roasted tomatoe soup and twice baked potatoes

Eilidh and I made brunch on our snow day Wedndsday last week.  It included the typical western fare, toast, poached eggs, homefries and a couple very British additions; roasted tomatoes and fried mushrooms.  I remember these breakfasts well, the little caf at the bottom of my street served up delicious breakfasts that included these things and also beans and bacon (I skip out on British sausages and black pudding).  I discovered on Wednesday how much I love eating roasted tomatoes.  And they're dead easy to make; just cut your tomatoes into quarters, throw them onto a pan, drizzle with olive oil and some herbs and shove them in the oven.  Their juices cook and sort of carmelize into a sweet tomatoe-y liquid.

So tonight, while sprawled on my couch with my kitty laying on my belly, I rediscovered another very British thing: Sophie Dahl.  Sophie is famous children's book author Roald Dahl's granddaughter, and she is a chef.  I'd seen her program once before while living in London and was thrilled when I saw 'The Delicious Miss Dahl' listed on my Digiturk guide.  On 'The Delicious Miss Dahl', Sophie makes comfort food that reflects her mood.  Today, Sophie was feeling nostalgic, and made the English comfort food she craved while she was living in New York.  She made a very English meal; roasted tomatoe soup and twice baked potatoes, and 2000 miles away, in my little Turkish-ly decorated flat in Ankara, I felt nostalgic for a little taste of home cooking as well.  'Roasted tomatoes?' I thought, 'Why, that's my new favourite thing!'  I threw the tomatoes, onions, garlic and herbs in a pot to roast and ran down to Eilidh's to borrow a hand blender to make my soup.

Now, my supply of fresh vegetables is running quite low, but I always keep potatoes, onions and garlic on hand and buy fresh tomatoes and other veg fresh every week.  So, I had just what I needed to make this delicious recipe.  What I noticed tonight about Sophie Dahl is that she's unbelievably calm and zen when she's cooking.  She's relaxed, and doesn't seem to be too bothered about time or dirtying lots of dishes.  Mind you, Miss Dahl is a professional chef and works in a professional kitchen studio.  I am a teacher who's worked all day long and cooks in a small, windowless kitchen with very limited equipment.  Did I mention that I have only one mixing bowl?  This is pathetic, I know, but I wasn't exactly cooking much until recently.  I think I'll invest in a few more cooking things.

I have been on a roll with cooking recently.  I made a delicious pizza this Friday, breakfast on Saturday and bruchetta on Sunday.  Will let you know what's cooking tomorrow.

Twice Baked Potatoe and Roasted Tomatoe Soup, recipe courtesy of Sophie Dahl

pizza friday

For as long as I can remember, my mother made homemade pizza every Friday, and she still does.  In the summer, I frequently make pizza on the barbecue, and this pizza, I must say, is excellent.  I usually make what I have named 'BBQ Chicken Pizza', where I coat little pieces of cooked chicken in Diana's BBQ sauce, and drizzle BBQ sauce over the top.  I use mozzerella and parmesan cheese and cook the whole thing on whole wheat dough I made on the barbecue.

Since moving to Turkey, I have been on the quest for a good pizza.  I've ordered from Dominos, Pizza Pizza, Pizza Hut and New York Pizza.  I think I prefer Dominos to the rest, as it tastes the most like Western pizza...but it's still...bland.  There's not much sauce, or cheese and flavour is generally lacking.  I end up coating my slice in salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to try to make up for the lack of flavour, but it doesn't really help.

Then I discovered Kyma's pizzas.  These pizzas are sensational.  If you're reading this in Turkey, please go out and get yourself a Kyma pizza.  Their pizzas are specialty pizzas, like delicious works of art covered in expensive imported cheese.  Their 4 Season Cheese pizza is divided up into 4 sections, each sprinkled with a different kind of cheese.  Their 4 cheese pizza is coated in delicious cheese, including Hellumi cheese.  On a pizza?  Why not?

Last night, Eilidh attempted to re-create my mother's pizza fridays by making a pizza of my own.  I made my own dough, by using my favourite, very simple and easy recipe from 'Eat Shrink and Be Merry' and this is where the substitutions began.  I don't actually have measuring cups, because I don't usually cook or bake anything that requires measuring.  So, I guestimated using a drinking glass and the dough turned out fine.  It even rose properly thanks to the yeast that I found in the grocery store.  Grocery shopping for baking ingredients is not always eas, here.  Things like yeast, baking powder and soda are often packaged completely differently than we're used to seeing them, and of course the names are written on in Turkish.  I found the yeast because Eilidh and I were looking for baking powder and we saw little packets with pictures of bread on it, so we assumed it was yeast, and it turns out that we were right.  We weren't able to find canned pizza sauce (which I'm beginning to think exists only in North America, because I wasn't able to find it in England either, I guess Europeans must make their own), so I used salça (remember this?  I used it to make kisir as well).  Salça is a very thick tomato puree, and the kind I bought is even a little bit sweet.  It's quite thick for pizza sauce, but works well once you put the vegetables and they contribute their juices.  I cut up pieces of chicken and sauted them with a bit of curry powder (as I doubt very much I can find Diana's BBQ sauce here), and we used all the vegetables we happened to have in our fridges; red and green peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes.  It was actually a great way to use up vegetables left over from the week.  We grated some Eski Kaşarlı cheese, which was a great substitute for mozzerella, even better, actually. 

