My friend asked me for a simit recipe and when I searched online, there were many. So if you want to make these awesome treats at home check out the recipe I found at this site:

Simit

Yucel Tellici

Simit is a fast food bread sold in the streets of Turkey by vendors. It is often eaten as a breakfast food with jam or yogurt. Simit is also great by itself!

Simit is light and flaky, baked to a golden brown color, and topped with sesame seeds. It is sometimes formed into rings, and are often braided.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoons milk plus 1 teaspoon
• 1 egg, beaten
• sesame seeds
• milk for brushing

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour and salt.

Make a depression in the dry ingredients with your fist, making a "hole" in the middle.

Add olive oil, melted butter, water, milk, and egg.

Fold dry ingredients into liquids to form a dough. This may take 10 minutes by hand.

Once you have a dough, tear off pieces of dough, make long, cigar shapes. Bring ends of "cigars" together to make a circle.

Place circle on greased cookie sheet.

Brush with milk. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until simit become a golden brown color and crispy on top.

*The one change I would make is to coat the simit completely in seeds before baking... that's how it's done here*

Something a Little Old-fashioned.

I'd never done this before and it's not technically cooking, but it does have to do with food, right?! So here it is. I've decided to stud some citrus fruits with cloves for the holiday season. I recommend wearing some kind of glove or protection for your fingers if you plan to do more than one fruit as those little cloves are hard and a wee bit sharp. The cloves go into the fruit fairly easily and if my marvelous mother is to be believed, then you can leave these babies out for quite a while and they will be like a natural air freshener in the house. Mine has a gorgeous smell of spices and citrus (I did 2 oranges, 1 lemon and 1 grapefruit) right now, can't wait to see how it continues to develop.

Çay and Simit

I can make the çay (Turkish tea) at home, but I cannot pull of the simit. It makes for one of the loveliest breakfasts or snacks on earth, particularly if you have a little cream cheese on hand. Below are a couple of pictures of this yummy for your tummy moment:


This is a close up of my simit. It's like a bagel in consistency (chewy goodness) but it is entirely crusted in sesame seeds and is baked that way so the seeds often look burnt, but they are roasted to perfection on the outside of the simit. Here in Ankara, you can buy them in the streets and they are 3 for 1 Turkish Lira. Very cheap and tasty.


Sometimes there are simit sellers like this, but more often than not, you will find the treats in nice, closed in, glass trolleys. Usually somewhere nearby is a freshly squeezed juice truck. These places pop out bottles and bottles of freshly squeezed fruit juices and the small bottle is just over 1 Turkish Lira, super reasonable, super yummy and super good for you! What more could you ask for in a street food!?

TEA!! Tea is a mainstay here. Turks drink a multitude of cups a day. One shop keeper told me that he probably drinks 15 glasses a day at least. And he also said that drinking tea was a fairly new thing in Turkey. He said that about 100 years ago, Turks didn't drink tea, but were drinking coffee instead. I can't remember why they switched over, but they did in a big way. Sure, Turkish coffee is still hugely popular here, but tea is drank all day and night long.

Turkish Coffee

First let me say that I do not like black coffee usually, but for some reason the dark rich flavour of Turkish coffee goes down so well, that I don't mind the lack of cream (although, you know I found a way around that too!!) Turkish coffee is simple to make as well, and there are some fun, non traditional variations too. So, being me, I am going to share those with you today.

There are a few things you need to make sure you have in order to do Turkish coffee properly and if you don't live in Turkey or a country where making Turkish coffee is a standard affair, you may have to find a Turkish store or a Middle Eastern market to get you the supplies you need. You need a Turkish coffee pot (like the one pictured above), a teeny cup (also up there) and Turkish ground coffee, it's ground to a powder consistency and there is something different in the way that it is roasted.

To make the coffee you need to measure out one teeny cup of water into the pot, 1 teaspoon of coffee and the equivalent of 1 sugar cube (you can, of course, add more or less sugar as you like). All of those ingredients go into the pot, it goes on the heat and let it boil. It does bubble up and over, so don't leave the room, stay close and take it off the heat once it starts to rise up. Then pour it all into your teeny cup and you have Turkish coffee... easy, right?!

