Baked Vegetable Fritters (Fırında Sebzeli Mücver)

Mücver is usually made with zucchini and then fried, however it is way lighter to bake it in these hot and humid summer days. This is a modified recipe that uses not only zucchini but also potato and carrot. If you have other vegetables in mind like spinach, leek, etc., you can add them, too.




























1 zucchini, grated
1 potato, grated
1 carrot, grated
3 spring green onions, chopped
1 green or red pepper, finely chopped
1/3 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/3 cup fresh dill, chopped
1/4 cup fresh mint or basil, chopped
2 eggs
1/2 or 1/3 cup white cheese or feta, crumbled
1/3 cup, pitted 'real' black olives, chopped
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1/3 - 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
sesame or nigella seeds




























-Heat oil in a pan. Add first pepper, then carrot, then potato, and finally zucchini. Sautee until wilted, but not totally cooked.
-Transfer this mix in a bowl and let it cool down.
-Add green onion, parsley, dill, mint, eggs, cheese, olives, baking powder, and flour.
-Pour the mixture in a greased oven safe dish. Make sure the mix is not thicker than 1.5 inches in the dish.
-Sprinkle sesame or nigella seeds on top. You can also decorate it with sliced canned olives.
-Bake in a preheated oven at 400F for ~1 hour or until it gets golden brown on top or on the sides. Check with a clean knife or a wooden toothpick/skewer.

You can serve baked vegetable fritters as a side dish with dinner, with afternoon tea, or for breakfast.

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Savory Spinach and Feta Cake (Ispanaklı ve Beyaz Peynirli Kek)

In several previous posts I have mentioned the importance of afternoon tea time in Turkey and the snacks that we would have with our tea. This cake is a total green deliciousness that my mom used to make for our lazy afternoon tea hours. Years later during another tea gathering with her friends she learned a recipe for sweet spinach cake (I know it sounds weird, but it doesn't taste anything like spinach. Spinach is there just to make it green and distract the ladies from gossip by causing curiosity for the source of its color), and unfortunately stopped making this one. I never cared much about sweet cakes, so this one is definitely my most favorite green cake.

As you can see from the ingredients, it is a very flexible cake. You can add more herbs or take out the ones you don't like; use feta or grated mozzarella or cheddar; use crushed pepper flakes and make it spicy or very spicy. It's all up to you. Because of the spinach puree and the amount of flour this is a moist, spongy cake, not a dry one.



























serves 6-8 people

1 lb spinach
2 cups flour
1 cup oil (olive, canola, or vegetable; I used half olive and half canola)
3 eggs
1/3 cup Turkish white cheese or feta cheese, crumbled
1/3 cup black olives, sliced (you can use canned olives but they won't bring any flavor to your cake)
1 green bell pepper or 2 green chili peppers, fınely chopped
2-3 green onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 tsp oregano leaves
1-2 tsp salt (depending on how salt the cheese is)
2 tsp baking powder


























-Put washed spinach in a food processor with a couple of tbsp of olive oil and make into a puree. You should have approximately 2 cups of spinach puree.
-Beat 3 eggs with salt in a mixing bowl until it doubles in volume.
-Add remaining oil, spinach puree, dill, parsley, peppers, green onion, sliced olives, and cheese to eggs and mix with a spoon.
-Add flour and baking powder to this mixture and mix.
-Grease a baking pan, any shape you prefer, with butter. Pour the mixture and bake in a preheated oven at 350-360F for 45-50 minutes. Baking time might vary with different shapes and ovens. Check with a knife or wooden skewer/toothpick.

Wıth all its greenness this is my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging that was started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and is now organized by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once, and is hosted this week by Katie of Eat This.

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Green Olive Rolls (Yeşil Zeytinli Rulo)

In Turkey patisseries are real life savers with their wide range of offerings that include baklava, böreks, cakes, cookies, meringues, milk puddings, poğaças, syrupy desserts, Turkish delights, etc. When you're late for work or school and do not have enough time for breakfast; when you're in need of sugar; when you want to bring dessert to a dinner party; when you are having people for a tea party; or when you just want to have some sort of pastry, you know there is a patisserie around the corner. Although they may differ in terms of their specialties--for example, one patisserie may not carry baklava and syrupy desserts and the other may not offer eclair and puddings, without exception all patisseries would serve small savory and sweet snack pastries. These butter loaded crispy pastries are generally referred to as kuru pasta in Turkish, which translates as "dry pastry." Even the smallest, not too fancy neighborhood patisserie would have at least six different kinds of pastry, 3 savory and 3 sweet that are usually baked in the afternoon just in time for the tea parties.

The olive roll pastry was my neighborhood patisserie's specialty, in those good old days when I used to live in Ankara. Hand fulls of buttery crispy rolls with pitted black olives in the middle were what we used to grab from the patisserie twice a week on our way to the coffee house that I and my friends frequented after school to play backgammon and cards.

