I can’t believe this is the first post of 2012! After baking everyday for the last ten days of 2011, I promised myself not to bake for a long time. And so I did what I promised. What’s more, I took a bold decision last month, and cut my processed sugar intake. This was probably the best decision I’ve made in a long time.; because processed sugar is like drugs, the more you consume, the more you want to consume. I was constantly thinking about the chocolate box in the office, and I just couldn’t stop when I ate them.

I didn’t really have a problem with maintaining my weight, but my body fat was a little high for my weight. And I realized that it was not because I was consuming too much fat, but because I was consuming too much sugar. So, I decided to cut the unhealthy carbs out.Quitting an addiction is never easy. I knew I couldn’t quit sugar cold turkey, so I started off by going processed sugar-free for one week. Sharing it on Instagram increased my commitment too (After all, I promised somehow in front of the world). Doing these one-week cycles decreased not only my appetite for sugar, but also my body fat, which was replaced by muscle (Oh yeahhh!!).

As you may guess, going sugar-free means less baking. I can (and do) consume honey and other natural sweeteners, but I didn’t have much appetite for them. Therefore, I couldn’t post any recipes during the first months of 2012. Then, I decided to post some savory recipes. Besides, KI is a food blog, not a dessert blog, although I post sweet recipes most of the time.

And so I started.. First, I tried to grow my own wild yeast, but spoiled it two times. Then, I made some bagels, but couldn’t perfect the recipe yet. Finally, I made gnocchi and (surprisingly) got it perfect in my first trial.

Actually, I have been meaning to try gnocchi for a while, especially after the one I ate in Italy in this little cute restaurant in Reggio Emilia. It was my first time trying gnocchi, and I was blown away by the delicious taste of my gnocchi with smoked ricotta. So, when I returned back, I started to search for recipes, and eventually used Jamie Oliver‘s recipe. Although I changed some of the amounts, I followed the instructions, which are very well-detailed and useful, to a tee.

Now at this point, I want to stop and brag about my success, because that does not happen too often. I somehow managed to make a perfect gnocchi. In the gnocchi universe, “perfect” means “light”; because apparently, you don’t want to eat heavy lumps of potatoes. There are some things to keep in mind if you are looking for the perfect gnocchi:

• You should bake your potatoes instead of boiling, since the potatoes need to be dry to make the lightest gnocchi.
• You shouldn’t use pureed potatoes. They need to be airy to make a light gnocchi. So, you can try a ricer, and if you’re like me and don’t have a ricer, then you can try the instructions I came up with.
• You should knead the dough when the potatoes are still hot.

Since my appetite is not good lately, I opted for a simple tomato sauce this time. I used the summer tomatoes we bottled last summer, and cooked them with some olive oil. Simple, yet flavorful (Oh, how I missed summer tomatoes!). But the good thing is, I put some of the gnocchi to the freezer, so that I can try out different sauces later!

[IMPORTANT NOTE: Finally, I opened my food blog in Turkish. You can access at yemekfalan.com]

Gnocchi with Simple Tomato Sauce

adapted from “Cook with Jamie”

Ingredients:

• 6 regular or 10 small potatoes
• 1 egg
• about 1/2 cup flour*
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

for the sauce:

• 2 cups pureed tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon tomato paste (optional)
• 1 clove of garlic
• olive oil
• handful of basil leaves
• grated parmesan cheese

* The amount of flour to use can vary among different types of potatoes. It is important to use an amount of flour just to bind the potatoes together.

Directions:

Prick the potatoes with fork, rub them with olive oil and bake for about 40 minutes (or until cooked) in an oven, heated at 220 degrees C (430 degrees F). When the potatoes are still hot, peel the potatoes. Then, if you have a ricer, grate your potatoes using it; otherwise, mash the potatoes using a fork. In order to have “airy” potatoes and not to turn them into a puree, whisk the potatoes occasionally.

Put the mashed potatoes in a large bowl. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon. Then, add the egg and 1/4 cup flour and mix quickly before the egg is cooked. Keep kneading while adding small amounts of flour. Stop when the dough is bound together.

When the dough is in the desired consistency, divide it into four. Roll out each piece into sticks, and cut out 2 cm (1-inch) pieces. Lay the pieces on a floured pan and cool them in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. At this point, you can directly freeze the gnocchi to use later.

Put a pot with water to a boil and put some gnocchi (make sure you don’t put too many pieces that they stick together). They will first sink, and then float. As soon as they float, take them out.

To prepare the sauce, heat some olive oil in a pan and add a clove of garlic. When the garlic is cooked, take it out. Add the tomato puree and paste. Cook in low heat for 30 minutes.

When the gnocchi is cooked, put it into the sauce pan. Add a couple of basil leaves and stir for a minute or two.

Serve with grated parmesan.

So, this is the last day of the challenge.. I’ve been baking and blogging continuously (except for one rest day) for 11 days and even if I’m terribly exhausted, I’m so glad I made this challenge. After cutting cookies for hours yesterday, I decided to make something easy but delicious today: Apple Strudel. First, I was going to use the book my aunt brought me from Austria, but then I decided to use a recipe from mom’s recipe notebook she prepared years ago. I didn’t make my own Strudel dough, and bought some fresh phyllo dough from a phyllo shop (yes, there is such thing in Turkey).

Since it’s freezing outside, I opted for custard instead of ice cream with my Strudel. Now, if you allow me, I will eat some Strudel while catching up with my TV shows.. And after that, I don’t want to see any sort of sweet food around me for a while, which I think is a good New Year’s resolution for my belly. And that ends the 11-day New Year Dessert Challenge..

Happy New Year!

Apple Strudel

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 4 large sheets (about 25 cm- 10 in. long) phyllo dough
• 1 apple, grated (Don’t use a very sweet and soft apple. I used Granny Smith)
• 50 gr (1.75 oz.) butter, melted
• 1-2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, grated
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• a pinch of salt

for serving:

• confectioners’ sugar (for dusting)
• custard (creme anglaise), recipe from here

Directions:

Mix the apples, lemon juice, sugar and spices in a bowl.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 degrees F).

Lay the first sheet of dough on a flat surface and brush with butter. Put the second sheet on the first sheet and brush with butter again. Repeat this process until all the sheets are layered and brushed with butter. Sprinkle the dough with the apple mix and roll the dough into a log.

Bake the dough for 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Dust the Strudel with confectioners’ sugar and depending on the season, serve with either ice cream or custard sauce.

What happened to NYDC Day#9? To be honest, I wrapped presents all night, and since one day is only 24 hours, I couldn’t make anything else. I know, I broke the laws of the challenge. But since it is my challenge, I can make my own laws and I decided to rest one day, just as in running.

But today was the big day, gingerbread cookie day. As you may remember, I bake Gingerbread Cookies for New Year’s Eve every year. This time, I used the previous recipe, because it was so good. I was also planning to finally make a gingerbread house. But I failed epically. Reasons:

• I used a sugar and milk based icing instead of royal icing, which requires egg whites. I normally avoid using that royal icing because of uncooked egg whites. But the icing I use takes a long time to harden. So I couldn’t assemble the house. It collapsed!
• The butter I used in the icing was not in room temperature, so I couldn’t cream it properly (and I was also too lazy to think about that). So, the icing was so bad and had butter lumps inside it!! It didn’t really matter for the gingerbread men, since I didn’t use much icing on them, but for the house, it didn’t work..

