackers. Take a large bowl and mix crumbs, melted butter, sugar and cinnamon.

After mixing well, spread it on your baking pan, press really hard so it sticks to the pan. Then put it in the freezer and wait one hour.

To make mashed pumpkins, you can boil or roast it, then mash. You need 1/4 of a pumpkin approximately. In the mean time, take a large bowl and start beating eggs and sugar (I used brown sugar), then add whipping cream and continue beating.Add cream cheese, after it mixed well add sour cream first, then mashed pumpkins, lastly add vanilla extract, lemon juice, flour (I used flour because I did not have starch, but I recommend to use starch) and all the spices and beat one more time.

Take the base from freezer and add the cream filling. Bake about 15 minutes in 500F  preheated oven, then take it from the oven and lower the temperature to 300 F. Bake at this temperature about 40-45 minutes. Do not take it from the oven, just turn it off and keep it in the oven about 3 hours. It is better if you keep it in the refrigerator one day and then serve it. Enjoy!

Pretzel

Ingredients

• 3 cups of all purpose flour 
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of lukewarm milk
• 1 dessertspoon dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 dessertspoon salt
• Sea salt

Preparation

Take a small bowl, add lukewarm milk, yeast, sugar and water. After it rises put it in a larger bowl and add butter, salt one whole egg and one egg white. Save the yolk for later use. 

After mixing them well, add flour slowly and knead. Leave the dough couple of hours in a warm place, until it doubles its size. Then take small pieces and make round sheets with the help of a roller.Starting from one edge roll the sheet to get a string shaped dough.

You can try different shapes with this dough. See the pictures

Apply egg yolk and sea salt or sesame on pretzels and lay them over a baking pan.I used pizza pan to bake them, but you can use any cookie pan if you do not have a pizza pan. Bake about 20-30 minutes in 400 F preheated oven. Enjoy!

Chicken Tikka Masala

I have tried chicken tikka masala in India and I liked it a lot, so I wanted to give it a shot. I looked online and tried to find the original recipe, but it is hard to find an authentic one.
I found couple of recipes and tried to do my own version. According to Wikipedia origins of this dish is unclear. But there are claims that it was originated in an Indian Restaurant in United Kingdom.

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 small onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 dessertspoon cumin
• 1 dessertspoon turmeric
• 1 dessertspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 dessertspoon ground ginger
• 1 dessertspoon coriander
• 1 dessertspoon masala punjabi chole
• 1 cup yogurt
• 1/2  lemon juice
• 1/4 cup milk or heavy cream
• Butter or ghee

Preparation

 Mix cumin, paprika, coriander, turmeric and cayenne in a small bowl and separate one third of it.

Add 2 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon ginger, yogurt and 1/4 lemon juice in the remaining mixture and marinate sliced chickens with this mixture. Put chickens in the refrigerator 3 to 4 hours. 

To prepare the sauce put butter in a pan with chopped onion and garlic, add remaining ginger and cook it until it changes color. Then add the spice mixture and cook couple of minutes and add milk or cream and remaining lemon juice and cook couple of minutes more. Take chickens from the fridge separate excess sauce and bake them in the 550 F oven about 10 minutes, or you can put them on skew and grill. Then take them from the oven and put it in the pan together with the excess sauce and cook about 10 minutes, until chickens are cooked well. They usually serve it with Indian Bread, which is like flat bread with butter or ghee. Enjoy!

Blueberry Cobbler

According to Wikipedia, cobblers originated in British American Colonies.English settlers were unable to make traditional suet puddings due to lack of ingredients and they covered a stewed filling with a layer of biscuits or dumplings together.I am glad they did:)

Ingredients

For the Base

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter (2 oz)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup of milk

For the Top

• 2 cups of blueberries (fresh/frozen)
• 1/3 cup of water
• 1/4 cup of grape molasses/honey

Preparation

Melt the butter and put it in a baking pan. In a large bowl mix, sugar, salt,vanilla extract and beat them. Then add flour and baking powder together and beat again. 

Lay this mixture over the butter evenly. 

In a small bowl add blueberries, molasses and water and put this mixture on very top. Spread them evenly. Bake it in a 350 F preheated oven around 40 minutes. Your cobbler is ready.

Enjoy!

Eggplant Wrapped Meatballs

 Note: This recipe is for 16-17 meatballs.

Ingredients

For the meatballs

• 1/2 lb ground beef
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon red flare pepper 
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• Parsley
• 1/2 onion
• Bread crumbs 

For wrapping

• 2 Japanese eggplants
• 1 tomato
• 1/2 onion
• Sunflower/canola/vegetable/coconut oil
• Toothpicks

Preparation

To prepare meatballs take a large bowl and add ground beef, spices, chopped onion and parsley and knead it with a little water. Make little meatballs out of this mixture. 

Peel eggplant like a zebra and slice them into thin long pieces.

Put a little oil in a pan and cook eggplants until they get soft.

Take two strips and put them on top of each other in a vertical way and put one meatball on very top. Wrap it with eggplants and stick them with a toothpick. Slice tomato and onion, put them on top. Bake it about 30 minutes in 350 F preheated oven.