BANANA MUFFINS FOR HALLOWEEN

Tomorrow is Halloween.  I made easy banana muffins, decorated with candy worms.  I used store bought icing.  If you are short of time, this is easy to whip up.   The bananas are mashed so, you it is not mushy which is the way we like them.

                          Makes 12 muffins 

1 egg
1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 1/2 cup flour
3 medium size very ripe bananas mashed
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup coursely gound walnuts (optional)

Vanilla icing (Optional)

• Spray or oil the muffin cups.  Sprinkle flour at the bottom or line with paper muffin cups
• Mix together the egg, sugar, and milk
• Add the milk, oil, salt and baking podwer and blend well
• Slowly add the flour and blend using a fork.
• Add mashed bananas, chocolate chips and optional walnuts
• Divide batter into the muffin cups equally
• Preheat oven to 350 and bake until golden brown.  Approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Top needs to be golden brown. You can test by sticking a wooden skewer in the middle of one, if it comes out clean, it is done
• Cool them before dekorating with icing and candies

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

CLASSIC FETA FILLED PASTRIES (POGACA)

There are certain foods from childhood that you hold special.  Nothing takes its place.  This is one of those.  Last night, I was watching a Turkish show on the internet.   They were having Pogaca for breakfast with Turkish tea.  I just had to have some.  I prepared "breakfast for dinner" for my family.  This recipe makes a lot of dough so, I made some plain ones to serve with some cold cuts as sandwich bread, flattened some and fried in a little bit of oil as well as Feta filled pastries.

1 cup warm milk

1 cup warm water
1 cup oil
1.5 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon yeast

1.5 teaspoon sugar

4 - 5 cups flour

Fillig
250 gr. Feta Cheese
1 egg white (save the yolk for glaze)
4 table spoon finely chopped parsley (optional)

Glaze
1 egg yolk
Sesame seeds (optional)

• Add 1.5 teasoon of sugar to 1 cup of warm mik.  Stir.  Add yeast and stir again and set aside for 15 minutes to allow the yeast to rise
• Prepare the filling by grading the Feta cheese and mixing with the rest of the filling ingredients
• Put 3 cups of flour in a big bowl.  Make a little dent in the middle.  Add water, oil, salt and the yeast and start mixing to start forming a dough. 
• Continue to knead and add flour to get a soft dough
• Cover and set aside for 2 hours
• When ready, use my easy method (rather than rolling it out and cutting out pieces; although that is certainly an option) by taking small pieces of dough and flatten it in your palm.  Add a teaspoon of the filling and close it over (see the collage at the bottom)
• Put them on a lined pan
• Mix egg yolk with 1 tablespoon of cold water and brush a bit on each of the pogacas
• Sprinkle sesame seeds
• Preheat oven to 350
• Cook until golden brown (approx. 45 minutes)

THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving dinner at my house is a tradition.  Menu is always turkey, stuffing, peas, mashed potatos, mashed turnip, borek, salad.  There are other things that change a little bit year to year.  Desert is always brought by other family members.  I forgot to take pictures of the table I set but I took a picture of a cake I bought.  I thought it was very nicely decorated.  Happy thanksgiving!

PUFF PASTRY WITH CREAM FILLING

This is an easy dessert made with puff a pastry.  Much better than store bought version not just in taste but also in cost.  I used a puff pastry dough (meaning it requires to be rolled out) but I recently discovered that I can buy puff pastry in a box that comes already rolled out.  My guess is it'll be too thick to try for this recipe but if I do decide to try it, I'll post separately.

1 package of puff pastry (please see picture of the package below)

2 cups (500 gr) milk

2 egg yolks

85 gr sugar

1/2 cup (60 gr.) corn starch

40 gr. butter

1 package vanilla

1 package dream whip

1/2 cup milk (60 gr)

To decorate: Icing sugar, Strawberries and Chocolate sauce (store bought version for ice cream topping)

• Roll out the puff pastry as thin as you can without breaking it
• Cut into equal sized rectangles (each will make a top and a bottom). 
• Preheat oven to 350 and bake until golden brown
• Prepare the "cream" filling by mixing 2 cups milk, 2 egg yolks, 1/2 cup corn starch and 85 gr. sugar together and cook on medium heat until it thickens.  If you get lumps, you can use a hand mixer to remove them.  I found it cooks without any lumps if you continually mix it during cooking.  Remove from heat and set aside.
• Mix a package of dream whip with 1/2 cup milk until it thickens and mix into the pudding.
• Put 1 layer of pastry, 1 tablespoon filling, 1 layer of pastry.  Continue until your pastry is all done.  I had a bit of filling left over.  We ate it like a pudding.
• Decorate with icing sugar, strawberry and chocolate sauce like the picture
• Let it rest in the fridge for a couple of hours.  Then enjoy!