I’m so tired right now, baking everyday is definitely not for me. I come home from work not early, so I have little time for workout and playing piano. On top of that, baking was really exhausting. I lack sleep, I have back aches. So tomorrow is the last day of the challenge. Good or bad? I won’t comment on that!

Also, I realized that this is my third gingerbread cookie post. A quick flashback:

2009:

2010:

Remember the pate a choux I’ve frozen last Saturday? Well, I used it today! My first intention was to make Napoleons using this quick puff pastry recipe that I have been wanting to try for a while. But, since there is not a habit of labeling the flours in our house, I accidentally used a low gluten, whole-wheat flour, and the puff pastry didn’t puff. And I had already prepared pastry cream to make Napoleons. So, I used my frozen pate a choux and made cream puffs!

And to make things more interesting, I topped the puffs with orange chocolate and sprinkled peppermint candy! The recipe was a success, seriously everybody loved these puffs! And because of that, I suggest you to always freeze half of every dough you prepare, just in case..

Chocolate Peppermint Cream Puffs

makes 40 cream puffs

For pate a choux:

- Use the recipe here. Omit sugar pearls.

Ingredients:

For pastry cream:

• 500 ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 150 gr sugar (5.3 oz.)
• 75 gr (2.65 oz.) cornstarch

For topping:

• 80 gr dark chocolate with orange, melted
• 3-4 peppermint candies, crushed
• 1-2 tablespoons milk, hot

Directions:

Heat the milk. In a separate bowl, mix all the other ingredients. When the milk is boiled, pour 3 tablespoons of it to the egg mixture and whisk quickly, so you don’t get cooked egg clumps in your cream! Then, pour this egg mixture to boiled milk and stir for one minute and take the cream off heat.

When the pastry cream and choux puffs are completely cooled, cut the puffs into half and fill them with pastry cream.

Mix the melted chocolate and milk. Pour this over the choux puffs. Sprinkle with crushed peppermint candies.

Oh, and don’t forget the Insatgram photos:

A couple of years ago, I had a chance to taste the best butter cookies in a hotel lobby. They were thin like leaves, and so crispy, buttery and spicy. After that, I tried to replicate those cookies, but I never really managed. This is by far the closest taste I could get.

I used mulberry molasses for extra spiciness, and that’s why my cookies were a bit chewy (but crispy too), but I’m sure if you omit molasses, your cookies will be very crispy. If you cannot find mulberry molasses, you can just use regular molasses.

Spice Butter Cookies with Mulberry Molasses

adapted from Martha

makes 60 thin cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup mulberry molasses (see the note above)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• a pinch of salt

Directions:

Mix together butter, flour, sugar, and spices until fully incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and mix in the molasses. Add this mixture to the dough and knead until it gets even.

Form a ball (or 3-4 balls, in order to take them out one by one, and not to let them warm up), and let it cool in the refrigerator for two hours. At this point, you can freeze the dough and use it later.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

When the dough balls are cooled, take them out one by one and roll out to 0.25 cm (1/8 inch). If you trust yourself, go thinner! Cut the dough with desired cutters. Bake them in the oven for 13 minutes, or until the edges start to brown. Cool them on a rack and let them completely cool before eating.

And some Instagram photos to end this post:

Today, I decided to relax and make something easy, after waiting in front of the oven anxiously for pate a choux to rise all day on Saturday. So, I made cinnamon roll pancakes that I saw on Pinterest, although I made up my own cinnamon filling recipe. Tomorrow, there will a more exciting post, I promise!

Cinnamon Roll Banana Pancakes

Banana Pancakes:

- Use this recipe, or any other pancake recipe you want

Cinnamon Filling:

- Use the technique in this recipe. You can use that filling too, or do what I did: mix 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 teaspoons honey and 1 teaspoon olive oil

Yesterday, I didn’t create any recipe, but combined two recipes and came up with something I wanted to make for ages: Lemon Choux Puffs!! Do you know my favorite dessert as a child? Chocolate profiteroles of course! That’s why I always love food made with pate a choux. And I decided so many recipes. This is yet another recipe from one of the blogs I like to follow. But instead of filling the puffs with pastry cream, I tried something different and made lemon curd instead. I came by this recipe in Claire Robinson’s show (I love that she uses only five ingredients in her recipes!). But the pate a choux recipe yields 40 puffs, and my lemon curd wasn’t enough for all of them. So, I refrigerated half of my pate a choux to use later. However, I now think that I may have increased the lemon curd amount by adding some whipped cream. You can try it that way. Next time, I’ll try it that way.

Ginger Choux Puffs with Lemon Curd

yields 20-40 puffs

For pate a choux:

- Use the recipe here. Omit sugar pearls. Add two teaspoons grated fresh ginger to the dough.

For lemon curd:

- Use the lemon curd recipe here. If you want to increase the amount and lighten up the curd, just mix the curd with 2-3 cups whipped cream.

For dusting:

-confectioners’s sugar

Directions:

When the puffs and the lemon curd is cooled, cut the puffs into half and fill them with lemon curd. Sprinkle the tops with confectioners’ sugar.

This is the best cake I’ve made for a while! Seriously! And it is not even that impromptu! I planned it the day before, and except for the unsuccessful glaze, which was an epic fail and was overly sweet. This cake is so amazing itself that it does not need any glaze or topping. So, I’m not going to talk much today, but I advise you to get some non-GMO cornmeal, make your own shredded coconuts and try out this recipe immediately! Then, if you are sure not to fail like me, you can put some lemon whipped cream or lemon glaze on top.

Lemon Coconut Cornmeal Cake

makes 20 pieces

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (or a little less)
• 2 cups cornmeal
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 2 cups shredded coconuts (make your own)
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
• zest of two lemons
• 4 teaspoons baking salt
• a pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, sugar, salt, lemon juice and lemon zest.

Mix in flour. Then add baking powder. Finally, mix in shredded coconuts.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked.

I know that making cezerye does not involve baking, so it doesn’t count as a part of the Baking Challenge. Therefore, I decided to change the name of my challenge to New Year Dessert Challenge (NYDC), which means I can make more truffles (especially chocolate truffles!) in the following days too.Remember my cezerye trial decades ago? Well, I decided to make cezerye again, but as in the form of a truffle. Also, I didn’t put any nuts inside my cezerye last time. This time, I added chopped hazelnuts, increased the amount of cinnamon and added some ground cloves. Result? Well, I don’t think I need to tell you that!

I also tried to go further and dipped some of the cezerye in chocolate, turning out be an epic fail!! Now you may think how it is possible to fail with something covered in chocolate, but it was really disgusting. I really don’t recommend it. In summary, you can make chocolate-covered cover everything (even chickpeas) but cezerye!

