Tag Archives: tomatoes

A Guest Post: Acılı Ezme – Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad

A Guest Post: Acılı Ezme – Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad
A Guest Post: Acılı Ezme – Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad

Hey there everybody!

So the first week of my new series Around the World, Week by Week is now over! I hope you enjoyed the last seven days, the little excursus in turkish cuisine and culture and the seven recipes!!

As I promised at the beginning  I will have something special at the end – and it is a guest post!! Zerrin is the lovely lady behind Give Recipe. She is a new mom, lives in Turkey and has the most delicious recipes on her blog!! I love browsing through them – it reminds me so much of my time in Izmir 🙂

I am so happy that she took some of her small amount of free time to write this post for my page!! Also she brings one of my absolute favorite turkish foods to you: Acılı Ezme!! I ate it literally all the time I could get it – even for breakfast with some cream cheese, cucumbers and tomatoes! I couldn’t find it in the stores in Germany but now I can make my own! 🙂 It really is fantastic!

So go on, scroll down and read all about turkish food and habits from a native! And don’t forget to click over to Zerrin’s blog! 🙂

~ Kathrin

 

Acılı Ezme – Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad

Hi everyone!

I am Zerrin of Give Recipe from Turkey. I’m so pleased to be here, writing at Kathrin’s lovely blog! I met her a very short time ago and love that we are both so passionate about food! I always love to meet such foodies! When I learnt that she lived in Izmir, Turkey for some time, I knew that we would have lots of things to talk about. It’s great to hear Turkish names of our dishes from her; not everyone knows cacik or pirinç pilavı unless they are as enthusiastic about food and culture as Kathrin!

Acılı Ezme – Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad

I’m going to share a very addictive salad from Turkish cuisine here today. Hope you all love it!

Ezme is known as a salad or appetizer in Turkey. It is mostly served with kebabs at kebab restaurants. Have you tried Turkish kebab yet? You’ve missed a lot if you haven’t! It is one of the foods you must taste at least once in your life! Once you try it, you will get addicted! Mezzes or side dishes served before kebab and you enjoy them before your kebab is brought. Be careful not to eat too much of these; otherwise you won’t have any room for kebab! Acılı Ezme is just one of those irresistible appetizers.

Acılı Ezme – Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad

Ezme means “mashed”, so this is a kind of mashed salad. Genuine kebab restaurants make it with a big cleaver or with a special double handled knife. It’s absolutely easier to chop vegetables with a blender, but there is a remarkable difference between the flavors of ezme made by cleaver or double handled knife and the one made by blender or any other electrical device. It MUST be chopped by hand, otherwise it gets too juicy.

Pomegranate molasses is almost a must in acili ezme since it gives a very nice sweet-sourish flavor and a darker color to the salad. If you can’t find it in your area, you can increase the amount of lemon juice a little. As for the spices, hot chili powder is the main one. Another spice I personally love in ezme salad is sumac, which increases its sourness. You can add dried mint too to add a little refreshment and to balance the sour and hot flavor of the salad.

The best bread to serve with ezme is Turkish lavash, which is similar to tortilla or Turkish pide. Kebabs are generally served with these two breads, so you can dip them into ezme as a bonus! And Ayran, which is a fabulous cold yogurt drink, is undoubtedly the best drink with these irresistible foods!

Acılı Ezme – Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad

Since it’s a refreshing salad, ezme is a perfect choice to accompany any dish in summer! You know what? I can even have it at breakfast! Its spiciness help me wake up and it whets my appetite to eat more.

 

Acılı Ezme - Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad
 
Author:
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients
  • 2 tomatoes, peeled
  • 1 onion
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 2 chili peppers
  • ¼ bunch of parsley
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
  • 1 tsp pepper paste
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • Salt to taste
  • ½ tsp chili powder
  • ½ tsp sumac
  • A pinch of dried mint
Instructions
  1. Chop peeled tomatoes, onion, garlic, chili peppers and parsley as finely as you can. The finer the better. Mix them in a bowl.
  2. Mix lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, olive oil and pepper paste until smooth. Add this mixture into salad.
  3. Add salt and spices, mix well.
  4. Chill it in refrigerator for half an hour and serve!

 

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 

Salad – Kısır

Pastry – Kurabiye

Snack/Fast Food – Lahmacun

Around the World – Turkey: Kısır, Bulgur Salad

Around the World – Turkey: Kısır, Bulgur Salad
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!

Around The World, Week by Week: Turkey - Kısır, Bulgur Salad by gingerlemonandspice

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.

Around The World, Week by Week: Turkey - Kısır, Bulgur Salad by gingerlemonandspice

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?

Around The World, Week by Week: Turkey - Kısır, Bulgur Salad by gingerlemonandspice

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!

