Tag Archives: salad

Jul26

Around the World – Turkey: Kısır, Bulgur Salad

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Kathrin

Around the World – Turkey: Kısır, Bulgur Salad

Hey guys!

Today I have a yummy salad recipe for you! Kısır is a Turkish bulgur salad packed with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and lots of herbs! It is very refreshing any delicious!

I have lots to do today, so I’m a little short about words 😉 Just look at all the yummy pictures and then run to the kitchen and make this yummy salad! That’s what I’ll do at least, as I am invited to a goodbye party this evening and I will make this salad again for tonight.

It is very delicious, with all the herbs and exotic flavors and healthy as well! it keeps in the fridge for several days, so why not make this ahead and eat throughout the week?

It is great mixed with lettuce leaves too – I didn’t even need aditional dressing, the bulgur itself has enough flavor!

And if you want to read more about Turkey don’t forget to look for the other posts of this series below after the recipe!

Have you been to Turkey yourself? Have you enjoyed Turkish food? Do you have any questions about the country or the people? Just leave me a comment below! 🙂

Kısır, Bulgur Salad

Prep time

40 mins

Total time

40 mins

A great salad to feed lots of people! Perfect for an appetizer, main dish or snack.

Author: Kathrin @ ginger, lemon & spice

Recipe type: Salad

Cuisine: Turkish

Serves: 8

Ingredients

200g fine bulgur (köftelik bulgur - in Turkish Shops)
200ml boiling water
5 green onions
2 pointed peppers
1 red onion
10 small tomatoes
1 cucumber
2 handfull fresh herbs (parsley, dill, mint)
1 tablespoons salca (red pepper paste - in Turkish Shops)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Juice of one lemon
5 tablespoons pomegranate syrup (in Turkish Shops)
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
a pinch of chili (pul biber spice)
optional: lettuce hearts

Instructions

Put the bulgur into a big bowl and pour the hot water on top. Put a lid (or a big enough plate) on top to seal and let sit for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile chop onions, pepper, tomatoes and cucumber into small cubes. Chop herbs very finely. Set aside
Mix bulgur with salca, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and pomegranate syrup very well. Put the vegetables and herbs in and mix.
For serving you can leave the salad in the bowl and decorate with tomatoes and parsley or you can arrange the salad on lettuce leaves!

Afiyet olsun!!

Here are the other recipes I shared during this series:

An Introduction to the new series

Appetizer – Sigara Böreği

Main Dish – Köfte, Cacık & Pirinç Pilavı

Dessert – Künefe

Drink – Ayran

Pastry – Kurabiye

Snack/Fast Food – Lahmacun

Guest Post – Acılı Ezme

Have a great day!

~ Kathrin

May4

Mexican Style Tex-Mex Taco Salad

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Kathrin

Mexican Style Tex-Mex Taco Salad

$Mexican Style Tex-Mex Taco Salad$

Hello everybody!

Today really is a nice day!! The sun is shining, not brightly, but still and it is quite warm outside! I was already on tour this morning – I went to the flea market and looked for nice probs, went to a nice store in the city where I looked for more probs 😉 And then went to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients for this yummy Tex-Mex Taco Salad!!

I was craving this salad because of all the delicious Cinco de Mayo recipes posted all over the food blogging world… I didn’t even know what Cinco de Mayo was. I had to google it!!

For those of you who don’t already know: It is a national holiday in Mexico where they celebrate the victory over the French army in the village Puebla which happend on the 5th of May in 1862.

So I suggested you get into your kitchen and look if you might have already all those ingredients at home or you go for a quick stop at the supermarket and buy them to make this fresh and delicious salad right now!! 🙂

The flavors mix together really well, it has the freshness of the iceberg salad and tomatoes, the creaminess of the sauces and the beans and just the right amount of a little spice of the chilis in the Texicana sauce. I just ate this salad for lunch, it is quite filling and you don’t feel like a tightly stuffed sausage afterwards. In fact I could go outside again and do some more cycling! 🙂 I hope you like it too!

Just a quick note before I continue with the recipe: I made only half of the recipe this time. So the salad bowl you see on the pictures is just half of what you will get!

Mexican Style Tex-Mex Taco Salad

Ingredients:

1 head of iceberg salad

400-500g minced meat (I used half & half low fat)

1 onion

1 can of corn

1 can of kidney beans

1 bottle (500ml) of Texicana Salsa Sauce (or something similar)

2-3 tomatoes

200g sour cream

4 tablespoons milk

200g shredded cheese (I used Emmentaler)

optional: Taco Chips or Nachos

Directions:

1. Put a pan on your stove and heat up on high heat. Meanwhile peel and cut your onion into small squares. Put meat and onion into your pan all at once. reduce heat to medium and stir often. The meat should be very crumbly and in small pieces! Once your meat is done set it aside and let cool.

2. Wash your salad and dry it with a salad spinner. Take a very big bowl and put the iceberg salad in it and make it even. Layer the meat on top. Drain Beans and corn and sprinkle them evenly over the meat. Pour your Texicana Salsa on top and try to create an even layer. Cut the tomatoes in cubes and sprinkle on top.

3. Take a little bowl and whisk together your sour cream and the milk. Pour the mixture on top of your salad and distribute with a spoon. Take the shredded cheese and sprinkle on top!