Cezerye Truffles

makes 20 truffles

Ingredients:

- 300 gr (10.6 oz). carrots, finely grated

- 150 gr (5.3 oz.) sugar (I used white sugar, but brown sugar can be better, since it increases the caramel flavor)

- 1 cup water

- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

- 1 teaspoon ground cloves

- a pinch of salt

- 1 to 1 1/2 cups chopped hazelnuts or walnuts

- coconut flakes (to cover)

Directions:

Put the carrots, water, and spices to a large pan and cook over medium heat. When the mixture starts to boil, reduce the heat and let the mixture cook for 45 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed and you get a sticky mixture (for more instructions, see this post).

Take the pan from heat and mix in the nuts. Let the cezerye cool in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Take the cezerye from the refrigerator and using a spoon, shape 4 cm (2-inch) balls with your hands.

Cover the balls with coconut.

I love grained photos in winter!

Today, I have a very interesting and very impromptu recipe to share. So, I knew I had to bake something, so I looked at the fruit bowl and saw that we have some tangerines, apples, pears, a quince and some oranges. I decided to make apple and pear cake by using my beloved Carrot Cake recipe as the base. And since I came by this deliciousness today, I decided to lay some pears on the bottom of the cake mold.

Then, I decided to double my carrot cake recipe, since I know that it doesn’t yield much. But, doubling came with pain..

After sifting a cup of whole-wheat flour, I realized that I don’t have any more flour left, and still 3 more cups of flour to add. So, instead I added a cup of rice flour, a cup of processed oatmeal and a cup of processed almonds.

I put 1/3 of the batter to muffin cups, and 2/3 of it to a cake mold. But, since I used a deep mold, it took the cake an hour to bake. So I really recommend baking this recipe in a shallow pan, as I usually do. Nevertheless, the cake turned out to be amazing. I could totally taste the almonds and apples and pears and cinnamon!! Yummy!!

Pear Apple Cake with Mixed Flours

makes 2 batches of cake

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 cup oat flour (or simply processed oatmeal)
• 1 cup almond flour (or simply processed almonds)
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 5 cups coarsely grated pears and apples
• 3-4 pears to lay on bottom, sliced and dipped into honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon
• a pinch of salt
• 4 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil and sugar.

Stir in vanilla, flours, and cinnamon, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda into the mixture and stir.

At this stage, don’t worry if the mixture is not so liquid. It should be something between cookie dough and cake batter.

Add the grated fruits and form an even mixture. Don’t worry again that the fruits are too much. They will dissolve after cooked.

Option 1- Take two shallow pans. Lay the bottoms with sliced pears. Divide the mixture into two and pour inside the pans.

Option 2- Simply pour the mixture into muffin cups and out the sliced pears on top.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked.

Challenge time!! Starting from today, I will be baking everyday until December 30th. Throughout this challenge, I’ll use my old recipes as well as some new ones. So, let’s get started. First day: the best chocolate-chip cookies!! (Standard recipe: here, healthier version: here)

As for chocolate-chips, I crushed a variety of chocolate bars, including this, this and a gianduja bar from Venchi. I wish I put some white chocolate too, but the taste was nevertheless amazing. The cookies were soft, moist and full of chocolate!

I served these in a round tin covered with parchment paper. So easy, let looks so elegant!

By the way, who needs a DSLR when there is Instagram, the lazy person’s best friend!

I’ve been meaning to write  this post for a while, but as always, I was busy with other things going on in my life. I made this recipe back in summer for guests, and they were very pleased. Little they knew is that crumble is so easy to make, and also healthier than any other possible dessert choice (Remember, I live in Turkey, country of baklava, so we could have served them those too!). I took this recipe from one of my favorite books, Cooking Light Way to Cook. What I love about this book is that recipes are easy and quick to make. I love reading complicated recipes, but when it comes to cooking, I can sometimes become the world’s laziest person. So this book is great for me. I changed the recipe and replaced sugar with honey, as usual. Honey brings more flavor to this recipe, therefore it is really not necessary to use sugar, when there is a healthier alternative to it. So, go ahead and make crumble today! Possibilities are really endless with this recipe. For this season, apple & cinnamon, pumpkin & raisins, or quince & walnut can be just a few flavor combinations to use in your crumble! Enjoy!

Peach & Berry Crumble

adapted from Cooking Light Way to Cook

Ingredients:

For filling:

• 7 cups chopped fruit (I used half peach and half berries) (Remember that if you use berries, they will release some liquid)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2-3 tablespoons honey (depending on the sweetness of your fruits)

For topping:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1/4 cup nuts, chopped (I used almonds)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil or coconut oil
• 1 egg yolk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 degrees F).

Mix the filling ingredients in a bowl. Lay them into a shallow baking pan.

Pulse the oats in a food processor. Add the other topping ingredients and process them until everything is well blended. Squeeze the topping in your hands and spread this evenly over the fruit mix.

Bake for 30-40 minutes. Serve with vanilla icecream.

About a month ago, Kitchen Impromptu turned 2! Over the course of these years, I managed to publish 61 posts (62, with this post) even though nobody read my blog. At first, it didn’t really matter to me, because I was just writing for pleasure. But during my busy times, I was not really motivated to write. I know I decided to focus on my blog so many times before, but this time, it will be different. Promise.

To celebrate KI’s second birthday, I made chocolate covered leblebi and raisins. Chocolate covered leblebi (or literally, chocolate-covered chickpeas) may seem an awkward idea, but it is indeed not! All I did was to dip some raisins and leblebi in melted chocolate and let them rest and harden in the refrigerator. Then we ate..

And, as you may have noticed, I am too lazy to take DSLR photos, and use my beloved Hipstamatic instead.

 Today, I decided to give up having sweet things for breakfast for a while. Why? Because I gained some weight. Why? Because apparently, the sweet breakfasts increase my blood sugar level (and don’t keep me full until lunch), and since I basically eat vegetables, fruits and yogurt during the day, my sugar level drops. And when the dinner time comes, I am so hungry that I binge on everything I can find. So, I’m going to try for savory breakfast options for a while. And guess what, it worked well this morning!

This morning, I kept it simple. I had some “lor” cheese (similar to ricotta) with tomatoes, cucumbers and a slice of whole-wheat bread. And a cup of tea (of course!)

This was actually a simplified version of a traditional Turkish breakfast, which includes a lot more things. Unlike all the sweet breakfast options in other countries, Turkish breakfast is simple, filling and healthy. And actually, traditional breakfast is what I need in the mornings. However, breakfast is like a ritual in Turkey, and I also like to have my Turkish breakfast in peace, not rushing for work. So, instead I invent myself options (often including peanut butter).

But today, I really wanted to have some cheese and juicy tomatoes, so I packed my breakfast and ate at work. Simply delicious! I should do this more.

Sorry for the late post. So, what is “Buddink”? It is my favorite indulgence for the past couple of months, and it is basically pudding, but not just your average one.Yes, the “Buddink”. That’s what my grandma pronounces “pudding”. The story is as follows:

So, two months ago, I made her this pudding. Then, she wanted to inform my grandpa about it:

Grandma: Hey, Ulya has just made us some “buddink”!

Grandpa: What?

Gm: Buddink, buddink!

Gp: What?

Me: It’s pudding, grandpa

Gp: Hahahahahaha!

