It wasn't until recently that I grew out of my childhood distaste for asparagus and cooked peppers. Don't judge, but I am just recently branching off from my simple, plain-Jane taste buds into a more grown-up palette. Everyone grows out of it at different times, okay? Anyway, I've been testing the vegetables that I remember disliking from an earlier age. I remember hating the taste of limp, mushy, and slimy vegetables--cooked tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, etc. This time, I had a weird, random craving for asparagus though not remembering the taste. I bought the bunch of asparagus sold in a typical grocery store and went home to call my mom and ask for her recipe to cook asparagus. Here's how it went down.
Within the 10 minute phone call that was very jumbled and consisted mostly of random bits of information, I gathered some necessary tips to finally start testing my changed taste palette. I cut up and washed one bunch of asparagus, two red bell peppers, and two two carrot sticks. Then, I placed them into an oven pan and poured two teaspoons of olive oil over the mix of vegetables. Next, it was time for the seasonings!! I used one BIG pinch of oregano, thyme, black pepper, and salt to sprinkle. I mixed all the vegetables together to spread the olive oil and seasonings evenly and then just popped the pan into a (fortunately) already preheated oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit. I let it cook for about 30 minutes, while mixing the vegetables halfway through (at about 15 minutes in). Once the 30 minutes were up, I took out the vegetables and squeezed half a lemon onto the vegetables and voila! the vegetables are done and ready to eat.
My thoughts on the taste:
bomb.
Honestly, the smell only was amazing, but the taste was equally delicious. You know those meals that might smell good, but taste terrible? Like mushrooms for example? Yes, I still haven't triumphed over my tastebuds in liking the taste and texture of mushrooms. Anyway, luckily the smell matched the taste and I realized I do like baked asparagus and bell peppers now! It's also an added plus that baking this recipe didn't call for a lot of ingredients, have a long prep time, or a long cook time.
The simplicity of the recipe and ingredients when compared to the taste is great! I definitely enjoy recipes or meals that taste delicious without putting too much hardwork or time into them. This is definitely one of those. The added citrus-y taste from the lemon combined with the slight crunchyness of the vegetables makes this an additional side meal. You can count that I will definitely be making this again.
Another little recipe that's quick and easy to make-- while still tasting delicious-- is tarhana soup. It has a slightly bland flavor that you can definitely level up with spices and sauces. Personally, I like my soups to be a little spicy just because it makes me feel like potential sickness is being burned away. Once again, I will be following my mom's personal recipe; however, I will be changing some measurements and adding extra ingredients to match the flavor I want. So technically I'm not exactly following her recipe, but instead I'm just mixing together things that I think (and hope) will taste good.
Thankfully, I live in a neighborhood where getting ingredients for Turkish recipes is a quick walk to the main street. I walked into my local Turkish market and grabbed a bag full of organic Tahrana mixture that will be the main ingredient for the soup. For the rest of the recipe, I will need butter, red pepper powder, spicy pepper paste, and water. First, I measured out a cups worth of tarhana mix into a bowl and added enough water to just cover the surface. Next, I was told that mixing it in the bowl and making the water incorporate more with the mix so the soup doesn't become clumpy. After mixing it, add the mixture to a pot and fill the pot with water. The very important note for this aspect is to continuously stir the soup mix so it doesn't clump and form at the bottom of the pot. Then, you continuously stir until the soup starts to bubble. After the soup is ready, you need to add the sauce that definitely makes the soup have a nice spicy flavor. The sauce is made by mixing melted butter with red pepper power until you get a liquidy red pepper sauce. Then you pour the mix over the soup to incorporate it. Personally, I also add pepper paste just for extra spicyness.
The soup is just amazing. It's good for a simple light dinner or a nice hot breakfast. It definitely feels like a nice soup for when you're sick, but it can also work as a soup to have when there is nothing left at home. It's lightweight and simple enough that you can add whatever ingredients you want to match the taste you're going for. Generally, I would say this soup is a go-to because of its versatality--but maybe I'm just biased because this is one of my favorite soups.
