Citra's Home Diary

No Knead #Bread

This is my first attempt at making no knead bread. Mostly I make "soft bread" which is more popular in Indonesian taste. Total time to make this bread was approximately 18 hours, so better time to start making the dough is evening/ afternoon so you can finish whole process in morning next day.
The appearance of this bread not so successfully looking good because I didn't put it in my pyrex pan right (I was afraid my finger touch that very hot pan)... But anyhooooo..... the bread was good and we all like it :)

Yield one big loaf

Ingredients:
 3 cup all-purpose flour, plus for dusting
 ½ tsp instant yeast
 ½ tbsp sugar
 2 teaspoon salt
 1 ½ cup warm water
 Enough sesame, slightly grind

The process:

A) In a large bowl, mix all ingredients and stir until blended- the dough is wet and sticky one (image 1). Cover with plastic stretch and let stand a warm place for approximately 15 hours.

B) After approximately 15 hours (I did in 18 hours), the dough will seems like image No. 2, bubbles and foamy on it's surface. Sprinkle your work surface with plenty of flour, move the dough onto it, fold it several times to it self (image 3). Cover again with plastic wrap and rest for about 20 minutes.

C) Take a medium-size pan (± 18 cm), sprinkle with grind sesame seeds. Dust your hands with lots of flour, take the dough and quickly shape like a ball. Place it in pan sprinkled with sesame earlier (image 4). Cover with plastic wrap and let stand a warm place for about 2 hours before baking in oven.

D) Prepare your 8" or 9 " iron/ enamel pan/ pyrex with lid (anything heat proof). Preheat oven 30 minutes ahead. Place your iron/enamel pan /pyrex in it. Set you oven temperature of 240 ~ 250 ⁰C (your highest temp)

E) Carefully remove the pyrex / iron / enamel pan from oven. Dust again your hands with flour before taking the dough from pan, put the dough into the pan / pyrex-be careful with the heat of the pan.
Cover pan / pyrex with it lid and bake for 25 ~ 30minutes. Take pan/pyrex's lid and continue baking about 20 ~ 30 minutes more, until golden brown on surface and when you patted sounds hollow inside.

Grilled Mustard and molasses Salmon

Do you know why we must consuming fish (at least twice a week according to American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association)?

Fish, beside rich with protein, vitamins, and minerals, also contain fatty acids omega-3 which is very good for our body. Fatty acids Omega-3, including DHA and EPA, has effect of reducing inflammation in the body. Because of these effects, so these compounds can reduce heart disease risk and blood vessels. Also omega 3 also role to prevent the occurrence some disease are also associated with inflammation, like Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.

Well...what about Salmon?

Salmon are known as "Brain food" (Food for the brain) also nutritious as food to maintain healthy skin. Salmon can be as a treat and occur wrinkles on skin and maintain appearance of skin stays healthy..

Besides fish, another healthy menu is also recommended consumed in equal proportion. So.. what are we waiting for to get healthy and stay beautiful .... @(^,^)@

Make 2 portion

Ingredients and how to make:
 ± 700 g fresh salmon. Clean and cut according to taste (you could also use fillets)
 3 cloves garlic, finely grated
 3 fresh green onion, thinly sliced
 1 tablespoon mustard sauce
 2 tablespoons molasses
 2 tablespoons lemon juice
 4 tablespoons canola oil (or other vegetable oils)
 Salt to taste

Combine all marinade ingredients and marinate salmon with that marinade mixture. Let stand in refrigerator at least 2 hours (or overnight).

Roasted in oven 170 ⁰C until cooked (just about 20 minutes) or over the coals.

Serve warm with salad.

Broken Heart Cookies (eggless)

Broken heart cookies? Well... you don't have to be broken heart first to eat this cookies. It's just cookies with Chocolate melted decoration. If you read recipe below and you can not find egg in it, don't worry... the recipe is correct and I did not use egg for this cookies. You must try it and you bet you will like them so much with your afternoon tea or coffee.. (*_*)

Yield: about 50 cookies
Ingredients:
 1 package (250 grams) margarine, soften at room temperature
 ¾ cup powdered sugar (you can reduce up to ½ cup)
 2 cup + 1 tablespoon flour
 2 tablespoons powdered milk
 2 tbsp rice flour
 ½ tsp fine salt
 1 tsp Vanilla powder
garnish:
 Semi-sweet cooking chocolate, melted

Chicken Pilaf

I'm rice lover. And if you are too and looking for other idea to cook and vary our rice/ pilaf? Well, maybe this can be your choice.