I replicated the recipe, but was too lazy to pit olives, so in stead of black olives I used cocktail olives. The result was delicious. However, the dough should be a bit thinner than it is in the pictures. Not surprisingly, I didn't do a good job rolling the dough.


























makes approximately 50 rolls
3 1/2 cups flour
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup crumbled white/feta cheese
1/4 cup plain yogurt
~ 50 cocktail olives
1 egg yolk, beaten
nigella and/or sesame seeds



























-Make a smooth dough with flour, melted butter, feta, and yogurt.
-Roll the dough to o.2 inch thickness (don't take my rolls as an example, I couldn't locate the roller so had to use a glass jar!).
-Cut 1 X 3 inch rectangles.
-Place an olive on the rectangle shape dough and roll. Place the rolls on a greased pan making sure the fold would be at the bottom.
-Brush the rolls with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle nigella and/or sesame seeds.
-Bake in preheated oven at 350F for 25-30 minutes.

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Instant Coffee and Raisin Cake (Neskafeli ve Üzümlü Kek)

Although Turks are known to be a coffee --especially Turkish coffee--
drinking nation, we are actually obsessed with tea. Besides, it wouldn't be wrong to say that since late 80s Turks have become more of a Nescafé drinking nation. Instant coffee is cheap, easy to make, and tasteless compared to Turkish coffee. As a matter of fact Nescafé is consumed so widely that Turkish coffee became "the other" in its own land. 15-20 years ago, before globalization poked our lives, "coffee" meant Turkish coffee in Turkey. These days you have to specifically ask for "Turkish" coffee (Türk kahvesi) at a coffee house, restaurant, etc., because now "coffee" usually means Nescafé.

When my family was visiting, my aunt insisted on having instant coffee. After she left, the coffee container remained untouched for weeks until I decided to transform it into a new identity: cake mix. Apparently instant coffee can be flavorsome in baking.

1 1/2 stick butter or margarine, at room temperature
powder sugar, a little less than 1 cup
2 - 2 1/4 cups of flour
3 eggs
4 tbsp milk
8 tbsp instant coffee
1 cup of raisins
2 tsp baking powder


-Beat well powder sugar and eggs with a mixer until it becomes creamy (approximately 4-5 minutes)
-Add butter, milk, and instant coffee. Keep mixing.
-Add flour and baking powder. Mix all of them.
-Finally add raisins and stir with a wooden spoon.
-Pour cake mix in a greased cake pan.
-Bake at a preheated oven at 350-370F for 35-40 minutes.
-When it's done, wait for 5 minutes and then take the cake out.
-Once it cools down, sprinkle powder sugar on top.

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Ground Meat Rolls (Kıymalı Rulo)

My mom made this for the afternoon tea time. It takes a while to make, but it is delicious. You should definitely try this!

for the dough
1/2 cup luke warm water
1 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
2-2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup oil (canola, corn, olive oil, sun flower, whichever you feel comfortable with)
1 tsp salt
yolk of one egg
black seeds or sesame seeds

the stuffing
3 tbsp oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1/2 pound ground meat
1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt



















-Mix yeast, sugar, and water with a spoon in a bowl and let it dissolve for 15-20 minutes. Yeast will rise.
-In a pot on medium heat cook ground meat stirring constantly until it soaks its juice.
-Add 3 tbsp oil and onions to ground meat and stir until onion is cooked. Turn it off and add walnut, cumin, cinnamon, black pepper.
-Sift flour into the bowl of yeast. Add milk, oil, and salt. Add flour as necessary to make dough easy to handle. Dough should not stick to your hands.
-Let the dough sit in the bowl in a warmer place to rise twice its size.
-After it rises, divide the dough into two.
-With a little bit of oil and your hands make each piece into a 16 X 16 circle or a squarish circle. Don't worry it doesn't need to be a perfect shape.
-Place the half of the stuffing on your first circle-ish dough. Roll the dough like a cigarette without squeezing it too hard. Do the same for the second dough.
-Brush egg yolk on each and sprinkle black or sesame seeds or don't sprinkle anything.
-Bake at 375F until golden brown like a loaf of bread.
-It's great with tea. Bon appetit!

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Black Olive Cake (Zeytinli Kek)

It's a gloomy, cloudy, rainy, and miserable Sunday. The best to do seemed like baking a cake, making Turkish tea, and watching a movie. I found this recipe from a very popular Turkish foodblog: Portakal Ağacı. Except for a couple of additions, I followed the recipe.

