Foofer's Delight Pancakes

Photo: courtesy of foofer.

These pancakes have been such a hit at our place recently, especially with the girls. What is even more exciting is having Foofer in the kitchen. He came up with this recipe on his own, he started with a basic pancake recipe and then after a bit of experimenting he fine tuned it. The secret to these pancakes are caster sugar and PURE Canadian Maple Syrup. We normally double the recipe when we make it to feed a family of 4.

Ingredients

• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• few drops of vanilla essence

To serve:

• fruit of your choice (strawberries, bluberries etc)
• whipped cream
• PURE Canadian Maple Syrup

Method

1. Pre-heat and lightly grease non stick frypan (we use margarine)
   
2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl
3. Use ladle to pour desired amount of batter into pan and cook until bubbles form on surface of pancake
4. Turn and cook other side.
5. Serve using fresh fruit, whipped cream and maple syrup. YUMMO!

Potato Salad (Patates Salatasi)

I have been a bit slack with my posts recently, so I apologise. Just been a little busy with Ramadan. I actually had a good run with making lots of food but missed the photo opportunities, so until next time.

I had this picture on hand so I'm posting it, even though it is one of the most simplest recipes.

Ingredients

8-9 Potatoes, boiled and diced
Good bunch of parsley
Onions, shallots (optional)
2-3 lemons, juiced
2 -3 tablespoons oil
salt, pepper


Method

1. Wash and boil potatoes, do not over cook or your salad will be mashed potato. Peel and dice potatoes. Set aside in a large bowl.
   
2. If using onion/shallots, dice and add to potatoes.
   
3. Chop Parsley and put this in a small jar as it will become part of the salad dressing. I like to make a separate dressing of oil, lemon juice, seasonings and add the parsley to this mixture and give it a good shake. This way I find the parsley wilts a little and is easier to eat.
   
4. Pour the dressing over the potatoes and mix. Yummo.
   

Easy Apple Pie Cake (Elmali Turta)

Found this recipe off the Yemek Gunlugum website and tweaked it a little by adding some walnuts into the cake mixture.

Another great recipe which can be made on short notice, because most of the ingredients would be on hand. The only part where you might need a little patience is layering the apples on top, but it's well worth it.


Ingredients

For the cake:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup oil
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1 teaspoon vanillin powder
  
• Handful of roughly crushed walnuts (optional)
  

For the topping

• 2-3 apples, peeled and sliced thinly
• icing sugar to decorate
  

Method

1. To make the cake, mix all the ingredients together until well combined. (Add the walnuts after all the other ingredients are combined so mixing is easier)
2. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees and empty the mixture into your greased cake tin.
3. To layer up the apples, start from the side of your cake tin and work towards the centre. There is a way to ensure they don't sink into the cake mixture, set aside some plain flour in a small bowl, dip the bottom of the apple slice in some plain flour and push the floured side down onto the cake mixture at an angle.
   
4. Bake your cake for about 30-35 minutes. May require more or less time according to your oven but I usually let it brown on top and test with a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean your cake is ready.
   
5. When your cake has cooled down a little, sprinkle some icing sugar for decoration. If you have left over cake, just warm it up the microwave before serving.
   

Cracked Wheat (Bulgur) Pilaf with Chicken and Chickpea

A variation to the standard Bulgur Pilaf -made with Chicken and Chickpeas gives it more nutrition and chunkiness.

If you are vegetarian just omit the chicken.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• Small piece chicken breast, diced
• 1/4 red capsicum, diced
• 3 small tomatoes or 2 medium tomatoes, skinned and diced
• 1 cup bulgur (cracked wheat)
• 1/2 can chickpeas
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Fry up the onion in the oil, once wilted add in your chicken breast and cook until brown.
2. Add capsicum and cook while stirring on medium heat.
3. Next goes in the washed cracked wheat and water. Add in your tomato paste.
4. Cook on low heat for about 10 minutes.
5. Finally before you take it off the heat add in your canned chickpeas and seasonings and give it a good mix. Let it simmer for a few more minutes until all the water has evapourated.
6. Close the lid on your pot so the flavours absorb into one another.

Cracked Wheat Salad (Tabouli)

Finally I have gotten around to making my signature tabouli...just gotta put up the recipe.. Here is the pic though! I'm not too happy with the picture, but it will have to do for now.

A month or so later......

The base recipe that I am providing is for approximately 4 people. If you want to make more, measure 1/2 cup extra per person and just increase the remainder of the vege ingredients.

