August 8, 2016
North Alabama Wine Trail Wills Creek Winery My sister, Kim and my cousin/sister, Donna, who both love wine, and I were enjoying a bottle of wine and the beautiful view at Wills Creek Winery a few months ago. My favorite wine offered at Wills Creek is the Sweet Muscadine. We were given a “Wine Passport” for the North Alabama Wine Trail that they stamped for us. This is what started about two months of weekend wine excursions. Although I was...
July 31, 2016
Cucumber Onion Salad My mother used to make a salad similar to this when I was growing up. She added more vinegar and she also added sugar. I may get my Southern Girl rights revoked by saying that I am not a fan of adding sugar to some traditional dishes that Southern Cooks add sugar to. Cornbread for example. My daughter actually prefers the sweet yellow cornbread (I call it the JiffyMix or School Lunch Cornbread lol). My sister adds...
July 23, 2016
Eggplant Lasagna When I am in the mood for comfort food, I can’t think of anything more satisfying than Eggplant Lasagna. Cutting into layers of tender pasta, gooey melted cheese, eggplant, tomato sauce, more cheese. . . Ummmm. Making my own mouth water. 🙂 The thing about a good Lasagna is letting it sit for a few minutes after removing it from the oven so it can firm up. Who can ever wait though? When I make Lasagna, we are...
June 28, 2016
Ramadan Pidesi Ramadan Pidesi is a soft flat pide bread that is served for iftar (evening meal breaking the fast) and sahur (pre-dawn meal) during the month of fasting which is known as Ramadan. I loved going to the bakery and seeing them coming out of the wood fired ovens and being stacked ready for purchase. I still get chills thinking about when I worked at Onur Air in Turkey and on the train/dolums/bus ride home from work it would...
June 26, 2016
Eggplant Stew Etli Patlican Yahni I have been going to the Farmer’s Market lately because it reminds me of the Pazar in Turkey. The only difference is here there are about 10 or fewer vendors and in Turkey, they would close several streets and there would be hundreds of vendors. It is still fun anyway. So, at last Wednesday’s market, where I got the zucchini for my Kabak Dolmasi Stuffed Zucchini, I also got some gorgeous eggplants, tomatoes, and...
June 23, 2016
Kabak Dolmasi Stuffed Zucchini I bought some gorgeous zucchini and tomatoes yesterday at the Rainbow City Farmers Market. They were both perfect for my Kabak Dolmasi Stuffed Zucchini. The zucchini were bright green, gorgeous and straight. It is important that the zucchini are uniform and straight. This helps with even cooking. I cooked the excess zucchini in the pan with the stuffed ones to give more flavor to the broth but you could always reserve them for another dish like Mücver...
June 10, 2016
Kol Böreği Kol Böreği is one of my favorite types of börek. It is a Turkish dish with many variations. There are many regional specialties as well. The fillings can be meat, cheese, leeks, potatoes, zucchini, and eggplant to name a few. Laz böreği is made in the Rize region and it is made with an Ottoman-style milk pudding then sprinkled with powdered sugar. One of my other favorites is Talaş Böreği. It is cubed lamb or beef with carrots, peas,...
June 7, 2016
Simple Squash Saute We have a little less than two weeks until the official start of summer (June 20th) but I have already found some great locally grown squash at the Rainbow City Farmer’s Market last week. The ones I picked out were small and delicious. I made a Simple Squash Saute from them to go with our Sunday lunch and they were great with our pinto beans, cornbread, cabbage, mac-n-cheese and my sister’s yummy coleslaw. Of course we had...
June 5, 2016
Chilton County Peach Cobbler My sister, Kim and I have been going to wine tastings at some great Alabama Winery’s the past few weekends. She wants to go to all 16 recognized winery’s in Alabama. We finished the Northeast Alabama Wine Trail last week. It included Wills Creek Winery, Jules J Berta Vineyards, Maraella Winery and Vineyard, White Oak Vineyards, Fruithurst Winery, and High Country Cellars. We decided to check out some of the Winery’s near Birmingham this weekend. I...
May 29, 2016
Teriyaki Chicken Veggie Stir-fry Just made us a fantastic dinner – Teriyaki Chicken Veggie Stir-fry. It was so quick. Only 35 minutes for the stir-fry and I also made steamed rice, which can be cooked in 15 minutes while working on the main dish. My daughter really loved it and that always makes me happy. This recipe can be easily doubled if you have a crowd to feed or if you just want to have left overs for lunch. I...
May 27, 2016
Honey Pecan Stuffed Shortbread Cookies It has been too long since I have posted a recipe so today I have something that I hope you will like as much as we did. I am calling these Honey Pecan Stuffed Shortbread Cookies. They are similar to kurabiye (which is cookie in Turkish and Qurabiyə in Arabic) in that they are made using a wooden cookie mold. In Middle Eastern cuisine, there is a cookie similar to the one I have made...
May 17, 2016
Loveless Cafe Nashville As you can tell from the picture above, my sister, cousin, daughter and I really have a good time together. Sadly, our Sunday lunch at Loveless Cafe Nashville brought our recent girls weekend to an end. We had a great time in Nashville and what better way to end the weekend than a pit stop for some good ‘ol country cooking! Loveless Cafe is famous for their homemade biscuits and they are really yummy smeared with butter and...