But, I have to inform you beforehand that this is not your average chocolate pudding. This pudding has no sugar, it has mulberry molasses instead, which gives the pudding a unique flavor. And mulberry molasses is good for you. Better than white sugar, at least.

Mulberry molasses, along with grape molasses and carob molasses, is a traditional sweetener widely used in Turkey. The term molasses is actually not true for this sweetener. It’s not the molasses used in the US, Europe, or many other countries. Turkish molasses (or “pekmez”) is made by boiling the fruit. So in this post, whenever I say molasses, it means “our” kind of molasses.

Inspite of being a tahini-molasses lover (I especially like the tahini-molasses combination, and I used to consume enormous amounts of this combination on a slice of bread), I don’t like to use molasses in baked goods. In order to “healthify” my cakes, I attempted many times to use molasses instead of sugar, but it left my cakes with an unpleasant bitter taste.

So when my mum and her friend came up with the idea of “mollasses pudding” to make my sister gain weight (she was trying to gain weight by then), I immediately thought of this bitter taste and regarded it as a bas idea. How wrong I was!!!!

So ladies and gentlemen, this is the original recipe for the “Buddink”, as mum’s friend came up with. It may have too many calories inside, but it’s free of processed sugar and very nutritious, and also one of my favorite quick breakfast foods.

Actually, it was yesterday’s breakfast.

Because of my sister, we always have some “Buddink” in the refrigerator. So, it’s really easy to grab a bowl of buddink before leaving the house.

The “Buddink”

Ingredients:

• 1 lt milk
• 1 cup mulberry molasses
• 40 gr (1.4 oz) whole-wheat flour
• 30 gr (1 oz) rice flour
• 30 gr (1 oz) cocoa powder
• 1 egg yolk
• optional: 1-2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients except butter. Stir until no lumps of flour and egg can be seen.

Cook in medium heat while stirring.

After the pudding is boiled, cook for 3 more minutes and remove from heat.

Add butter, and stir.

Pour the pudding into bowls and keep them in the refrigerator.

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/phbc-day4-the-buddink-with-mulberry-molasses-pekmez/feed/ 0 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/phbc-day-3-oatmea/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/phbc-day-3-oatmea/#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:21:58 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=1032

Although I’m not an oatmeal-for-breakfast person, I try to eat oatmeal regularly, because it’s healthy for you. It’s high in fiber and complex carbohydrates. Besides, it’s low in fat, so you can add in as much healthy fats as you want (in my case, mostly peanut butter). But, as I said, I’m not a fan. I find it somehow disturbing to eat because of its slimy texture when cooked. So to make the oatmeal more interesting and healthier, I do the following..

First of all, I don’t cook my oatmeal. Instead, I use a popular technique: overnight oats. I mix 1/4 cup oats with 1/4 cup milk. then I add 1/2 teaspoon spice of my choice, 1 tablespoon flax seed and some stevia or honey for sweetening. I put this mixture in the freezer and let the oats soften in milk over the night. When I wake up, I add a blob of nut butter, a blob of jam and 2 tablespoons of granola.

Last week, I made myself an oatmeal bowl with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and peanut butter.

And today, I had my oatmeal with 1 teaspoon cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, a blob of coconut butter and a blob of my beloved rose jam:

PHBC Day 2! Today was the granola day. I simply mixed 3 tablespoons of granola with some milk and called it breakfast.

Oh, and don’t forget the half peach I found in the refrigerator. It was super sweet!

Granola is sooooo easy to make, and has many uses. You can use it to enhance your oatmeal, eat it during the day as a snack, o simply consume with milk like I did this morning. And like veggie burger, it has a base recipe and you can make your own versions. So don’t be lazy about granola, just make it!

Granola

Ingredients:

• 3 cups oatmeal
• 3/4 cup desired nuts (hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, cashews, pistachios, etc.), chopped roughly
• 1/3 cup liquid sweetener (I prefer honey)
• 1/4 cup oil (preferably extra-virgin olive oil or coconut oil)
• optional: 1 tablespoon flax seed
• optional: 2 tablespoons coconut flakes
• optional: 1 tablespoon cocoa nibs
• optional: 1/4 cup dried fruit (raisins, dates, etc.), chopped

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees C (300 degrees F).

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the sweetener and oil, and mix well.

Put the mixture onto a pan with parchment paper.

Bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

You can store granola in a jar for up to 1 month (or maybe more).

EDIT: Check this out! It looks amazing, I’m definitely going to try this!

Did you know that when I was a child, I didn’t like to have breakfast? I used to only drink a glass of milk in mornings, and then crave for the entire day. Then when I was a freshman in university, I used to eat fatty pastries every morning with a big cup of sugared tea. Yuck!

But now, I’m older and I know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and not only it keeps you full for hours, it is also helps you maintain your healthy weight. I can easily say that when I don’t have breakfast, I tend to binge on any food I can find that day.

So, breakfast is good for us and we have to have it everyday. But it’s not easy huh? For some people, having a breakfast early is not tempting. My sister, for example, cannot have breakfast very early. That is of course not true for me. But I have another problem. Since I like to sleep, and am therefore usually rushing for work in the mornings, I definitely don’t have time to have a decent breakfast. Fortunately, these two breakfast preventive situations have one single solution: “pre-made breakfast”.If you don’t like to have breakfast early, just prepare it in the morning. Or, if you are like me and don’t have time to eat, just prepare it and eat on the way or when you arrive at work. But preparing takes a lot of time too, what if we don’t have time for that? Well, you can make some of the work the night before, and just assemble or cook in the morning. That easy!

Today, I’m starting a weekly challenge: “Pre-made Healthy Breakfast Challenge”, or simply PHBC. For one week, I’m going to have a different healthy breakfast every day, and post it here with recipes. And believe me, they are all too quick to prepare since I’m a lazy person.

And I’ll probably take the photos using Instagram or Hipstamatic. I just don’t have time for taking DSLR photos in the morning!

So, we start with pancakes…

Did you see Katie’s vegan red velvet pancakes? Oh, they are so good! So yesterday, I decided to have them for my next breakfast, and prepared the batter before I sleep. I changed the recipe a little bit, made the batter, put it in a container, put that in the freezer and slept.

When I woke up, I took out the batter, and saw that it was thickened too much. So I added a little bit of milk and cooked the pancakes. Then I spread some rose jam (killer!!!) and my homemade peanut butter on top. I put my pancakes in a container and eat them on my way to work.

Also, I managed to grab the leftovers of my sister’s lactose-free milk:

Day one completed!

Overnight Chocolate Pancakes with Peanut Butter & Rose Jam

adapted from Chocolate-Covered Katie

makes 2 pancakes

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon oatmeal
• 1 tablespoon flax seed
• 1/2 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon stevia (or 1 tablespoons honey or any other liquid sweetener)
• optional: 2 teaspoons chocolate nibs

For topping:

• 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon jam (I used rose jam but blackberry jam works the best)

Directions

Mix all the ingredients, and store them in the refrigerator overnight.

On the morning, if the batter is too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons milk. Then, cook both sides in a lightly oiled pan for 2-3 minutes.