Now be warned - I never make tabouli to a specific formula. It always depends on how many people I am making it for and I usually just taste it at the end and add in whatever else I think is needed. The recipe below is a good basis to start with. You may need to adjust it.

Ingredients (4 Person)

2 cups cracked wheat
3-4 Tomatoes, diced
1 Onion, diced
Small bunch Spring onions (if on hand and if you prefer - not essential)
1 bunch parsley
1-2 Chillies, diced
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon red pepper powder
2 tablespoons Oil
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups Boiled Water
2 lemons, juiced

Method

1. Add hot water to the cracked wheat and mix, let it stand, cover the top of the bowl so the cracked wheat softens.
2. Chop up all the vege ingredients and add to the mix.
3. Add in seasonings and tomato paste.
4. Wash your hands well and then use them to mix and squish the ingredients together like you are kneading dough. (You can use spoons to mix but this method is better.)
5. Taste test before serving - you may need to add in more lemon juice, oil, salt, more tomatoes or parsley depending on what you think it is missing.
6. Serve with lettuce leaves, Pohca (Cheese pastries)...yummo.

Stuffed Capsicums (Dolma)

Okay I have finally gotten around to putting up the recipe...I had to remake this to jolt my memory!

This can be made without the mince meat.

Ingredients

6 small capsicums
1 cup rice
1 onion, diced
parsley, small bunch
mince meat, 150g cooked
salt & pepper to taste
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 cup water

Method

Making the Filling

1. Cook the onion and the mince together until the mince is brown
2. Add in the washed rice and cook a little
3. Next add in water, you don't want to add too much because you want to keep filling al dente. It will cook again once you stuff the capsicums.
4. Finally as you are about to take it off the heat, add in tomato paste and give it a mix. Add in seasonings.
5. Sprinkle in parsley and mix until it wilts.
6. Stuff into capsicums
7. Line the stuffed capsicums into a pot add some water to cover 1/3 of capsicums and cook until the capsicums are soft - about 40 minutes or so.

Chocolate Baby Cupcakes

This is the best chocolate home made cake recipe that I have come across. I absolutely love this recipe because it's so easy and I usually have the ingredients on hand to make it on short notice. The result is a cake that is moist and looks and tastes like those packet betty crocker mixes. You can also use the same recipe to make these cute little cupcakes.

What's even easier is that I use Nutella for my icing/topping. It tastes great and doesn't require any mixing! You could leave the icing out if you prefer and just dust the cakes with a little with icing sugar when serving.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups plain flour (you can use self raising flour, just cut out the bicarb soda)
  
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk
  
• 2 eggs
• 125g butter, melted, cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanillin sugar

Topping

• Nutella/Chocalate Ganache or the usual chocolate butter icing.
  
• Sprinkles

Method

• Preheat oven and grease muffin tins. I usually use those mini patty cases and just spray some canola oil in them.
• Sift flour, bicarb soda and cocoa into a bowl. Add in the sugar and vanillin sugar.
  
• In a seperate bowl or jug, combine the milk/buttermilk, eggs and melted butter.
• Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in your wet mix.
• Use an electric mixer, first beat on low until the mixture is combined. Then increase the speed and beat the mixture until it looks creamy (a bit like mousse).
• Pour mixture into cake pan or into muffin tins and bake at 170 degrees for about 35 minutes if your baking a cake and about 15 minutes if your making the mini muffins.
  
• In either case I usually test to see if they are done by interting a knife to see if it comes out clean.
• Cool the cakes on a wire rack then ice with your preffered topping.
  

Pohca/ Poğaça (Cheese and Parsley Pastries)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup yoghurt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup oil
• salt to taste (about 1 teaspoon)
  
• 3 cups self raising flour (may require more)
• 1 egg + 1 egg white (keep the yolk)

For the filling:

• half a bunch of parsley (optional)
  
• feta cheese, shredded

Method

1. Mix yoghurt, milk, oil, egg white, salt and flour to form a soft dough. You may need to add more flour as you kneed the dough.
2. Break small pieces of the dough to form little balls.
3. Flatten the balls between your palms to form a small circle and lay flat on table, fill it with parsley and shredded cheese and roll back into a ball shape. (I made mine into crescent shapes. To make them like the picture, just place the filling mixture on one half of the circle and fold the other half over, press down the edges).
   
