Eating out at a Turkish Restaurant

I was strolling through perfume stores with a friend on Thursday. After our noses died from all the perfumes, we went to lunch in a small Turkish restaurant.

This exists for a very long time now, but non of us has ever eaten there. The restaurant is small and we were lucky to have a reservation. Lots of people waited for a table.

The kitchen is fast. The list of Entrees is not too long. Many meats are prepared on a grill.

They use a super tasty Mint Yogurt as a sauce. Not so much garlic in your face.

I had Adena Köfte on rice with salad.

My friend ate Iskender Kebap with ripped Piede.

We had a great time and enjoyed our food.

Banana Breakfast Bar

Black bananas do not belong in the organic waste can. Use them for baking or freeze them for ice cream later.

I had two black ones sitting on the counter together with a small spice package for Lebkuchen. I do not bake these, so I used the spices to make my breakfast bars even tastier.

I seldom buy these bars in the supermarket. Only when I am on trips and need a little something to tie me over until lunch or dinner. They are too sweet for my taste most of the time. And too expensive.

This recipe is just a combination of 4 ingredients and a little seasoning:

2 black bananas, peeled and mashed

3 heaped tbsp peanutbutter

1 1/2 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Pinch fleur de sel, cinnamon, allspice, lebkuchen spice

Bring it all together and press in an rectangular dish covered with baking paper.

Bake at 200 C for 22 min. Cool down and cut up. Store in an airtight container in the fridge up to 5 days, or freeze.

Raclette Quesadilla

French Raclette cheese is waiting to be eaten.

My usual aproach is boiling a pot full of potatoes and good amount of fresh ground black pepper to eat that together with the melted cheese. But I wanted to try something else.

Soft wheat tacos, the large size ones, were bought a while ago. But still a long time away from their expiration date. There are so many Reels on the Internet showing ways to use these tacos that are interesting. 

Best way to stick two tacos together is with cheese. No better way to try the great melting Raclette cheese. That sticks perfectly.

Ingredients:

2 wheat soft tacos

100 g raclette cheese

75 g meatloaf

Spring onion and chives

Olive oil

Edamame Flour Pasta with Asparagus and Burrata

Sometimes there is a food item that is hyped as high in protein, vegan, healthy, high in fiber and balanced and GF.

That sounds great when you read it on the package. I bought "Asian style" Edamame pasta at LIDL's Asia Week. Needless to say: I love Edamame since the first time I had them in an Izakaya in Tokyo  years ago. A great beer snack!

Most of the time I have a bag of frozen edamame pods at home. Chuck some of them in the microwave, season them with salt and suck out the beans.

The pasta is made from edamame / soy bean flour. Cooking time on the package said 3 to 4 min. After 4 min, the pasta was still hard and inedible. Cooking time was nearly 8 min. They went directly in the pan to be mixed in with the green asparagus and onion sauce. Topped with a ball of Burrata.

If you love the musty and stale taste of a forgotten package of pasta, that one is right up your corner. It tasted like pasta found in a cupboard after 15 years, expiration date was 10 years ago, but cooked today.

 Sauce:

400 g cleaned and steamed green asparagus

2 spring onions, 2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp veg stock paste, 60 ml pasta water

Salt, pepper

Burrata

I gave it a try! Then I picked out all the veggies with the Burrata and dumped the pasta in the organic waste can.   

Banana Hot Cross Buns Breadpudding

Older Hot Cross Buns get a bit stale. Eating one toasted for breakfast is nice, but an other way to eat more of my baked goods was needed.

A long time ago I saw a video from SortedFood. They used up stale HCBs in a bake. Buttered and filled with a banana and well soaked in a strong and tasty Royal mix.

Recipe for 2:

 2 hot cross buns, butter

1 banana

Royal:

2 eggs, 100 ml double cream, 200 ml whole milk, 50 ml Batida de Coco, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tbsp Maple syrup, 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Cut the HCB up like breadrolls. Spread butter on both sides. Peel a banana and cut it in two lenghwise.

Get the ingredients for the Royal together and beat them well. Butter a baking dish and set both filled HCBs in. Pour 2/3 of the Royal over them. Let them soak for 10 min. Now brush the upper side of the buns a couple of times with the remaining Royal.

Heat up the oven to 170 C fan. Bake for 30 min or until the Royal has thickened up.

Blue Pea Flower Latte

A while ago I saw blue desserts and drinks on Pintetest.

Yeah, sure, photoshop or foodcoloring. But no, pea flower tea or powder. I was curious and started digging. 

I remembered a travel journal on TV a while ago about a priest in Thailand who colored offerings for the tempel with beautiful blue flowers steeped in water.  That were local pea flowers.

I bought some powder online. Looking for easy recipes to get the hang for the amount of powder needed, I saw the lattes. They were all lovely blue.

I used one of the recipes yesterday and it contained 50 ml fresh espresso to go with 200 ml of any kind of milk.  The photo showed a lovely blue drink, but the espresso turned it in to a murkey blue color. 

So once again, back to start. I drank the espresso out of a cup and loved my blue latte.

Recipe with espresso:

200 ml milk (what ever you prefare)

50 ml fresh brewed espresso

1/2 tsp Blue Matcha pea flower powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp Maple syrup

Heat up the milk and use a small strainer to sift the blue powder in. Bring to a boil and stir with a whisk. Add vanilla and syrup.

Pour in a tall glass and add the espresso - or leave it out!

Meatloaf filled with Eggs or Falscher Hase

False Hare is a crazy name for a dish. 

It is from a time here in Germany when families were too poor to go for the real thing. In the older days, having a bunch of hare in the back of the house was a good way to get meat on the table. The kids had to care for them and often cried, when their pet was on the table. But it was the way of life then. A Easter Sunday dinner without something special was out of the question. This was a very creative way to feed a lot of people without breaking the bank.

This special kind of meatloaf is a thing of the past and not cooked often. The regular meatloaf takes the first place. 

Actually I wanted to cook a real hare on the Easter weekend. But hare or rabbit are not easy to get here. When I go grocery shopping in France, I have no problems to buy one. But my last trip was end of February and I had not enough space in the freezer. Then I had the idea of cooking a False Hare.

It was a good way to get rid of some of my colored hard boiled eggs.  Eat it with any kind of side you like. I had mine with rice and a salad.

Recipe for 4:

800 g ground pork and beef mix

2 eggs and 4 hard boiled eggs 

1 large yellow onion, 1 green onion, 6 garlic cloves

1 tbsp butter

1 hand full of fresh herbs

8 green olives, 4 sundried tomatoes, 3 tbsp capers

1 tbsp mustard, 80g breadcrumbs

Chili, salt, pepper, herbes de Provence, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper

In a pan heat up the butter and sauté onions and garlic, cool down. In a large bowl mix all ingredients, except the 4 eggs. Use loaftin (about 23 cm long) and fill it up with 1/2 of the mix.

Peel the eggs and place them in a line. Cover with the other mix completely.

Heat up the oven to 160 C fan and bake it for 55 to 60 min.