4. The salad tastes best if you cover it and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour. If you want you can add the taco chips on top (whole or crushed) or give them as an extra! I usually don’t eat any with my salad because I just don’t need it and I’d rather save the calories 😉 It is important that if you want them you put the taco chips on top of your salad just before serving!! They will become mushy otherwise.

As with all layered salads you should take something of every layer when you put salad on your plate. Enjoy!! 🙂

~ Kathrin

Mar13

Simple Everyday Couscous Salad

Posted on March 13, 2013 by gingerlemonandspice

Simple Everyday Couscous Salad

Hello everybody!!

I hope you are great, all of you? Well, I took some time off to have my second birthday party with my family and friends at home. Then I did a whole lot of nothing, resting my brain from all the work 😉 But now I am back again!! Ready to show you some more food and stories and finally being creative again! 🙂 Last night I had a great time with my godchild. She always wanted to do a sweet yeast bread with poppy seeds on her own, so we just made a date and did it!! It was very much fun and the two braided buns turned out beautifully, too!! Of course everyone had to make their own. I would love to show you a picture, but I was so very clever to bring only my camera and not my charger to my parents house and we already took too many pictures at the wild animal park we went as a family last sunday. Well, things happen 😉

With a little luck my godchild remembered to take a picture of hers when she got back to her house!! But I can’t promise. At least I can say it wasn’t very difficult at all, so maybe I will make it again soon with proper pictures! To round up the evening we had a lot of fun eating pasta with pesto, watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in English and laughing about the silliest scens and of course – trying the first pieces of our sweet bread!! It tasted as good as it looked!

Today I have a recipe of a couscous salad for you. Well, it is not any couscous salad!! As I already told you, I live in a flat with two other girls – and this is what we eat a lot. And I really mean A LOT!!! We eat it on mondays or tuesdays, for lunch or for dinner, together or seperately – just all the time!! It is soooo very quick and definitly way too delicious to not been eaten at least twice a week!! I also take it to university if I don’t have time to eat at home which works perfectly too.

I don’t want to keep you in the loop any longer!! Here you go:

Simple Everyday Couscous Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups couscous (the easy cooking type)

4 cups boiling water

2 tea-bags (about 6-8g, or as much as you want) of mint tea – fresh might be better, but that’s all we have on hand in winter

2 teaspoons of granulated vegetable broth

1/2 cucumber (Salatgurke in German)

3-4 big tomatoes (or the equivalent in small ones)

200g feta cheese (in Germany that is one package)

about 8 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

6 tablespoons olive oil

Salt, Pepper

optional: 1 bell pepper

directions:

1. Put couscous, mint, vegetable broth and hot water into your salad bowl. Stir a little bit with a fork, then let sit for 10 minutes.

2. Cut cucumber, tomatoes, feta cheese and bell pepper into squares.

3. If the water is soaked up by the couscous already, loosen up with a fork. If not, just wait a little bit more and then go on. Put the vegetables and feta into your bowl and continue loosing up the mixture.

4. Season with salt and pepper, be careful with the salt as the feta already is salty. Pour olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the salad and mix well. Have a taste! We never measure olive oil or vinegar, we just go on taste. So if you feel you need more of anything, just add it. I like a little tingling from the vinegar on my tounge 😉

5. Enjoy lukewarm or cold!! We usually eat this as a whole meal, but it would be great as a side dish or at a barbecue too!!

~Kathrin

Jan27

Caprese – Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Basil Salad

Posted on January 27, 2013 by gingerlemonandspice

Caprese – Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Basil Salad

Hello everybody!

Today I want to share a recipe of the italian salad caprese with you.

I made it this weekend for my parents and I think it was really delicious! Usually I am not at my parents house, as I am studying at a university 110 km north of my hometown. The last times I went to visit my family over the weekend or for some days around christmas and new years, it became a habit for them to pronounce me as their cook 😉 I have free hand – I can cook whatever I want and usually they eat it, so it can’t be too bad. I like being creative and think about what meal they might like and how to make a meal a little less in carbs – as that is what we are trying to change our diets into since the new year. So a little caprese salad really fits well into this plan – and it also looks very delicious because of the italian colours!! And for an extra bonus it is very quick and easy to make.

Also I got to spend the weekend with the beautiful Sony DSLR camera of my godchild. It was soo fun to work with it! The pictures are just waaaay better then with my own pocket digital one. And all the options!! I am totally in love ♥ ♥ ♥

So enough talk for now – of to the recipe we go!

Caprese salad

About 5 tomatoes (depends on size)

1 ball of mozzarella (about 125 g)

basil leaves

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons dark balsamic vinegar

salt, herbs (I used a dry mixture called pizza herbs, it contains thyme, oregano, basil,…)

1. Hold tomato on the side and cut it into 5mm slices from bottom to top. If you do it like that, all the kernels will stay in their place!

2. Cut the mozzarella into very thin slices.

3. Put tomatoes and mozzarella slices diversified and variantly into a dish. Your dish needs to have a rim to hold the oil and vinegar later on! Put as much basi leaves in between the layers as you like! I didn’t have much basil left which is why I only did a little decoration.

4. Mix the vinegar, oil, and herbs in a little bowl. Salt the tomato and mozzarella layers just from the top, that is enough. Take a spoon and drizzle the vinaigrette on top.

5. You can let it sit for half an hour or just eat it straight away! It won’t go bad if it stays for a little while. Enjoy!!