Eat them with your favorite salad and sprinkle with Chilly flake or fresh green onion.

Served: 4

Ingredients and how to cook it:
 ± 600 gr boneless chicken breast
 2 cup rice, washed and drained
 ± 125 g margarine plus 1 tablespoon, separated
 Salt and pepper to taste
 Chily flakes or sliced of fresh green onion for topping

Boil chicken until cooked, remove and strain from broth then shredded.
Heat 125 g margarine, put the rice and stir for a while. Pour with chicken broth about 2 ~ 3 cup (according to rice type you are using), season with salt according to your taste, stir well. Cover the pan and reduce heat at lowest heat. Cook until cooked (± 20 minutes).

Turn off heat and let stand without opening the lid for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat small amount of margarine (about 1 tablespoon) in medium skillet, put shredded chicken, season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix into the cooked rice. Serve hot with a sprinkling of chilli flakes or sliced green onion and salad.

Enjoy.

Strawberry Blackberry Pie dessert and award

Nothing more I can say about this fave dessert. Combination of the crunchy pie as a base and creamy yummy cheese cream, topping with fresh fruits which covered by yummy jam... Hmmm.. who's gonna refuse this??

İngredients for 9 inch Pie Crust:
 1 ¼ cup flour
 2 tbsp caster sugar
 115 grams butter, cut into cubes and store in refrigerator until ready to use
 5 ~ 6 tablespoons ice water
 ¼ tsp fine salt
For the Filling:
 ¾ cup cream cheese
 ½ cup powdered sugar
 1/3 cup heavy cream
Topping:
 3 tablespoons strawberry/ blackberries jam
 2 tablespoons cherry liquor
 ½ tbsp gelatin, dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
 Strawberry and fresh blackberries (or fresh fruit to your taste)

Method:
>> Pie Crust:
In a food processor, put flour, salt and sugar. Gradually mix in cold butter, pulse a few times, mix in cold water and pulse to resamble (crumble). Pour into the work table, gather the dough and fist forms a ball, wrap plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few moments ± 45 minutes
Pre heat oven at 190 ⁰ C. Sprinkle your work desk with a little flour, roll dough crust wider than your pie mold. Moving into your pie mold, bake until cooked ± 25 minutes

>> Filling and topping:
Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and heavy cream, mix until smooth and well blended, set aside in the refrigerator.
Mix the strawberry jam / blackberries with cherry liquid. Heat the gelatin by double boil until gelatin dissolves, mix in liquor mixture, stir well. Remove from heat, let it slightly cool at room temperature, mix in Fruits (strawberries and Blackberries), stir them carefully to cover them with that liquor-jam mixture

>> finishing:
Pour the cream filling over the pie crust and smooth the surface. Arrange the fresh fruit.
Store in refrigerator before serving.

Enjoy.

And now about the award. This is my few times I receive such an honor from my dear Friend : Ridwan with his great blog Asian Spice mix , please do visit his kitchen here

I know Ridwan recently in foodie blog community. Even we know each other quite short time but we feel "close" since we are same Indonesian and of course we have same taste of food. I like mostly his recipe and bookmarked some of them too... Thank you Ridwan for passing some awards to me:

Now, I'd like to pass this awards also to my other foodie bloggers as below:

- Ancoo at Anncoo Journal

- Elies at Give thanks

- Paty at Paty's kitchen

- Shizuka at The cat, the rabbit and the hedgehog

- Ping at Ping's picking

- Yesim at Yesim style kitchen

- Elisabeth at Food and thrift

- Lizzy at That skinny chick can bake

- Stephanie at Eat. Drink. Love

- Junia at Mis pensamientos

- Madeja at Cranberry jam

Please do visit their wonderful page with many great recipes and contents.

Tumis Kacang Panjang (stir fried chinese long bean)

Another kind of Indonesian side dish. We usually serve it over warm steamed rice and "sambal" (ground hot chilly) company with other side dish like chicken/ meat or fried tofu/ tempe (fermented soy bean).