So, with different cheese, curry powder and salça this pizza was not exactly like my mom's, but it's the best that can be done in Turkey, and Eilidh and I agreed that my pizza is easy to make, better than delivery, most likely healthier than delivery, and a great way to use up leftover veg.  I'm cooking!  Yay!  A pizza friday tradition may be started in Turkey.

I forgot to grease the baking sheet, so I had to hack the pizza up a little to get it off the tray, that's why you see all the crumbs :)  Will remember that for next time.

Cooking for one?

By the time I moved to Turkey, I was sick and tired of cooking.  My kitchen in Turkey, while equipped with a oven/stovetop, fridge and coffee maker, is rather small and doesn't have any windows.  As my good friend Ray said 'there's something unnatural about a kitchen that does does not have any windows' and I agree.  I don't like chopping, boiling, and dirtying dishes in my kitchen.  I don't like putting in an hour's effort for some pathetic meal that I have to eat all by myself and don't even have the desire to eat at this point because I'm basically tired of looking at the food I slaved over.

I used to cook.  I cooked when I lived in Barb's basement in Fredericton, and I cooked healthy meals too.  I cooked when I lived on Montgomery in Fredericton, and while the cooking consisted mostly of coffee and bagels, I did, from time to time make twice-baked potatoes or smoothies.  Where I really shine, though, is at the barbecue.  I can barbecue almost anything.  My barbecued-chicken pizza, bruchetta and flatbreads (all cooked on the barbecue) are famous among my extended family.  Well, I do have a balcony here, but sadly, it is not equipped with a barbecue, so I am limited to what I can make in my small, windowless kitchen.

I have two issues with cooking and eating that makes it nearly impossible for me to cook for myself. I find it hard to cook food for just one person.  Recipes (if I even bother to use them) must be divided, and isn't it just a whole lot of work to prepare food for just one time, one person eating it?  I know you're thinking that I should just make two servings and reheat the second serving the next day for supper (I don't have to bring a lunch to school because the cafeteria at school serves delicious, vegetarian meals to teachers).  I can't do leftovers either.  I can't actually bring myself to eat the same food twice in a row.  I've tried, but I can't even force myself to do it.  The food has got to be freshly cooked.  Isn't this a dilemma?

The most action my kitchen gets is when I make my morning coffee from my one-cup coffee maker, or boiling water for my hot water bottle.  So, I decided, after being inspired by my collegue Mandy (who cooks every night of the week) that I would also cook, every night of the week.  Yes, this is the goal, a hot, healthy supper every weeknight (I don't cook on the weekends, something I remembered from an old boyfriend who told me 'You shouldn't have to cook on the weekend').  I decided, while on holiday, that when I return to Ankara, I would cook every night of the week.  Or, at least, not order takeout or visit Mehmet (the man who runs the little canteen next to my appartment building) who I saw all too frequently for my chip and pop run of shame.

Well, it's been three weeks since returning to Ankara from my sejour to Istanbul, London and Paris, and I have managed to cook a few times, and only visited Mehmet once for a snack of chips!  This is almost successful!  Proud of my efforts in the kitchen, I actually made sure to take photographic evience, just for you.

This is a chicken curry served in a tortilla bowl.  I liked this so much, I cooked it twice.  It's pretty easy to do.  You just have to fry up some pieces of chicken breast in a pan and then add diced tomatoes, chopped mushroom, curry powder, finely chopped garlic and some yogurt to make it a bit creamy.  If I was really on the ball, I would have chopped up some onion and cooked it with the chicken for extra flavour.  But I am not on the ball with cooking, yet.  Baby steps, baby steps.

I cooked these on the same night as I made the curry.  I basically just carmelized the rings of pineapple by heating them up in a pan with a bit of white sugar and a couple teaspoons of water to make them syrup-y.  I ate them warm and they were pretty good.

This was my effort at comfort food.  Eilidh and I were food shopping last sunday and she mentioned that she wanted to make macaroni and cheese.  I was intrigued.  I want to make macaroni and cheese too! I thought.  So I bought some Eski Kaşarlı cheese, which tastes kind of like aged white cheddar cheese (my favourite!) and Eilidh told me how to make a white sauce.  It's not hard, actually.  You heat up some butter in a pan, then whisk in a bit of flour and then a little milk and then add your cheese, grated, so it all melts up into a sauce.  I cooked my pasta then poured the sauce on top.  I cut up some more cheese to sprinkle on top (I didn't have any parmesan), and voila, comfort food!

So there are my efforts at cooking...I'm hoping to make more healthy food, since beach season comes early in Turkey!