Grated carrot salad with yoghurt and dill

This is exactly the recipe I am looking for - healthy, easy to make, tasty and uses up ingredients that risk just sitting in the cupboard unused if I am not careful. Two medium sized carrots made a pretty decent amount.

Ingredients

• 5 cups coarsely grated carrot
• fine olive oil
• 1-1 1/2 cups of yoghurt
• 2 garlic cloves crushed
• 1/2 cup of chopped fresh dill
• salt

Method

1. Swish carrots in hot olive oil for a few minutes until lightly wilted.
2. With a wooden spoon (why I wonder) beat the yoghurt and garlic with a quarter cup of dill and a little salt until smooth.
3. Mix carrots with yoghurt sauce until completely blended. Adjust with salt.
4. Let stand for twenty minutes, then sprinkle with a little remaining dill for garnish.

Paneer jalfrezi

Used this BBC recipe. Very easy and very pleased with the result. Key points for success seem to be making sure one used enough spices, in particular the cumin seed put in at the beginning worked out just fine as did the addition of the fresh ginger and the chilli. In fact it was quite spicy, but really a good balance. Turmeric also added nicely to the colour.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1½ tsp cumin seeds
• 1 dried Kashmiri chilli, whole with seeds
• 5cm/2in piece fresh root ginger, finely shredded
• 3 small onions, thinly sliced
• 1 fresh green chilli, chopped, with or without seeds
• 1 red or yellow pepper, seeds removed, cut lengthways into 5mm/¼in-thick strips
• 1 green pepper, seeds removed, cut lengthways into 5mm/¼in-thick strips
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• 1½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 250g/9oz paneer, cut into 3cm/1¼in x 1.5cm/¾in pieces
• 3 tomatoes, cut into strips
• 1 tsp wine vinegar
• ½ tsp toasted ground cumin seeds
• ¾ tsp garam masala

Preparation method

1. Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan or karahi over a medium heat and add the cumin seeds, whole dried chilli and about two-thirds of the shredded ginger, and fry for 30 seconds until aromatic.
2. Add the onions and green chilli and fry for 5–6 minutes, or until the onions are just softening but not browned and still have a little crunch. Add the peppers, salt, turmeric and chilli powder, and fry for a further 3–4 minutes.
3. Lower the heat, add the paneer to the pan and gently stir everything together for about five minutes, then add the tomato and heat through. Stir in the vinegar, ground cumin and garam masala, scatter with the remaining shredded ginger, and serve.

Tips

1. Great point is that you can also make saag paneer to use up the paneer you buy and also along with the frozen spinach, thus having too very nutritious dishes for the family. Having with dal etc would really be excellent as well.

Menemen - Turkish scrambled eggs

This is a very simple dish with, it seems, a great deal of flexibility around how it can be made. It seems to be rather disparagingly referred to as "Turkish scrambled eggs" and while it is a simple dish a comparison to scrambled eggs doesn't do it justice at all.

This blog has a great recipe for Menemen, showing its versatility.

Menemen can be defined in a couple of different ways such as Turkish breakfast specialty or lazy dinner option or great summer dish. However you define it, it's delicious. Best part of all is whether you are a great cook or a poor one, you cannot go wrong with menemen; the ingredients secure the taste. Must-have traditional ingredients for menemen are eggs, tomato, onion, peppers (preferably banana peppers), and parsley. I modify the traditional recipe by replacing onions with green onions and adding feta cheese.

Ingredients

1. 6 eggs, well-beaten
2. 4 juicy tomatoes, diced (you can also use canned diced tomatoes; prefer petite diced ones or put regular one in blender for a couple of seconds)
3. 3 green onions with tops, finely chopped
4. 4 fresh peppers, finely chopped (I used red and orange Italian sweet peppers and 2 green chilies)
5. 1/2 cup crumbled feta
6. 1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
7. 2 tsp spicy pepper flakes
8. 1 tsp black pepper
9. salt
10. 1-2 tbsp oil or butter

Nothing is written in stone, so you can use more or less of anything above. You can use finely chopped onion instead of green onions, and you can also add pitted and chopped black olives.

1. -In a frying pan heat oil and add onion. Cook on medium until they're soft and then add fresh peppers.
2. -Once they're cooked, pour in tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Wait until tomatoes cook down a little. -Stir in beaten eggs and feta. Stir constantly.
3. -Right before eggs are cooked, add chopped parsley.
4. -Serve with bread.

Tips

1. First time trying this I wonder if the pan was little hot. It seems worth while turning the heat off and just seeing if the egg will cook with the heat of the rest of the ingredients.
2. The feta cheese probably adds quite a lot. I wonder if a little boring without it.
3. The BBC website includes a recipe which is not scrambled eggs but where the egg cooks in a pocket of the menemen stew. Maybe worth a try.

Green Lentil with Zucchini and Garlic-Mint Sauce

This went quite wrong the first time I tried it, mainly through stupidly adding too much salt. However it looks well worth another try. Soaking the lentils isn't necessary but may make things go a little smoother. The dried mint flavour was surprisingly strong.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup lentils, soak in water overnight, rinsed
• 4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tbsp crushed tomatoes, in can
• 1 tsp red pepper paste
• 2 cups warm chicken stock or beef stock or just water
• Salt
• Pepper
• 2 medium sized zucchinis, diced

  Garlic-Mint Sauce:

• 1-2 garlic cloves, mashed with salt
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp dry mint

Method

Saute the onion with olive oil in a medium size pot. Then add the rest of the ingredients except zucchini. Cook for about 20-25 minutes at medium-low heat until the lentils are soften, stir occasionally. Add the zucchinis and cook for about 7-8 more minutes, until they are softened, try to retain a slight crunch:)

Meanwhile mix mashed garlic with lemon juice and mint. Add into the pot, stir and cover. Let stand for about 2-3 minutes and serve.

My first failure. Added too much salt and also too much tomato, overdoing the flavour. Also probably included too much mint and lemon for the amount made. Concept seems sound though, so worth another try.

Sauteed Vegetables with Black Olives and Feta Cheese

Sauteed Vegetables with Black Olives and Feta Cheese
(Zeytin-Peynirli Sebze Sote)
Sauteed Vegetables with Black Olives and Feta Cheese
1 zucchini, cut in bite size
1 onion, cut in chunks
10 mushrooms,cleaned, cut in 4
4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Red pepper flakes, optional
Salt
Pepper

Turkish black olives
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled

An outstandingly simple recipe with all my favourite ingredients.

Saute the vegetables with olive oil in a large pan at medium heat. Do not over cook! Turn the heat off. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the cheese and black olives over the top, then serve.

It is a great brunch on hot Summer days:) You can also serve as a side dish with beef or chicken.

Tips

1. Using brown mushrooms seems to impart a dark colour to the dish, so worth trying with white mushrooms next time to see if this helps the other items keep their colour.