Around The World, Week by Week: Turkey - Kısır, Bulgur Salad by gingerlemonandspice

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! 🙂

Around The World, Week by Week: Turkey - Kısır, Bulgur Salad by gingerlemonandspice

Kısır, Bulgur Salad
 
Prep time
Total time
 
A great salad to feed lots of people! Perfect for an appetizer, main dish or snack.
Author:
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
  1. 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.
  2. Meanwhile chop onions, pepper, tomatoes and cucumber into small cubes. Chop herbs very finely. Set aside
  3. Mix bulgur with salca, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and pomegranate syrup very well. Put the vegetables and herbs in and mix.
  4. 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

 

Around The World, Week by Week: Turkey - Kısır, Bulgur Salad by gingerlemonandspice

Have a great day!

~ Kathrin

Steak, Green Beans and Hasselback Potatoes on Mother’s Day

Steak, Green Beans and Hasselback Potatoes on Mother’s Day
Steak, Green Beans and Hasselback Potatoes on Mother’s Day

Hello Everybody!!

I hope you all had a great weekend! I was at my parents house, spending a lot of time in the kitchen 🙂 My goal was to make a great mother’s day lunch for my parents and me, my two grandmas and grandpa. Of course I started preparing on saturday, but got really sabotaged as I found myself persuaded to do another cake for my mum to bring to a barbecue and to prepare lunch and dinner that day too. Oh my 😉 The end of it was that I didn’t start preparing the cake that I intended to make in the first place until late afternoon!!

But actually I didn’t mind much. My mom was so very happy this weekend, at least a bit because I made all this, that it was totally worth it 😉 The only thing I wished I did different was that I didn’t take much pictures!! Especially the dinner of  my Speedy Shrimp Pasta my father and me had on saturday was soooo awesome!! I thought it was already on the blog, so I wouldn’t need it, but this time I used frozen shrimps and homemade tagliatelle which made it sooo much better even!!

So what did we have for Mother’s Day lunch then? You might have guessed, as the title says it:

Beef steak, hasselback potatoes, green beans and wild garlic butter recipe for mother's day by ginger, lemon and spice

Beef steak prepared by my father, green beans the way I love to eat them, hasselback potatoes with lots of fresh herbs and a yummy wild garlic butter with all that! And for ‘dessert’ we had a Strawberry Oreo Cheese & Cream Cake (in Germany we say Torte for this type of cake!). It was sooo delicious!!

Beef steak, hasselback potatoes, green beans and wild garlic butter recipe for mother's day by ginger, lemon and spice

And you know what?! You will get the recipe for ALL of that!! And it even will be printable!! As you can see I installed a new feature on my blog which makes it possible for you to print the recipe only – and not all of the other things I am saying nor the big pictures. How do you like that?! 🙂

Steak, Green Beans and Hasselback Potatoes on Mother's Day
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Easy to prepare but soo yummy!! Perfect for any kind of holiday meal!
Author:
Recipe type: Meat Main Dish
Serves: 6
Ingredients
Wild Garlic Butter
  • 125g (1/2 cup) softened butter
  • 200g wild garlic
  • salt
Herby Hasselback Potatoes
  • 16-18 small potatoes
  • fresh herbs (I used rosemary and lemon thyme)
  • coarse sea salt
  • 5 tablespoons olive oil
Steaks
  • 6 beef steaks
  • olive oil
  • salt, pepper and a sprinkle of fresh thyme
Green Beans with Tomatoes
  • 750g frozen green beans
  • 4 big tomatoes
  • 55g (1/4 cup) butter
  • very herby salt (or normal herb salt with extra herbs)
Instructions
Wild Garlic Butter
  1. Chop wild garlic very finely. Mix with butter and salt to taste. Put on a piece of baking paper and form into a roll and put in the fridge to cool down. This is best prepared a day ahead.
Herby Hasselback Potatoes
  1. Preheat oven to 200°C (375° F). Brush and wash your potatoes thoroughly. Take a sharp knife and cut into the potato far but not through. It has to be attached a little! Make more of those incisions about 2-3 mm apart. To make sure not to cut through the potato you can hold your knife peak downwards like a landing airplane! Once you touch your cutting board with the peak just stop cutting.
  2. Chop your herbs very finely. Seperate the cuts of the potatoes a little bit with your fingers and sprinkle herbs in. Arrange all potatoes on a baking tray covered with baking paper and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle sea salt on top.
  3. Bake your potatoes in the middle rack for about 35-40 minutes. You have to have a look how crispy you want them!
Steaks
  1. About 2 hours before you want to cook them take the steaks out of the fridge and let them reach room temperature. Brush them with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. When your potatoes are ready turn the oven off and start cooking the meat.
  2. We used a griddle (electric grill with two griddle pans pressed together) to cook the steaks as I was occuping the pan with the beans. So preheat whatever you are using and once it is really hot put the steaks in. They only need like 3 minutes on each side! You want the insides to be rose. Put the steaks on a plate, sprinkle with just a little of finely chopped thyme and put them in the turned off oven (where your potatoes are - you are just using the left over heat) for a few minutes until you are finished with the beans.
Green Beans with Tomatoes
  1. Put green beans in a large pan on high heat and cover with a lid. Meanwhile chop your tomatoes in chunks. Once the beans are thawed remove the lid and continue heating the beans on high heat and stir. When the beans are warm and most of the water is evaporated add the tomatoes. At the time the tomatoes start to soften turn the heat off and add the seasoning and butter and stir until the butter is melted. You can add more salt or herbs if you feel the need to.
  2. Serve immediately and dig in!! 🙂

