I’m recently obsessed with chickpeas. I always find myself eating something that is made of chickpeas. One example is hummus. The other one is leblebi. And now I have my own homemade leblebi, which was easier to make than I expected.

Leblebi is a Turkish snack, and it’s simply roasted chickpeas. It’s traditionally made by roasting the chickpeas two or three times and resting it after each time for days, which is a complicated process, so you basically buy it from your grocery. But there are two easy ways to make it in your home: using the oven or using the pan. I tried the latter one. I boiled some chickpeas, and I put them in a pan with oil, sea salt and black pepper. Than I sauteed them for about an hour in low heat, and I got some crispy leblebi, which are different from the storebought ones, since they are roasted in special ovens. But if you want to have your leblebi that taste closer to storebought ones, you can roast them in your oven for an hour.

Da-da-da-daaa! Here is a recipe that I made up. I was actually going to bake some vegetables, and decided to make the dish more fun by adding some cream in it. And then I told myself “Why don’t you add a little bit of mustard?”.  And guess what! It was super-delicious and it was really easy to prepare, so I think I’ll put this recipe to “Ulya’s favorites”.

Woaaa! Long time, no see my dear blog. I don’t know what happened to me, I just want to sleep all the time. I actually made this recipe about a week ago, but I was so lazy to post it. But that’s enough. From now on, I’m focusing on my blog. So, I’ve promised to make some savory recipes, and this is one of them.

For the New Year, I bought myself a lot of cookbooks, and one of them is called “Cooking Light Way to Cook”, and it’s really an interesting one. It’s just the book I’ve ever wanted. All kinds of recipes (from salads to desserts) in a healthier way! And I found the pizza dough recipe from that book.

Being a senior year in college, I have to make my senior project (obviously). Our team is doing a “green” project for Unilever’s Heartbrand (ice-cream), and we have a project proposal meeting tomorrow. Since we are the host of this meeting, we thought it would be nice to serve some treats, other than the usual ones bought from a patisserie.

My homemade refrigerated pizza stock is over now, and I am too lazy to make new pizzas (Waiting for the dough to rise is nervecracking!) And yesterday, when I needed something that can satisfy my usual “pizza-cravings”, I made these bruchetta-pizzas, and they require bread instead of pizza dough. This quick dish is also my parents’ favorite for a Sunday brunch at home.

It was only a year ago when we had our first onion soup in Paris with my mother. It was a traditional French onion soup with beef stock and large onion slices and was very delicious.

Back in Turkey, I ate some other onion soups, and tried to cook it using beef stock. I also added some vinegar according to an anonymous recipe I found on the internet. The result was horrible..

I used to be a total carnivore, eating meat two times a day, and considering a meal without meat not a “true meal”. But those days are over now, and I have been eating healthier things for a couple of years. And I really love playing with legumes and creating new recipes. One of my favorites is this lentil chickpea patties recipe, and I make veggie burgers with them. Yummy! They’re easily stored in the freezer, and whenever you need them, just cook in a pan or grill for few minutes and prepare your burger. Yummy!