Spread peanut butter and jam on top.

Put them in a container and take to work!

Long time no see, as usual. I’m guilty. I didn’t have time for Kitchen Impromptu, and I didn’t care because I wasn’t in my writing mood after all. Yet, I think that’s OK because 1) I’m not a full-time blogger, 2) I don’t have to write in predetermined frequencies and 3) I don’t believe in forced blogging, because I do it for fun. But I really like to talk, so  for me, blogging is simply not talking out loud, but talking to my keyboard. That’s how I managed to write 30+ posts over the past 1.5 years. But let’s face the facts: keyboards aren’t human, and since I don’t have thousands of readers who leave 200 comments per post, I don’t feel the pressure to write. Is it good to be by yourself, being free to write anything anytime, or is it good to have thousands of readers and feeling pressure? I can discuss this for hours and come up with no solution..

No, we are off-topic right now. Today I want to talk about my latest obsession: mini veggie burgers, or MVBs. Now, I have to indicate that I’m a burger lover,  I like to look at AHT during my office breaks, which makes me think about burgers everyday. So I get burger cravings very often. However, eating blobs of animal fat doesn’t always seem appealing all the time. Veggie burgers rescue me in those times. They are little, heavenly patties made of chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils or more. Moreover, veggie burger has a very simple base recipe, which leads to millions of variations.

Here’s a mini lentil burger I made for work.

And here’s my previous Saturday&Sunday lunch:

I ate my mini burger with oven fries, a lot of ketchup (I’m a Heinz addict) and a glass of kefir. Yes, kefir. If you don’t know what kefir is, it’s a fermented drink made of milk, and it’s both delicious and healthy for you. You can either buy it, or ferment your own. It’s like the milk version of kombucha. Since I can easily find kefir in Turkey, I didn’t bother making my own. By the way, I really want to try kombucha, but I don’t want to make it at home, because apparently it’s a very time-consuming job! But I couldn’t find any brand in Turkey that sells kombucha, although a lot of people sell the mushroom for home-fermenting. It’s really sad not to have a brand like Synergy Drinks in Turkey:(

Veggie Burger Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups desired legume (kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas, black beans, peas, etc.), cooked
• 1/2 cup desired nuts (hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, etc.)
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 egg (or 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed, soaked 15 minutes in water)
• desired spices (curry, dried thyme, pepper, chilli, etc.)
• salt
• optional: 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (use if you don’t like the burgers dry)

Directions:

Process everything in a blender. If you don’t have a blender, use your food processor, process the nuts first, then oats, and then the other ingredients.

Form 5 cm (2 inch) patties. Store in the freezer or eat immediately by cooking in the oven or in a lightly greased pan.

Assemble your burgers in any way you want to. I highly recommend using Smitten Kitchen’s Light Brioche Burger Buns (I changed the recipe and used honey instead of sugar, reduced the amount of butter and used whole-wheat flour). Also, I like to make mini burger buns for my mini burgers.

For oven fries, I simply drizzle 6 potatoes (cut into strips) with 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil and spices (salt, pepper, dried thyme and chilli). This time, I also sprinkled some grated parmesan cheese. Yum yum yum! Bake the potatoes for 30-40 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees C (390 degrees F).

I haven’t been around here for quite a long time.. I wasn’t that busy to write anything, though. I just couldn’t decide about the blog’s future. As I wrote before, I was thinking about opening a Turkish food blog with an emphasis on healthy eating, but couldn’t find a proper name for the blog (or couldn’t find any empty domains for candidate names). Then, after waiting endlessly for an idea to pop into my mind in bathroom or before I sleep (where creative ideas usually come to me) I decided to stop trying to be always creative and perfect, and just open the Turkish blog under kitchenimpromptu domain. So, for Turkish readers, my new blog is tr.kitchenimpromptu.com, until I find a better name.

Other than my new blog, a lot of things and a lot of cooking happened in the last couple of weeks. My cousin got engaged, and most of the food served was homemade by us! My contributions were: hummus, spinach strawberry salad, sweet and salty avocado dressing from Choosing Raw (killer!), strawberry lemonade soda adapted from here (also killer!), chocolate barks, homemade bounties, chocolate covered peanut butter and chocolate covered fudge babies. And a cute cheese plate!

Closeup on table:

Hummus (recipe will come- I promise!):

Spinach strawberry salad was so easy to make; I blended some chopped spinach with chopped strawberries and walnuts, and sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese. For balsamic vinaigrette, I blended 3 parts of olive oil with one 1 part balsamic vinegar, and drizzled over the salad. DELICIOUS:

Sweet and salty avocado dressing:

Strawberry lemonade soda raised some different comments. Some said it was good, and some said I should have used less mineral water. But I do agree that it cannot be called “lemonade”, as in Martha’s recipe, because it was more like a soda with an emphasis on strawberries. I liked the taste, though I’m planning to make a honey sweetened version. And I think the others liked it as well, because there wasn’t any left at the end of the day!:

Wait, there’s more!

Like my cute little cheese plate:

And the dessert table (Notice the baklavas?):

Chocolate barks were a big hit! And they were so easy to make. First, I melted some milk chocolate. Then I spread it onto a tray with parchment paper. After that, I topped the chocolate with chopped hazelnuts, raisins and orange zest. Orange zest is the key to great smelling chocolate barks! Then I chilled the chocolate for 5 minutes in the freezer. Finally, I put a second layer of melted chocolate and chilled for 10 minutes. When the chocolate is completely solidified, I broke them into pieces, and voila! I also made another variation with dark chocolate, pistachios and raisins.

Homemade bounties (recipe coming soon!), chocolate covered peanut butter and chocolate covered fudge babies:

Oh, we ate so much that day. So much that I wasn’t that hungry even the day after!

I also experimented with a lot of recipes. For example, I made Smitten Kitchen’s Light Brioche Burger Buns with some changes. I used honey instead of sugar, reduced the amount of butter and used whole-wheat flour; and I was very pleased! I even made kidney bean burgers with them, but the burgers looked more like bean paste (I should have used an egg and more flour to bind the burgers). And when I decided to make some burger buns for my cousin’s engagement and doubled the recipe, it didn’t work! I must have missed something, but I’ll definitely try again.

I also made Gena’s macaroons, and they were fantastic, but somehow since I used my oven instead of a dehydrator like Gena does, their shapes were not good enough to put in an engagement menu. But I’ll work on that too, because they were so easy to make, so delicious and healthy! And do you know that I made my own shredded coconuts for that recipe? Yay! I don’t know what took me so long to make them, I guess I was skeptical about breaking and shredding coconuts. But if you have a hammer, it’s easy to break the coconut, and I used food processor instead of shredding the coconuts, which made no difference. Then, all you have to do is roasting them in the oven. I strongly recommend making your own shredded coconut, it’s much much better than the things we buy from store.

I hope to write more often. We’ll see..

