Through my window

There were strong 'south eastern' winds which we call lodos in Istanbul for the last three days. The lodos storm stopped last evening with rain. It is mostly that kind of windy from November to spring in Istanbul.

Today weather was cold but rather shiny. I noticed it was increadibly beautiful with amazing clouds before the sunset this afternoon. I didn't want to skip it, and took a couple photo.s of this view. I wish I could share the full size of the photograph but it's safer smaller with watermarks on it.

Not a very professional piece of work, but this is how a part of Istanbul looks through my window...

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Inspired for wine

Our friend Gera of Sweetsfoods.com written a very useful guide about sweet white wines today. I do reccomend you to read his article.

In the end of his post he asked us about the sweet wines we know & wines we love.

Most of you may know that I'm a red wine girl who adores spicy, strong wines like Merlot & Syrah. However I wanted to share a special wine with Gera and his readers (And also with you, guys ;) It's possible that many of you know about this wine, but it's not a mistake to remind it or let others learn about it.



One of the sweetest wines I know is a Hungarian wine:

Royal Tokaji Essencia

(Only 1400 bottles were produced in 1999 and each was sold to $500)

Essencia has a very hard producing process. White grapes are left to "Botrytis Cinerea" (a kind of fungus for good fermentation) process, then before they are sent to pressing, they are let to ooz the first grape water by crashing/pressing on eachother while transporting.

1 ton grapes give 10 litre (10 quarts) liquid. Rather like "honey" (that sweet kind of liquid)

They leave the wine to fermentation for 5-6 years. In the end it comes into a sweet wine with 2-3% vol. of alcohol, and 600-850 grams (21-30 ounces) of sugar per litre (per quart)!

It has taste notes of honey, apricot, quince, marmelade, caramel and almond.

They call Essencia "the liquid gold". It is said that Essencia was drunk by kings, princes, and cardinals as a potion of youngness and long life through the history.

Essencia is served with a crystal spoon as it's rather thick, and precious. Essencia can be left to be aged for 50 years.


As I mentioned before I'm a real red-wine-girl, however I can taste only very very special white wines as long as they are really very special. Though I'm not sure if I could ever wait even for 10 years to taste this wine!

Could you?




notes:
1) photograph is from wine.com
2) I translated the basic information about Essencia from a Turkish magazine on alcoholic beverage culture, Gusto.



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Semolina Pudding with Chocolate Sauce

I'm on a diet.

I hate to tell it coz whenever I say to myself that I'm on a diet I eat much more pastry, dessert, and such snacks.

However this time I have to say that I'm on a diet, and I have to keep it tight. I want to be thinner like how I was 2 years ago to look better in the wedding dress! I have almost 2 months left, do you think that I can manage? To lose 10 kg.s (about 20-22 pounds I guess)? In two months? We'll see...

On the other hand I cannot keep my sweet-tooth in patience. I can give up eating anything but not desserts! So I'm looking for desserts which contain less sugar & flour. This means that I need rather milky recipes.

Last week I tried an old/traditional semolina pudding and liked it. Unfortunatelly I forgot to take it's photo, but I guess I'll cook it again next week ;)


Oh btw :D I was listening to this while cooking. It helps losing extra calories lol



Semolina Pudding Squares with Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients

for pudding

9 tbsp of semolina
9 tbsp sugar
1 litre (about 4 cups) milk
a pintch of mastic gum (if desired)

for sauce

200 ml (a bit less than 1 cup) milk
200 ml (a bit less than 1 cup) water
2 tbsp of cocoa powder
3 tbsp of cornstarch
4 tbsp sugar
Freshly grated lemon peels.

Method

1) Mix all pudding ingredients in a medium sauce pan , place on heat. Keep stirring. Cook it until it gives bubbles on surface and thickens.
2) Moist a 20cm/8inches square pyrex pan with water. Pour the pudding into the pan, let it cool, and chill in the fridge.
3) Grate 1 lemon peel. Mix all sauce ingredients in a clean sauce pan, add the lemon peel. Place on heat, keep stirring and cook it until it thickens.
4) Pour the sauce over the semolina pudding, and put back to fridge until it gets chilled. (For 2-3 hours, and over a night is the best.)
5) You can serve it cutting into squares.


Note: If you use mastic gum in the pudding, crash it into powder, and add to milk.




Semolina photo by © Garcia/photocuisine/Corbis.com
Lemon photo by © Louis Laurent Grandadam/Corbis.com

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Oaty Molasses Cake

Am I losing my skill of using the touch pad? I do appologize to whom recieves e-mails of unfinished posts from my blog. It's just because that my hand accidentaly touches the touch pad and makes a click on "publish post" before it is finished.

I mentioned about the cake which I created on the post of monday. I was too chatty that day and promised to give the recipe on tuesday. It's still thursday for some of you but friday here. So this means that I'm quite late to share it.