Ingredients:
 ± 300 g chinese long green beans, trim approximately 7 cm, washed
 ± 100 gr shrimp, discard head and tail, veined
 1 medium onion or 4 cloves small red onion, thinly sliced
 3 cloves garlic, smash and finely chopped
 1 medium tomato, thinly sliced
 2 ~ 3 long red chillies, thinly sliced
 1 bay leaves
 2 cm galangal, lightly smash.
 Sweet soy sauce 3 ~ 5 tablespoons (I use 5 tablespoon)
 Salt to taste
 enough Cooking oil for sauteing

How to cook:
Heat oil in a skillet, saute garlic and onion until fragrant and transparent, put tomatoes, chilly sliced, bay leaves and galangal, saute for few minutes. Mix in shrimp, stir-fry until shrimp change color, then put in long beans, soy sauce and salt. Pour enough water (about 1 glass) and cook until fresh long bean turn a bit soft and the water dried.
I like my long bean stir-fry slightly crunchy.

Serve warm as a side dish with rice.

Kue Kering PUTRI SALJU I / Snow White Cookies I

Selam everybody...Merhaba from Turkey...

Kue kering Putri Salju literally means Whi

te Snow cookies in Indonesian language. Well, I guess you already notice why it call White snow cookies right? @(^,^)@.

It's very popular among Indonesian especially in some Holiday occasion (Idul Fitri and Christmas) beside Kaastengels, Nastar, pastel mini , Semprit susu (spritz cookies) and other traditional Indonesian Cookies.

Yield about 700 gr (125~140 cookies)

Ingredients:

Steamed Spiced Cake from egg whites (Cake Kukus Berempah dari putih telur )

Long holiday for Ramazan Celebration... Now I'm back online again.. Been busy since ramadhan cause we change our sleep and eating time. This year, ramadhan (fasting month) at August which is summer time, so we start our fasting break around 20.00 ( mostly I got my fasting break around 18.00 in Indonesia). We slept late around 00.00 or 01.00 then I must wake up again at 03.00 morning for prepare "sahur" (last supper before whole day fasting). After morning pray, we usually sleep again until around 9 or 10 morning. And I couldn't cook & post something new because I couldn't taste them during the day.. hehehe..

Then Ramadhan celebration coming, after we fasting about 30 days (mostly) but this year in Turkey we was fasting 29 days. During Ramadhan celebration (in Turkey called Ramazan Bayram. And we call it "Idhul Fitri" in Indonesian language), most of time we spent time with family, relatives and close friends. We visit each other house, lunch or dinner together also eat A LOT of Baklava! (^,^)

During Ramadhan I gain 4 kilos ! ... :(( *huhuuuhuuu..

You know how hard to loose some weight, but it's VERY easy to gain and gain more weight !

Well.. anyway, I must work harder and eat less to loose some kilo again. So I'll try to make something healthy and less sugar for my snack and dessert. Like this one: Steamed Spiced Cake.. Are you agree this is healthy one? ^,^

Ingredients:
 1 cup egg whites, room temperature
 1 cup brown sugar ( I use only 3/4 cup)
 1 tsp lemon juice
 tip of a teaspoon fine salt
 2 /3 cup canola oil or other vegetable oil
 Margarine / butter for grease the baking pan

Cooking OKRA

I like vegetable, any kind of vegetables. Mostly I eat them raw and as salad.

Talking about favorite vegetable, Okra is in season now days. We can find them everywhere in cheap price.

If you like this Okra too just follow my tips: find fresh okra with firm (not soft) pod, it's good one.

Then try my okra recipe for good menu on your dinner table (^,^).

Ingredients:
 ± 300 g okra pods
 ± 100 g beef, sliced lengthwise (can be skipped if you want vegetarian version)
 1 medium onion, finely chopped
 2 ~ 3 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
 1 medium tomato, peeled and finely chopped
 1 teaspoon ground red pepper / chilli powder
 2 ~ 3 tablespoons lemon juice of ½ medium lemon
 ½ tsp sugar
 2 tsp salt or to taste
 ¾~1 cup hot water (or broth)
 Enough Corn/ canola oil for sauteing

method:
1) Leave the okra whole without cut. If you cut them the mucilage will be out from them and make it slime. Wash the okra with salt water and rinse with clean water. Drain.
2) Heat enough cooking oil in a pan, saute the meat until cooked and tender. Stir in onion and garlic, saute until fragrant and transparent. Combine tomatoes and paprika powder, mix well. Mix in okra, sugar and salt, stir well.
3) Pour with ¾~1 cup water (broth) and lemon juice, stir and continue cooking over medium heat about 20 minutes or until okra is rather soft.