4. Place pohca's on a greased oven tray making sure there is room between them.
5. Brush the top of the pohca's with egg yolk and sprinkle some sesame seeds and nigella seeds.
   
6. Cook at about 160 degrees until brown on top.

Thanks for looking. Please check out my other Turkish recipes and not so Turkish ones also! I will be posting a new Pohca/Poğaça recipe very soon. It's probably the softest Poğaça I have ever made.

TURKCE

Malzemeler

• 1/2 bardak yogurt
• 1/2 bardak sut
• 1/2 bardak sivi yag
• tuz (1 tatli kasigi gibi)
• 3 bardak mayali un (belki fazla alabilir)
• 1 yumurta + 1 yumarta beyazi (sarisi ustune surmek icin)

Ic Malzeme:

• maydanoz
• beyaz peynir

Yapilisi:

1. Yogurt, sut, yag,yumurtalari, tuz ve unu yogur. Gerekirse daha fazla un ekle ve kulak memesi gibi yumusak bir hamur olsun.
2. Hamurdan ufak toplar yapin.
3. Ellerin arasinda bastirarak yuvarlak seklendirin. Masanin ustune koyun ve arasina ic malzemeden ekleyip ikiye katlayin.
4. Yaglanmis tepsiye aralikli dizin.
5. Ustlerine yumurta sarisi surun, susam ve corekotu serpin.
6. 160 derece firinda ustleri kizarincaya dek pisirin.

Yakinda yeni bir Poğaça tarifi ekliyecem. Cok acayip yumusak Poğaça ve kolay bir tarif.

Snowflake Coconut Balls

Ingredients

• 3 cups dessicated coconut
• 1 cup milk powder
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 200ml thickened cream

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together to form a soft dough.
  
• Make little balls and dip into some coconut
• Refrigerate until it is firm (a few hours).
  

Pink Birthday Cake for Princess

I baked a simple butter cake (marble) for my princess. Decorated it with some pink "Krem Santi" - you can pick it up from the local turkish grocer. It is the equivalent of pink whipped cream. I am sure you can achevie the same outcome by whipping up some cream and adding food colouring to it. Never tried it but I am sure it's possible.

I was very proud of the decoration though. It was a joint effort between, myself, hubby and aunty Nin and some very new icing piping equipment we picked up recently. Oh I made the little candy princess by the way - Not! I bought them from woolies. Certianly adds a semi professional touch to the cake.

Butter cake recipe is listed below, it was taken from the huggies website:

Ingredients:

These quantities make one standard cake.

• 125grams of softened butter
• 2/3 cup of caster sugar
• 2 eggs (lightly beaten)
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 2 cups SR Flour
• 2/3 cup milk

Method:

• Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy
• Add eggs and Vanilla Essence (Beat until well mixed)
• Add small amounts of flour and milk until well mixed in together.
• Place into a lined and greased tin and cook for 45mins in an oven pre-heated to 180C.
• Test with a skewer to ensure that it is cooked.

Variations:

• Chocolate cake
  To turn this recipe into a chocolate cake add 2tbs of cocoa and 2tbs of milk to the mixture and beat through.
• Marble Cake
  Separate mixture into 3 equal parts in different bowls.
  Add a couple of drops of pink food colouring to one part.
  Add 1tbs of cocoa and 1tbs of milk to one part.
  Now spoon the different mixtures into the tin, one spoonful at a time, so that the colours alternate. To finish off the effect use a knife or skewer and swirl the colours together.

Honey & Soy Chicken Stir Fry

I don't normally measure ingredients, so according to how much you would like to make or whatever ingredients you have on hand, just throw in what you think would be enough. A rough estimate is listed below.

Ingredients

• Chicken Breast, 400g
  
• Brocolli, small bunch
  
• Corn Spears, 1 can
  
• Red Capsicum, half
  
• Mushrooms, 300g
  
• Onions, 1 diced
  
• Oyster Sacue 1 to 2 tablespoons
  
• Soy Sauce, 1 to 2 tablespoons
  
• Honey, 1 to 2 tablespoons
• salt

Method

• Dice onion, fry in oil. Add in the chicken and fry until brown. Set aside in a seperate bowl.
• Add some more oil to wok if necessary, start with the "hard" vegetables so fry brocolli until it wilts a little.
• Then carrots, corn spears,capsicum, mushroom.
• Add the chicken back in once the veggies are cooked to your liking.
  
• Finally, drizzle in your sauces. Give it a good mix and serve with some rice.