Almond Milk

I had two New Year's resolution, first one was to be vegetarian and second was to do a whole30. However, I realized these two do not work together well. So, I failed both. However I lost 10 pounds, while trying. It does not look like a failure at all:) During my six days of whole30 (that is right, I couldn't even survive one week), I have learned how to make almond milk and wanted to share.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup raw almonds
• 4 cups of water
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 dessertspoon maple syrup, honey or molasses (optional)

Preparation

Soak almonds in a water about one day. After one day, you will be able to peel them easily. 

Put them with one up of water in a blender and blend couple of minutes. Then add rest of the water and other ingredients and blend couple of minutes more. 

You can drain it with a cheese cloth and a strainer and squeeze. I did not do it, since I prefer a thick one. Enjoy!

Brown Velvet Cake

I have tried to make red velvet cake. Since I did not want to use food coloring, I used beet juice. But, it did not work. However it still tastes good, worth to share.

Ingredients

For the Cake

• 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 dessertspoon sea salt
• 1/2 dessertspoon baking soda
• 1 dessertspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup of cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups of beet juice
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups of confectioners' sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole buttermilk

For the icing

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1 lb cream cheese
• 4 cups of confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 cup whole buttermilk

Preparation

Take a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until it gets fluffy, then add butter at room temperature, keep beating. Lastly add buttermilk and vanilla extract and beat until they all get mixed well. In a small bowl mix cocoa powder and beat juice and add this to the mixture and beat. 

Take another bowl and put a strainer on it. Put flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder into the bowl through the strainer. This will help them to mix better. 

Finally add this flour mixture to the other mixture and beat until it becomes a soft dough. Take a baking pan and put some butter and flour on the surface and pour the dough in it and bake in a 350 F preheated oven about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes stick a toothpick into the cake, if it comes clean, your cake is ready. If it is not, bake another 10 minutes.

In the mean time to prepare icing, beat butter and sugar in a bowl, then add buttermilk and cream cheese. Keep beating unless it gets creamy. Keep this mixture in the fridge about 1 hour. 

When your cake is baked, take it out of oven and let it rest about 30 minutes until it gets cold. Take it from the baking pan and with the help of a glass make round pieces. I preferred to do in that way, because I had a wide pan with short edges. But if you use a higher pan, you can do it all at once. 

Take a dental floss and cut the pieces in half.

Put the icing in the middle and close them. You can put icing on top or allover. You can decorate with cinnamon or cocoa powder.

Enjoy!

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!