2 cups of chopped and pitted black olives (I was going low with my delicious Turkish olives, so I used canned olives)
3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup plain yogurt
2 cups of flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint or 1 1/2 tbsp dried mint flakes
1 bunch green onions, chopped finely
1 tbsp red pepper flakes (if you want your cake to be a spicy one)
1 tbsp black seeds
1 1/2 tsp salt (depends on what kind of olives you use)
1 tsp baking powder



























-Beat the eggs and add yogurt and oil. Mix well.
-Add olives, green onion, mint, red pepper flakes, salt, and black seeds to the mixture and mix.
-Add baking powder and flour. You'll have a runny mixture.
-Pour in a greased oven dish. I used a 12 x 8 inches oval oven dish.
-Bake in for 40-50 minutes in a preheated oven at 375F.
-Let it sit for at least 15 minutes before you cut and serve.


This recipe which brings out the perfect harmony between mint and green onions has turned out so delicious that it'll go straight to Weekend Herb Blogging of Kalyn which is hosted by Anna of Anna's Cool Finds.

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Dill-Feta Poğaça (Dereotlu Peynirli Poğaça)

Poğaça, a kind of savory pastry / bread, is a traditional baked good in Turkey and Eastern European+Balkanic countries which at some point in history were under the Ottoman rule long enough to adopt its cuisine. Poğaças are best with (black) tea. In Turkey, people would have them for breakfast from a neighborhood patisserie on their way to work or school, or for afternoon tea time.

Usually poğaças are made in half-moon shape. Several pieces of round dough, 3-5 inch in diameter, would be filled with stuffing (variations on stuffing are numerous: feta cheese, potato, ground meat, spinach, cheddar, onion, etc) and folded in to two for the half-moon shape. This recipe, however, doesn't require the traditional half-moon shape.

1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup oil (vegetable, corn, or conola)
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs (egg yolk of one should be set aside to brush the tops of poğaças)
2 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 - 3 cup flour
1 cup crumbled feta
1 bunch dill, chopped finely
1/4 cup (Turkish) black olives, pitted and sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper flakes (optional)
black and sesame seeds


















-Except for one egg-yolk and black + sesame seeds, mix all the ingredients.
-Using your hands make small balls of dough and place them on a greased baking sheet.
-Brush them with egg-yolk and sprinkle black or sesame seeds on top.
-Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for 40-50 minutes or until the pogacas are slightly brown.






















Try definitely with tea.

This week's Weekend Herb Blogging is hosted by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen who is the founder of the event. After three recipes with parsley, I decided to give a chance to another precious herb: dill.

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Moist Cocoa Cake (Kakaolu Islak Kek)

1/2 cup milk
4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 cup oil (vegetable, corn, or canola)
2 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup crushed walnuts
1/4 raisins
1/2 petite diced apple

These ingredients are for a 9.5 X 4 inch cake pan.





















-Mix eggs, sugar, milk, oil, and cocoa in bowl. Set 1/2 cup of this mixture aside; you will need that mixture to moisten the cake.
-Add flour, baking powder, walnuts, raisins, and diced apple in the bowl. Mix well. Grease the bottom and sides of the cake pan and pour the batter. Cook in a preheated owen at 350°F (175°C) for 35-45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
-Right after you take the cake out of the oven, pour the 1/2 cup cocoa mixture that you set aside over evenly. To have the cake absorb the mixture, you can make tiny holes on the cake by inserting a knife.
-Let it cool down and serve with coffee.

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Bread Topped with Tomato-Parsley et al (Fırında Domates ve Maydanozlu Ekmek)

When I was a kid, the biggest torture for me was to have stale bread for breakfast, and this recipe was my mom's genius invention to market stale bread to us. It worked well; it is still my favorite breakfast. Everything you expect from a Turkish breakfast is here on a slice of bread: tomatoes, feta cheese, olives, parsley, banana peppers, and eggs. Those little slices loaded with deliciousness go well with (Turkish) tea at both breakfast and afternoon-tea time.

Must-haves of this recipe are stale "real" bread (never ever use any kind of toast bread or freshly baked "real" bread, since they both get really soaky with tomato juice), fresh tomatoes, banana peppers, feta cheese, parsley, and an egg. The rest is up to you; you can add, remove, or modify the ingredients.

1 French baguette, sliced (I use French bread, because it tastes more Turkish to me than any other bread; however, you can also use sourdough, whole wheat, whole grain, etc.)
2 fresh tomatoes, petite diced
1 banana peppers, chopped
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup black olives, pitted and chopped
1 egg
1/3 bunch parsley, finely chopped
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp crushed pepper
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tbsp olive oil
salt (how much salt you will use depends on what kind of feta cheese you have; if it's a really salty one you may not even need salt)

With these ingredients, I could top 18 slices of French baguette.












-Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Place the tomato mixture on bread slices with a spoon. If the bread is "really" stale, use the juice from the bottom of the bowl to wet the top of the bread slice. Place the bread slices on a broiler tray
-There will be some juice left in the bowl. Put some on top of each slice
-Broil 6-7 inches below heat until slightly brown. Approximately 8-10 minutes

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