It's just cruel of me to be that lazy. I bet there is a huge crowd of whom are waiting for it curiously :)))

Here the recipe... Quite simple... If I could do it any of you can do it. Even whom are keeping out of the kitchen :)))


Ingredients

2 eggs
1/3 cup grape molasses *
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 + ¼ cup olive oil
1/3 cup milk
1 medium carrot (grated)
1/3 cup walnuts (chopped coarsly)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 + ½ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
Muesli to sprinkle on top


Method

1. Whisk eggs, then add grape molasses, sugar, and olive oil keep stirring until combines well.
2. Squeeze the grated carrot to reduce it's moist. Add carrot, chopped walnuts, and cinnamon.
3. Sift flour and baking powder together, then add flour mixture to the liquid mixture. Stir batter until combines smoothly.
4. Line 22cm/9inches round cake pan with parchment. Pour the mixture into the pan, and sprinkle top with your choise of muesli. (I used a crunchy muesli with almonds, raisins, and crunchy rolled oats) Bake in 180 C / 350 F until it gets golden brown.
5. Cool the cake in pan for 5 min.s then remove from the pan. Serve cool ~ goes well with dark roasted coffees, or Christmas tea ;)


PS. * I've added a link of the molasses which I used as Reeni of Cinnamon Spice&Everything Nice asked about it on her comment. 'Grape Molasses' means 'Uzum Pekmezi' in Turkish language. (pekmez is for molasses)

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E for What?!

It's been a very long time since I last wrote. You may think that I've been improving my Serbian by this time however I'll disappoint you. I've just been too lazy to write anything on here.

On the other hand you can trust me that I didn't spend my days napping around. Yes I lied on my back reading books, watching movies, and went out cafes with friends :)) Oh no... I did also spent time in mom's kitchen to satisfy folks' appetites! No need to say that it was nothing to me hah!

Anything I cook turns into something delicious. They say so, and I hope it's not just because I torture them till they moan "oh ummmm sooo delicious"! Hey we all need some support in kitchen at times, don't we? I just let things happen faster in case of possible failure lol

Need to hear what I've been doing?

Well... A big birthday cake for mommy's 47th birthday :) That made her smile at least!

Then a cookie of failure! Why failure? Coz it just didn't give out the cookie I was imagining. I was planning to get a crispy chocolate cookie, damn it just turned into a cake-y cookie! Better not give the recipe :D





Also have been trying to loose some weight so tried something healthy for lunches for a couple weeks. My best meal was whole wheat Turkish tortilla bread rolls filled with light cream cheese, tomatoes and green peppers with a cup of mulled linden tea. I'm using past tense because I realised that it's almost impossible to loose weight for me for now without any exercise. Why I need to look fit is another topic of post ;)




Hmm... anything more? Oh.. one of the most exciting ones! I got a few samples of my teas to home for parents to taste! I guess I haven't mentioned to you all before but I'm about to start a job on gourmet teas with my husband-to-be! Our label and website is ready. We formed our menu which contains different kinds of gourmet teas (like world teas, flavoured, scented green & black teas). Daddy loves Christmas tea the best, and mom mango flavoured green tea. Me? I love all of them lol




What else... what else... Oh yes! Before I share my recipe of grape molasses cake which I baked three times and all swept in seconds I want to announce my very first award on blogosphere!



Be Foodie presents her "E for Excellent" award given generously by Kang of London Eater! I'd rather deserve C of Crap or J of Jester in stead lol So I do thank you Kang a lot for your great support! Oh please read what he wrote for me :D

This lovely award chain has a few simple rules:
Please find 5 blogs, of any kind that you love to read. Write a post about the blogs you picked, linking back to them. Make sure you let them know you gave them an award.

So here my list of E for Excellent blogs!

Cafe Fernando: He will recieve my support forever! Not only because he's a Turkish food blogger but just only because he is really excellent at what ever he does! Go have a check or you may even heard about him before on NY Times or Washington Post ;)

For the Body & Soul: I'm just a silent reader of this blog. But I must say that this blog really deserves capital E letters with excellent photography and recipes!

What Do I Want To Cook Today: My dear Jan! She is the first blogger who invited me to a blog game, and she is a good "over-seas" friend. Moreover she's really good in the kitchen. Go have a look yourself!

Food Blogga: I can't be the first one who gives her the E of Excellent! One must be blind to not to see her great success on food blogging with her great, funny stories!

The Hungry Mouse: Finally sweet Jessie! She's one of the loveliest food blogging girls I've met! Oh and her mouthwatering recipes with detailed descriptions! A big E to her!


And all my blogger friends... You all deserve the biggest E for Excellent in all!

I guess I over-wrote for this post. The recipe of my molasses cake is left for tomorrow then :)

Welcome back me, huh?

xoxox




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