This baking attempt stemmed from wanting to use the sad, softened apples sitting around on the kitchen counter. Personally, I HATE soft, bruised apples. I'm just very picky about how I like my apples, sorry! Anyway, while I was in Turkey for the summer, I had the pleasure of eating some elma kurabiye (literally translated it means "apple cookie") that was given by a neighbor. I loved it! Especially because I'm not the type of person to like baked apples or any type of apple in my desert. I looked up a recipe that was quite popular and highly reviewed by members of a very well known Turkish recipe website: Nefis Yemek Tarifleri. This is my attempt:
My first mistake was starting the recipe before checking to see if I actually had all of the ingredients. I think I was too confident before I even started because the recipe looked so simple and fool-proof. Oh, sadly I was very wrong. I started making the apple filling before making the dough- mistake number two. I peeled and grated the apples, then cooked them on the stove until the juice of the apple was re-absorbed. Then, I added the sugar and cinnamon mix before removing the pan to cool down. Next, I started on making the dough. So. Many. Mistakes. I put the correct amounts of olive oil, yogurt, eggs, milk, and sugar. But because I didn't check my ingredients before-hand (such an amateur move), I didn't realize I didn't have regular, white flour or vanilla powder. So I had to make do. I used the wrong quantity of whole wheat flour and vanilla extract in the pantry. As you can tell, the result was terrible. The dough became too dry to combine and even harder to roll out into shapes. After a worthless attempt at trying to make the dough combine, I thickly rolled out the dough, cut out circle shaped pieces, and added one spoonful of apple cinnamon sugar mix. Then, I pinched up two sides of the dough to make a taco-like shape.
It was at this point through the preparation that I realized I never pre-heated the oven.
Halfway through the prep, I finally turned the oven on to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and continued with the rest of the cookies. I placed the cookies onto a baking sheet and placed them in the oven for about fifteen minutes, then took them out to cool. At this point, I've lost track of all the mistakes I've made but once again, I failed to realize the absence of powdered sugar from my pantry. So I unfortunately served this cookies without the sprinkling of powdered sugar it needed.
Even though I made waaaay too many mistakes, the cookies still turned out to be edible. Did they taste excatly like the ones I ate in Turkey? No. Was it even remotely close in taste? No. Will I attempt this recipe again while making sure I have all the right ingredients? Yes!
For some weird reason, I was strongly craving my mom's spinach dinner- also more commonly called ispanak yemegi in my family. But, in my attempt to cook more and learn more recipes, I decided to bake this spinach dish myself. Oh boy, was it a mess...Here is the recipe she gave me to follow: First, cook the onions and pepers with butter until slightly soft. Next, add in ground beef and then add chopped spinach after fully combining and mixing the ground beef with onions and peppers. Then, add rice, tomato paste, warm water, and salt. Finally, let cook until cooked.
Yes. As you can see, it was not helpful. As per her instructions, I followed the order to make this spinach dish. BUT what I couldn't follow was the quantity of each ingredient to add while cooking. I simply guessed on the amount of each ingredient and hoped for the best. I also had to guess on the total cook time because I personally can't tell when spinach is cooked and ready, especially because I've never cooked spinach before this attempt. Cooking spinach may be common knowledge for others, but I will admit that I did have lots of doubts in the cooking process.
Oh, and a cool little fun fact: spinach shrinks in size when cooked! Definitely a surprise halfway through cooking and absolutely something that caused a lot of commotion while I tried to prepare more spinach.
For all the trouble I had with this recipe, it definitely wasn't that difficult in hindsight. It was relatively simple- it had simple and a small amount of ingredients, there was basically no wait time, and the prep was pretty quick. Another bonus was that the spinach dish tastes really good! A note of recommendation for anyone who chooses to eat ispanak yemek in the future: definitely add a spoonful of classic, plain yogurt on top. Afiyet olsun!
Top of Page