Variations:

My lovely Turkish friend, Nilay, told me that sometimes she likes hers made with milk and not water. I tried it and it's a little like a super rich latte. Fantastic! (I told you that I got around the lack of cream issue) She also told me that sometimes they substitute Nutella for the sugar. I tried that this morning and it was like a dark chocolate, nutty mocha. Absolutely delicious!!

Happy Eating, or coffee making/drinking as the case may be!!!

Mmmmm... PIZZA!!!

So today in all my Saturday laziness, I decided to get kitchen creative. I decided to use up the last of my shrimp, some veggies given to me by traveling friends and some frozen pizza shells... what did I make? THE BEST SHRIMP PIZZA EVER!! And because I am who I am, I am going to share that recipe with you. And it is ridiculously EASY!

Here is what you need:

1 cup, thawed deveined and peeled shrimp
1/2 red bell pepper
2 mushrooms finely chopped.
1/4 cup hellim cheese (it's middle eastren cheese that is super salty, not super melty but super yummy... it gives a salty, buttery taste to stuff. It also goes by the name of haloumi)
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp sumac spice
pepper to taste
1 tbsp lemon juice
a handful of baby arugla leaves
1 frozen pizza shell with a light coating of tomato sauce.

First things first: chop up your veggies!!

Next, you will want to saute that shrimp in a pan with the littlest bit of olive oil. You will be tossing in the spices and lemon juice with the shrimp.

Then put some of the cheese on your pizza shell and begin to stack your veggies on top. Then on goes that shrimp and the rest of the cheese.

Pop it all into a hot oven and when the cheese is bubbly and the pizza crust looks toasted, take it out and let it cool for a minute before slicing and enjoying!

Happy Eating!

Shrimp Fritters

These were a favourite of KJ's when we were dating and they have seemed to be a big hit no matter who I make them for. Here in Turkey they took on a slightly different flavour that was really great. I will share with you the three ways that I like to make them and then you can create them all and choose or you can make your own variation!! (oh... and all measurements are approximate because I don't own measuring cups here in Turkey and I've always been a just kind of wing it girl)

Thai Style Shrimp Fritters:

2 cups finely chopped fresh, raw shrimp (you can also use thawed frozen shrimp... make sure the shells and veins are all off)
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp crushed red chilis
4 eggs

Mix all of that together and drop by spoonfuls into hot oil either in a pan or if you have a deep fryer, then use that. And then dip is sweet chili sauce when eating... it's magical.


My Style Shrimp Fritters:

2 cups finely chopped fresh, raw shrimp (you can also use thawed frozen shrimp... make sure the shells and veins are all off)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 tbsp dill (fresh is best)
1 or 2 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed or minced
4 eggs

Mix all of that together and drop by spoonfuls into hot oil either in a pan or if you have a deep fryer, then use that.

Turkish Shrimp Fritters:

2 cups finely chopped fresh, raw shrimp (you can also use thawed frozen shrimp... make sure the shells and veins are all off)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup mozzarella and/or hellim cheese
2 tbsp sumac
3 or 4 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed or minced
1 tbsp hot crushed red pepper
1 tbsp cumin
4 eggs

Mix all of that together and drop by spoonfuls into hot oil either in a pan or if you have a deep fryer, then use that. Dip in a nice tzatziki sauce if you have it (it's just plain yogurt, dill or mint, and cucumbers shredded up... so you can make your own)


If at any time you feel your dough is too watery, just add flour until it is a gooey, sticky texture. If you feel it is too dry, drop another egg in the mix.

Happy Eating!!!

Leftovers Can Be Yummy

Generally speaking the only leftovers I like tend to be either from a restaurant or involving garlic and pasta sauce. But in an effort to be more mindful and less wasteful, I am trying to find ways to make leftovers appealing.
On Monday, I had made a roast chicken and then on Tuesday, I made those bad boys! I took some of the chicken meat, shredded it up and put it on a whole wheat tortilla with some mozzarella cheese and a little tobasco sauce to heat things up. Once it was all snugly wrapped in the tortilla, I put it in the oven, lightly brushed it with olive oil. The outside was crispy, deliciousness and the inside was gooey, spicy and just plain tasty. I used a little mayo for a dipping sauce, but you could also use a tzatziki too, I did the next time I made it and it was even better!!!

Oh yea... it was all done with one pot (or pyrex as the case may be).

Happy Eating!