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/engagement-food-new-blo/feed/ 3 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/quince-dessert-and-some-blabbering/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/quince-dessert-and-some-blabbering/#comments Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:51:42 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=979

It’s been a long time.. Sometimes I really don’t feel like posting anything to the blog, although I have a ton of recipes and photos that I took. Actually, I have  never been a good writer, and that makes it sometimes hard to write. But I can proudly say I’m a total blabbermouth, and I always have something to say. In fact, that was one of the reasons I started blogging. I didn’t want to irritate people with my unnecessary talking, and I also wanted to improve my writing. But I have never blabbered in this blog (at least, not too much). I just couldn’t decide if it’s the right place to talk, talk, and talk (or in this case write, write and write). But, hey, blogs are meant to be the places you express yourself, so from now on, I’m going to write about anything that comes to my mind. The problem is, should I open a new blog for that, or should I pollute my food blog with unnecessary talking? I’ve been thinking about that for sometime.Another thing that confuses my mind is, a lot of my friends who read the blog (they are my only readers I guess) suggested me to open the blog in Turkish, and that’s another problem. Writing a post in two languages would take a lot of time, and I really don’t want to repeat everything once more in Turkish. My idea is that I can open a Turkish blog in a different concept. It can be more focused on healthy eating and “maintaining weight”, which may help other people.

Thinking while writing, I am now coming to a conclusion. I think I will extend this blog a bit, and write about food, and any other thing that comes to my mind. And I’ll be soon opening a turkish blog about healthy living. Next comes the name of the new blog, and new designs for my blogs. Any ideas for a Turkish name?

But, today my purpose was to post a quince dessert recipe that I adored! Quince dessert is a traditional Turkish dessert, and it’s very much like poached apples, and very simple to make. You poach (simmer in low heat) the quinces in water with sugar, some spice and the quince seeds. After a couple of hours (in my case, two hours), the quinces become viscous (is that the right word?), like they are dipped in honey. The gelling agent in quince seed makes the dessert sticky and it also gives the dessert a reddish color. Finally, you eat your dessert with a spoonful of clotted cream (widely used in Turkey). The tartness of quince goes away when cooked, and you get an amazing taste. Sounds good, right? When I came by some delicious photos of quince dessert while googleing, I was thinking the same. But there was a problem.

A few weeks ago, I bought some m&m’s and put in a jar to decorate my office, which I thought was a good idea. WHAT A HUGE MISTAKE! After unwillingly eating 200 grams of them in a day, I decided to stop eating processed sugar for one week, because I literally felt disgusted of sugar. So, I was in my “no processed sugar challenge” when I saw the quince dessert photos.

But you know, I had to do something, because I really wanted to eat and I couldn’t break my rules. I was thinking about making the dessert with honey instead of sugar, but I wasn’t sure if it would to be as sticky and syrupy like the original one. But I gave it a try.

I admit that I cheated a bit. I used honey and some organic palm sugar, because I think that palm sugar was only semi-processed. It wasn’t bleached, and it has its molasses inside. And I also love palm sugar. If it was something easy to be found in Turkey, I wouldn’t use anything else for sugar. It has the most amazing smell, it smells like caramel but better! I may try to make its homemade version someday, seriously!

So, here’s the recipe. If you want to use the original recipe, go ahead, I think it results in a more stickier dessert, but I really loved the honey version. I think

there’s an unnoticeable difference between them.

Quince Dessert

makes 12

Ingredients:

• 6 quinces, peeled, cut into half and seeded
• seeds of 6 quinces
• 18 tablespoons of honey (1 .5 tablespoons for each quince half)
• 6 tablespoons of palm sugar (or cane sugar, or honey)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cloves or 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• dash of salt
• water
• clotted cream (you can use whipped cream if you can’t find clotted cream, but I don’t recommend that)

Directions:

In a large pan, place the quinces and pour water just to cover the quinces.

Put the spices and the seeds to a strainer bag (I used a tea strainer, and I ran out of cinnamon sticks, so I used ground cinnamon instead).

In low heat, simmer the quinces for half an hour, or when they start to change the colors and soften a bit. Add honey and palm sugar, and simmer for one and a half hours more, or until the quinces become very soft and sticky.

Serve the quinces with clotted cream. If you like warm, eat immediately, or eat after storing them in the refrigerator.

I made Katie’s Fudge Babies a couple of times, and they make an excellent snack. But those babies are packed with a lot of nuts and dates, which is healthy and at the same time, calorie-dense. Since I don’t have the luxury to eat as many babies as I wish (acne + belly), I decided to “lighten” up the recipe a little bit, and used leftover chocolate cake instead of half the amount of walnuts. What I came up has about 25% less calories than original fudge babies, but is as yummy as they are. To make them even more tastier (and to add more calories, unfortunately) I decorated my fudge hearts with some white chocolate, and it was literally heavenly! So, go ahead and use your leftover cake! And be sure to use white chocolate, if you don’t mind extra 10 calories per serving; because it really fires up the taste.

Fudge Hearts with Leftover Cake

20-25 servings

adapted from Chocolate-Covered Katie

Ingredients:

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup mashed leftover chocolate cake (you don’t need to add any liquid)
• 2 cups pitted dates
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder (6, if you use non-chocolate cake)
• zest of 1 orange
• melted white chocolate, for decorating

Directions:

Blend everything (except white chocolate) in a food processor.

Shape small balls. If you have chocolate molds, press the fudge into molds and leave them in the freezer for a couple of minutes. This will make the fudge easier to separate from the mold.

Decorate the hearts with some white chocolate.

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/leftover-cake-fudge-heart/feed/ 2 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/healthiest-chocolate-chip-cookie/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/healthiest-chocolate-chip-cookie/#comments Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:45:11 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=963

This is it! This is the BEST chocolate-chip cookie recipe ever! And what’s better is that it’s way much healthier than your average chocolate-chip cookie. Impossible? Well, I don’t think so.

There’s usually a problem with “healthy” alternatives: they usually cannot replicate the “original” one. I’ve tried so many healthy chocolate-chip cookie alternatives, but the result was usually so bad that I didn’t even want to eat them. Now, I have to want you beforehand, if you are looking for low-fat or low-calorie chocolate-chip cookies, then this is not the place to look for. Besides, I don’t think there exists a chewy, delicious and full chocolate-chip cookie recipe that is also low in fat and calories. Well, you can use low-fat-vegan-margarine type artificial “things” (I don’t even call them food), but I don’t think they are healthy, and taste good. In fact, you immediately notice that something is wrong with those cookies. But my recipe is different! Despite being high in fats (healthy fats) and carbs (healthy carbs), if you eat in considerable amounts, I think these cookies make a great afternoon snack with a cup of tea. Mmmm!

Now you may be expecting a complex, fifteen ingredient, protein-powder boosted recipe, but no. This recipe originally uses Sinem’s chocolate-chip cookie recipe, which is already lower in sugar and fat, but not less delicious than regular chewy c-chip cookie recipes. But it has two ingrediential (is that a word?) problems that makes it a little unhealthy: butter and processed sugar. Now, I have to say that I’m not cursing butter. I think you should consume it now and then, but I would like to use my “butter quota” by spreading on a slice of bread, not in cookies. So, I don’t usually use butter in my recipes.