KIDNEY BEAN AND CHICK PEA SALAD

This is a quick salad that you can serve with just about anything.  Great with barbeques.  Nice and colourful too.  Good choice for a pot luck.

1 large can chick peas

1 large can of kidney beans

1 medium sized red onion

1 large green pepper
Sauce: salt, vinegar and olive oil

• Drain and rince the chick peas and kidney beans
• Wash and dry green pepper and slice them lengthwise
• Peel and cut onions
• Prepare the sauce by mixing all the ingredients
• Mix everything together in a bowl and serve.

BEEF RIBS IN SLOW COOKER

I bought beef ribs for a barbeque to take advantage of the last few good days of the summer.  Unfortunately, life got busy.  Still wanting to have it for dinner, I changed to a slow cooker recipe.  They were simply delicious.  Beef was so well cooked that it was almost falling off the bone (just the way I like them).

2 kg. beef ribs
1/2 cup ketchup

1 cup honey

1 tablespoon garlic salt

3 tablespoon soya sauce

1 tablespoon worchishire sauce

1 tablespoon hot sauce

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
tuz, karabiber

• Cut ribs into pieces
• Fry each side a little.  Salt and pepper.
• Mix together ketchup, garlic salt, honey, soya sauce, nutmeg,  worchishire sosu and hot sauce
• Put the ribs in a slow cooker.  Pour the honey mixture over the ribs
• Cook at low heat for 4.5 to 5 hours.
• This time I served with rice, corn and salad

SUSHI

I usually buy Sushi at the grocery store because my girls like them a lot.  Last few weeks, they just did not look fresh in the grocery store.  My friend Emel makes her own.  She encouraged me to try making them at home.  I did and decided we are never going to buy them again.  They are easy to make and since they are so very fresh, they simply taste better.  I made different types of filling.

Seaweed sheets (I used Nori)

1/2 cup sushi rice

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon rice vinegar

Filling for Tuna filling:

1 can solid Tuna (drained and chopped)

1 or 2 tablespoons mayonnaise

wasabi or other spicy sauce to your liking

For the veggies in this one: graded carrots, avocado and cucumber

California roll:

Crab legs (thinly sliced)

1 or 2 tablespoon mayonnaise

Sesame seeds (goes on the rice before all the other ingredients)

Cucumber

For Shrimp filling:

Precooked and chopped shrimp

Avocado

Wasabi sauce to your liking

• Rice is one of the key parts of this recipe.  I bought special sushi rice because this was the first time I was making it but any short grain rice will work.  Cook it to package instructions with salt after washing it and letting it rest for 20 minutes to cool.
• Prepare the filling you want to use
• Add rice vinegar.  This actually doesn't add any flavor to your cooking but makes the rice a bit shiny.  It is a "pretty" dish, so it is important to make the rice look shiny
• Put your sea weed down flat.  All recipes say the shiny part down but I had a hard time figuring out which side was shiny.  My sea weed had visible lines on one side, I used this side to put rice on.
• Spread the rice to one end to the other.  Not right to the end though.  I left about 1 cm to start to help roll it over on both sides.  See the pictures below.  Make sure the rice is thinly spread otherwise they end up too big
• Place the filling on top of the rice but only to one side and roll the seaweed over the filling into a "log".  People recommend the use of a bamboo mat to roll it.  I bought one but I found it harder than just use my hands.  Maybe it is because I am used to making stuffed grape leaves that I found it easier.
• Roll over like a log and wet the very end to have the seaweed stick at the end
• Cut into bite size pieces
• Let it rest in the fridge 2 - 3 hours
• Serve with soya and wasabi sauces