Beef steak, hasselback potatoes, green beans and wild garlic butter recipe for mother's day by ginger, lemon and spice

The recipe for the Strawberry Oreo Cheese & Cream Cake will be in the next post!

Beef steak, hasselback potatoes, green beans and wild garlic butter recipe for mother's day by ginger, lemon and spice

Have a nice week!

~ Kathrin 

Simple Everyday Couscous Salad

Simple Everyday Couscous Salad
Simple Everyday Couscous Salad

Hello everybody!!

simple everyday couscous salad with tomatoes and cucumber recipe

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

simple everyday couscous salad with tomatoes and cucumber recipe

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!!

simple everyday couscous salad with tomatoes and cucumber recipe

~Kathrin

Tagliatelle with Tomatoes, Ham & Mushrooms

Tagliatelle with Tomatoes, Ham & Mushrooms
Tagliatelle with Tomatoes, Ham & Mushrooms

Hello everybody!

Tagliatelle with tomatoes, ham & mushrooms

I hope your last week was nice? Nicer than mine, at least? 😉 I had to study, study, study, sleep a little and then again study,… You might have guest it: It was the week of my exams at university! I don’t like this time at all… But it is necessary.

So yesterday was my final exam for this period, and now I am FREE!! I can do whatever I like!! At least for a few days…

 

Also I had written a ‘what to do after the final exam’ list – which included watering the plants, hoover and clean and of course, write a new blogpost. As you might have noticed, this was not what happend! 😉

So when I finally went home yesterday what I did was starting a movie. I really love movies!! No special kind – I just like digging in another reality for a few hours! Of course there are good movies and bad movies for me too, but I would watch all of them – and the good ones more than once.

When I came home yesterday I felt the need to disengage myself from all the stress of the days before and watch a film. Not any kind of film! I wanted romance, I wanted the feeling of an idyllic world and a little bit of action so I turned on Twilight. Don’t judge me!! 😉

I haven’t seen the movies for quite some time now! And last time I did, I thought they were embarrissing because they are such a tear jerker (I hope that word exist – that’s what my translater tells me! ). So this time, to make them less awkward for me I watched them in english. It helped a lot! I really think you could say anything in english even if it is way too much in german. I actually did enjoy them so much that I watched part 2 and 3 right after the first and went to bed at 1 o’clock…

Yes – I don’t know what was going on with me either 😉

So today is the day for the list – all the stuff that needs to be done and was postponed because of the exams! It includes preparing for the studying period for the exams in april  but I decided to do the ‘fun’ parts first. Here I am, writing just what comes through my mind and hoping you don’t think I am too awkward, strange or crazy 😉

 

But I have brought you something, too!!! As my meals needed to be quick I didn’t do much cooking in the last two weeks. But one thing I did was these Tagliatelle with frehs tomatoes, ham and mushrooms! It was a really quick lunch and very delicious!

 

Tagliatelle with Tomatoes, Ham & Mushrooms

for one person

Tagliatelle with tomatoes, ham & mushrooms

Tagliatelle with tomatoes, ham & mushrooms

Tagliatelle with tomatoes, ham & mushroomsTagliatelle with tomatoes, ham & mushrooms

 

Ingredients:

Tagliatelle for one person (I used wholemeal – approx. 100g)

100g mushrooms

100g ham

3 big tomatoes

75 ml cream

salt, pepper, parsley for decoration (I used frozen)

 

Directions:

1. Cook Pasta according to package.

2. Put a nonstick frying pan on medium heat. Chop the mushrooms in half slices, ham in stripes and tomatoes in cubes – or the way you like them.

3. Put mushrooms and ham into the pan, and let the mushrooms loose some water (5 min maybe). Add the tomatoes on top, let them sit on top for 2 min then stir. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4. The Pasta should be ready now. Put the pasta into the pan using a pasta scoop with holes in it to get rid of most of the cooking water. Add the cream to the pan. Stir everything and let the sauce and pasta reheat until it bubbles (2-3 min). Maybe add some more salt (the cream takes away some of the saltiness).

5. Put Tagliatelle on a nice platter and sprinkle with some parsley.

Enjoy!!

~Kathrin

Tagliatelle with tomatoes, ham & mushrooms

Caprese – Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Basil Salad

Caprese – Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Basil Salad
Caprese – Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Basil Salad

Hello everybody!

 

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

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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!

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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!!

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Kathrin