So first of all, I looked for something that can replace butter. I actually knew the answer for a while. It’s obviously coconut oil, which is solid in room temperature. That’s why you get real cookies when you make it with coconut oil (believe me, I tried some cookies with olive oil, and I don’t want to talk about the results). Coconut oil is also a healthier alternative to butter, since it has no cholesterol. Because of its high saturated fatty acid content, I wouldn’t want to use it everyday, but I have been wanting to try coconut oil in a recipe for a while. I like to use different things in my recipes. Remember my dark hummus? Or maybe purple carrot muffins?

But coconut oil is not something you can find everywhere, unless you live in the United States and have Whole Foods or a similar store nearby. So, I have been searching the web for quite a while to find coconut oil, among with some other things like Artisana Coconut Butter that everyone’s obsessed with, or raw cocoa nibs. But, unless you want to pay huge amount of money for shipping and customs, there’s no way you can supply these stuff in Turkey, even though there are lots of places that sell coconut oil as massage oil, which cannot be used as cooking oil.

Wait, there’s another way! Place an order to your friend who will visit the States! So, I ordered some coconut oil, coconut butter, raw cocoa nibs and some palm sugar from my friend. This may seem to be a temporary solution, but I won’t be using the coconut oil everyday, and I think I found a store in Turkish Ebay that sells edible coconut oil.

The second “ingrediential” problem was the processed sugar, and it was solved by Navitas Naturals’ palm sugar. Palm sugar is considered to be a healthier alternative to cane sugar (or, beet sugar for Turkey) since it’s lower in glycemic index and more nutritious. And it has a caramel-like taste, which I immediately liked. So, I decided to incorporate this to my recipe.

If you have access to coconut oil and palm sugar, I urge you to try this recipe. I stored a batch of cookies in the freezer. So, I just take them out in the morning and by the time I get to work, they are ready! And they usually become my afternoon snack with a cup of tea. So good!

Coconut Oil and Palm Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Sinem’s recipe

makes 16 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 75 gr (2.6 oz.) coconut oil, in room temperature
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• ½ cup palm sugar, or any other semi-processed alternative
• ¾ cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt
• cocoa nibs to sprinkle

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix together palm sugar and coconut butter until the mixture becomes creamy, then beat in the egg.

Add the other ingredients.

Drop 1 tablespoon of dough on a parchment paper. Be sure to have space between the cookies. Sprinkle with some cocoa nibs.

Bake the cookies for 13 minutes, or until the edges turn golden.

And what about the “famous” Artisana Coconut Butter I got? I made a batch of Katie’s chocolate fudge, and they were amazing!

I love mushrooms! But, I wasn’t always a mushroom fan. In fact, when I was a kid, I used to hate mushrooms. Why? I don’t know, because I had never tried them. I just judged the mushrooms by looking at them, and somehow decided that they are ugly and tasteless. I know, I was a strange kid. I didn’t even eat vegetables. I thought they were like “grass”, so I used to eat only meat. How ironic!

I think my first encounter with mushrooms was during a dinner with my parents. They were eating fish (I also didn’t eat fish that time. I thought they “stink”, so I was eating some beef!), and as an appetizer, they decided to eat some mushrooms with melted cheese. They forced me to try it, and guess what? I liked it! Since then, I’m a big mushroom fan.

This recipe (I cannot even call this a recipe, because it’s so simple!) was an improvised one I came up last week, and it became my dinner. Enjoy!

Easy Mushroom Dish

Ingredients:

• 20 mushrooms
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons ground thyme
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 75 gr (2.6 oz.) string cheese, diced
• salt and pepper
  

Directions:

Put the mushrooms to a baking tray, along with onion, garlic and ground thyme. Then drizzle it with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook in the oven at 200 degrees C (390 degrees F) for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the tray with string cheese and cook for 5 more minutes. Eat immediately!

If you follow this blog, then you probably know about my “famous” carrot cake, my all-time favorite cake! But, the fact is that this cake is not so healthy to eat every time. So, I tried to came up with a healthier one, using honey instead of processed sugar. But the result was not as I wanted to get. The unique taste of my “famous” carrot cake was gone.

So, for the last time, I gave it a one more try and I got really nice little carrot cakes. To make them interesting, I used both orange and purple carrots. This recipe uses milk and yogurt instead of olive oil to make the cake more protein-rich. And everybody seemed to like it. They didn’t understand it was  made with honey. But nevertheless, I still have to say that nothing can beat my original love. It still tastes so unique!

Carrot Cake: Third Version

yields 20 servings / 100 calories per serving

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 cup dry oats
• 1/6 cup low-fat (high-protein) milk
• 1/6 cup yogurt
• 3 cups COARSELY grated carrots (I used 1 1/2 cups orange and 1 1/2 cups purple carrots)
• 3/4 cup honey
• 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, milk, yogurt and honey.

Stir in vanilla, flour, oats and spices, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda into the mixture and stir.

Add the carrots and form an even mixture. Don’t worry that the carrots are too much. They will dissolve after cooked.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan (you can also pour the mixture into muffin cups) and bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked.

Finally, I found my lost brownie recipe! I actually found it by chance in my wallet and I don’t know how it got in there.

Anyway, this recipe is originally from my recent favorite book, and after some modifications, I came up with my own.

WARNING: Don’t be fooled by the photo. These brownies my not look appealing to you, but they are extremely chewy! To make them even more chewy, I used some whole-wheat cereals instead of walnuts. So, if you don’t want to be on the high-chewiness side, just use some walnuts, hazelnuts, or simply nothing.

Extremely Chewy Olive Oil Brownies with Whole-Wheat Cereal

adapted from The Pocket Cookbook

yields 16 servings / 180 calories per serving

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter (I used my homemade butter)
• 80 gr (2.8 oz.) dark chocolate, melted
• 1 cup whole wheat cereal (optional)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• zest of 1 orange
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix the eggs, sugar, olive oil, vanilla extract and melted chocolate. Set aside.

Mix the dry ingredients and add them to wet ingredients.

Spread the batter into a baking tray, and bake for 25 minutes, or until cooked.

Remember the super easy pumpkin soup I was talking about? Well, here it is! It’s really easy to make, but tastes fantastic, and what’s more fantastic is that this soup requires only five ingredients (excluding salt and water, of course)!

And good news, I found my brownie recipe! I’ll post it soon!

Creamy Roasted Pumpkin Soup

yields 3 servings / 150 calories per serving

Ingredients:

• 2 cups diced pumpkins
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1/4 cup low-fat milk
• 3/4 – 1 cup boiling water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• salt

Directions:

Spread the pumpkins and the garlic on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil.

Roast the pumpkins at 220 degrees C (430 degrees F), about 20 minutes.

Put all the ingredients (excluding the water) in a food processor and blend! Add some water (the amount depends on your preference).

That’s it! Enjoy!

Yesterday night was interesting. After a tiring work day, I went to the groceries and aimlessly wandered around the sections. When I went to the fruits&vegetables section, I randomly chose 3 things: some mushrooms, 4 slices of pumpkin and 2 purple carrots. Why? I don’t have any idea. But I have some guesses:

• I bought mushrooms because I haven’t eaten them for a while.
• I bought pumpkin because I saw a pumpkin bread recipe today in a blog, and I had been thinking about it since then.
• I bought purple carrots because I had never seen them before, and they looked interesting to me. Are they carrots at all? They are probably parsnips, but I can’t really tell the difference between them. If you have any ideas, please enlighten me! Google doesn’t give any results for neither purple carrot nor purple parsnip.

