About 2 years ago, I published the recipe of my favourite soup in the world, together with its several stories in my life. That one is a well-known soup in Turkey. However, there is another one that even more people know and eat all the time: red lentil soup.
As I am writing this blogpost, my windows are wide open, I have just a shirt and shorts on me and I’m drinking a cold glass of water with mint. It is, as the last I checked, 21 degrees in Helsinki right now, which means SUMMER! I’m not sure how long this lovely weather will last, so I will make use of it as much as possible.
Last week on Saturday I had a huge catering gig: a birthday dinner for 76 people. It was a big success and people loved the food, but I was utterly exhausted afterwards. So I spent this week giving myself time to rest and lunching out for the first couple of days. Thanks to this, I discovered a very nice little cafe in my neighbourhood and the delicious salad I ate there inspired me to make this one.
In Finnish cuisine, there is a series of laatikkos, aka casserole dishes: porkkana / carrot, peruna / potato, lanttu / rutabaga… and this one right here, cabbage casserole, with ground meat and rice. I knew about this grand “laatikko family” but I never ate any, until I made the first one today.
I have been planning to make this dessert for a looo…ng time. Every time I decided to work on it, something happened and I had to postpone. Finally last weekend I had the time and energy to work on it and it turned out to be an amazing sweet experience. And then I also realised that this dessert is originally from Egypt with the name “Basbousa”!
As I am writing this blogpost, I am eating one of these soft, puffy, melting-in-the-mouth buns and remembering my childhood. Most of my best memories back in Turkey involve food or are around food, and these buns bring out some of them.
Back in February, I made a fully gluten free yoga brunch here in Helsinki. As usual, the brunch was vegetarian, and there were also many vegan options. This chocolate mousse was one of the sweets in that brunch, and it was a hit. Especially my friend Essi, who did the yoga part of the brunch loved it very much!
I absolutely love using citrus family in recipes. When I baked this cake the other day, my apartment smelled crazy with lemon and orange. It was the freshest moment of the week, to be honest.
I LOVE vegetables. I am not vegetarian, officially. But in practice, I actually lead a vegetarian life. My catering menus and eating events are also almost always vegetarian. Among all, there is one vegetable that I cannot live without: eggplant! (And I cannot go back and check now, but I probably said this over and over again in my previous eggplant recipes…)
I sometimes feel like Bugs Bunny – I cannot get enough of carrots. Then, for a while I completely forget about carrots, after that I remember again.. I generally like to make a simple salad with raw carrots and tomatoes: I just grate carrots, chop tomatoes and bring them together with a bit of salt, olive oil and lemon juice. This recipe though, is a whole new thing for me.
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