So, when I got home with my three random ingredients, I decided to put the mushrooms away for a while because they didn’t look interesting to me near the pumpkin and purple carrots. They will be my dinner for today, though. In case you want to know, I’ll roast them in the oven with some olive oil, onions and ground thyme.

But, what about pumpkin and purple carrots? Well, I had planned what to do with the pumpkin earlier, when I saw the pumpkin bread. I was going to make some sweet pumpkin muffins. Then, I changed my mind and decided to make some pumpkin and feta cheese muffins. Why? Again, I don’t know, I wanted to make something different. But after making them, I remembered that I saw these muffins in 101 Cookbooks. Anyway, mine is different, but the idea is the same.

And purple carrots? It was pretty straightforward to me, because purple carrot is still a carrot (or parsnip, I don’t know), and carrots are meant to be in a carrot cake. So, I decided to make some purple carrot muffins!

So, what I basically did was to use my famous carrot cake recipe for base. I actually use this recipe for all my cakes and put the desired fruit/vegetable instead of carrots. It’s my ultimate cake base that I’m very proud of!

For pumpkin feta muffins, I excluded the sugar from the recipe and instead of 3 cups carrot, I put 3 cups boiled and mashed pumpkin. I also added about 100 gr (3.5 oz.) crumbled feta cheese and some salt to make the muffins savory. The rest of the recipe is the same, and the result was a nice breakfast cake.

For purple carrot muffins, I used my exact carrot cake recipe, and I really liked how purplish my muffins turned out! But my purple carrots were purple on the outside and white on the inside, so when peeling the carrots, I tried not to peel off all the purple areas, because purple muffins was exactly what I wanted to get.

Since purple carrots taste a little bitter than regular carrots, I suspected that the muffins may not have that unique “carrot cake smell”. But no, they actually did! It was a real carrot cake with a slight different taste that is unnoticeable. So, go ahead and do it, why not use different colors when there are different color options?

Here’s my morning snack for today:

By the way, I roasted the remaining sliced pumpkin and made a really simple pumpkin soup. The recipe is coming soon..

Oh, I’ve been so busy with everything that I couldn’t enter one post. Actually, I was going to post a brownie recipe, but I lost it! I have the photos, but I cannot find my recipe! Ha!

But, there was one thing that doesn’t have a recipe, and that is homemade butter! It’s nothing like those smell-less and taste-less things you buy from the groceries. It’s real butter and super easy to make.

You have three options to make butter. First two are the best ways, but they take longer time. So, there’s a third way for the lazy ones;)

1- (I tried this one) First, you have to buy raw whole milk. Yes, it should come directly from the cow’s boobies! You can search for local suppliers, but make sure that they don’t take away any excess butterfat from the milk. That’s what we use to make butter.

Boil the milk, so any harmful bacteria gets killed. But you know, also the good bacteria gets killed during this process, so if you’re OK with it, you can use the raw milk directly, but I boiled my milk anyway. When the milk boils for good 30 minutes, just take it away from heat let it cool, then chill it in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours.

When you look at your milk bottle, you should be able to see a fat layer at the top. Take this “chilled” butterfat using a scoop and put it into your electric mixer and start to whisk the mixture. You will start to see the butter clumping together. Whisk a little more, and take this “butter clump”, rinse in water to get rid of the excess milk (actually what you’re left is buttermilk). And your homemade butter is ready!

If you don’t have an electrical mixer, you have to use the grandma method. Put the chilled butterfat in a bottle, close the lid, and give it a good shake for about 15 minutes. Work your muscles a bit!

2- This method is similar to the first one, but it gives a different type of butter (I don’t know the name). You use the same electrical mixer (or bottle) method, but instead of butterfat, you use the fat of yogurt. This may sound weird, but in Turkey, when you buy a package of yogurt, it usually has a layer of fat, which is called “kaymak”. So, if you want to make your butter this way, you have to make some homemade yogurt with the milk you just boiled, and then you have to whisk the chilled butterfat of the yogurt.

3- This is the lazy method. Buy some heavy cream, chill it for 6 hours in the refrigerator and whisk it using an electrical mixer. You’ll still get some delicious butter, though!

So, what did I make with my homemade butter?

Fİrst of all, I of course ate some with a bite of bread. Then, I made some whole grain cereal brownies and lost the recipe. Brava!

And today, I made some popcorn! I had recently bought some non-GMO corn kernels, so I used them.

For recipe, just try the grandma version in Simply Recipes. It really works! Instead of oil, I just used my homemade butter, and it worked well. The popcorn tasted really good, if you don’t mind the few burnt ones.

But popcorn is never complete without its best friend: chocolate! For me, they’re one of the best food couples in the world: one bite of salty popcorn and one bite of sweet chocolate, then one bite of salty popcorn again, and it goes on like that! So, I topped the popcorn with some dark-hazelnut chocolate I recently bought from the duty-free. I had never heard of this brand, Starbrook Airlines, but the packaging was cute enough for me to buy it!

So, here’s my after-dinner snack for today. I’ll compensate the extra calories, don’t worry. One less slice of bread and more workout for tomorrow!

I love chickpeas. Have I told you that before? I guess so, probably about hundred times.. Anyway, I bought some dark baby chickpeas, also known as “desi chickpeas” or “kala chana”. They are quite smaller than regular chickpeas, and they look like little chocolate drops when boiled. Wikipedia says they are higher in fiber and they have a very low glycemic index. So they are good for you!

Instead of cooking these chickpeas plainly, I decided to make the best chickpea product and one of my favorite dishes: hummus! I haven’t tasted dark chickpeas before, so I was curious about the results. My mum told me that it might not work, but I didn’t care that much, because chickpeas are chickpeas! They can be light or dark, big or small but they are chickpeas. And I wasn’t wrong!

I roasted the chickpeas with olive oil, garlic and some walnuts before blending in the food processor, because I wanted the garlic to cook a little bit, and give its nice flavor to chickpeas. Making hummus is really easy, and this recipe can be done with regular chickpeas too. I also like my hummus less lemony. You know, some people think hummus should be sour, but I don’t like it. So, you can double the lemon juice if you like your hummus that way. Enjoy!

Dark Hummus

Ingredients:

• 3 cups desi chickpeas (or regular chickpeas, if you can’t find), boiled
• 1 cup tahini
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• juice of one lemon
• 2 cloves garlic
• 4 walnuts, optional
• salt

Directions:

Spread the boiled chickpeas on a pan. Add the garlic, walnuts and pour the olive oil. Mix the chickpeas so the oil spreads evenly among them.

Roast the chickpeas in medium heat for about 15 minutes.

Blend the chickpea mixture, tahini and salt in the food processor. Pour the lemon juice until the consistency and sourness is enough.

Spread the hummus on a slice of bread or use it like a dip sauce. Or if you’re like me, just eat it directly!