Serve warm.

Damatesli Pilavı (Tomato rice)

I love eating pilaf. As Asian, it's main dish for me every time, everywhere. I feel "not full" whatever I eat without eating rice. ^,^

In Turkey, people cook pilaf different way from I usually do(which is always steamed and plain-Cause we usually eat our meal over that steamed plain rice)

Damatesli Pilavı means Rice cooked with tomato. The final taste is "almost" like our Indonesian Fried rice... "Almost" ^,^ .....I like it though.

Here I share how to make this Damatesli Pilavı

Materials and how to make it:
 1 ½ cups long grain rice, wash and soak ± 30 minutes, drained
 2 ½ tablespoons margarine
 ½ medium size onion, finely chopped
 2 medium tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped
 2 tsp salt or to taste
 1 ½ ~ 1 ¾ cup chicken broth / beef (or hot water)

Heat margarine in medium pan, saute onion until fragrant and wilted, put in rice and stir well. Combine tomatoes and stir for few minutes. Pour in chicken broth /beef (or hot water), salt then stir well. Cover pan with lid and reduce heat (at lowest heat). Cook up to± 20 minutes until broth is absorbed in rice. Turn off heat and let stand for several minutes without opening the lid.

Serve warm with some other dish you like or just as it and salad.

Afiyet Olsun.

Sweet and Sour Roasted Chicken

I was surprisingly love this one. Simple but great meal for dinner or lunch. You must try it and tell me if you are agree with me ^,^

Serve it with simple warm steamed rice or you can see some of my pilaf recipe here to get a long with this sweet and sour roasted chicken.

Served 4.
Ingredients and how to make
 1 kg chicken or 4 pcs of chicken thighs, wash and stab some places with fork

Ingredients for chicken marinade:
 5 cloves garlic, finely grated
 1 medium lemon, take the zest and juiced
 5 tablespoons molasses (I use grape molasses)
 3 tablespoons hot chili sauce ( ABC chili sauce/ shriraca)

 3 tablespoons canola/ corn/ coconut oil
 2 tsp salt or to taste
 2 tsp brown sugar

Mix well all marinade ingredients. Soak chicken with it and let stand at least 3 hours (or overnight) in refrigerator.
Roasted over coals or in oven 200 ⁰C until cooked

Serve warm with salad and rice/ pilaf or potatoes.

Yogurt Panna Cotta with Cherry Compote

This is my perfect dessert for my family iftar. Light but really entertained us after all heavy meal on previous fast breaking.

served 2

Red Cabbage Mix salad

Another Salad mix with Pomegranate sour sauce as dressing. Great side dish that will go along with any meal/dishes you have.

What you need are:

- 1 cup shredded red cabbage

- 1 medium red onion, sliced half ring

- 1 medium cucumber, core, and slice lengthwise about 5 cm

- 1 medium tomato, thinly slice, crescent shape

Dressing:

- 2 tbsp pomegranate sour sauce

- 1 tbsp lemon juice

- 5~7 tbsp olive oil

- 1 tsp sugar

- salt to taste

*Mix well all dressing ingredients.

Making it:
Mix red cabbage and onion, toss with some salt and knead before rinse. Drain them well. Mix with other vegetable and salad dressing. keep in refrigerator before serving.

Served cold.

Gözleme

Gözleme is a savoury traditional Turkish hand made and hand rolled pastry. Fresh pastry is rolled out, filled and sealed, then cooked over a griddle. The name derives from the Turkish word göz meaning eye. Traditionally, this is done on a sac.

Gözleme varieties include:

Spinach and Feta Cheese

Spinach and Feta and Minced meat

Spinach and Feta and Egg

Seafood

Egg

Minced Meat

Cheese

Potatoes

Mushroom

Lavaş cheese

The unique of this meal can be eaten anytime, anywhere. Sometimes some people like it as a snack or just a brunch with hot tea. Among those variety, today I made combination of feta cheese and parsley. You might try other filling variation to get different taste of this gözleme

Repeatable menu... Karnıyarık (Turkish stuffed eggplant)

One from many traditional Turkish meal. Served in almost every family dinner table and also one of repeatable menu. Eggplant with minced meat stuffing, spice with some seasoning topping with green banana pepper then wet roasted in oven.

Some variation, we can roasted them in tomato sauce gravy to get rich flavor. Serve them warm sprinkle with some parsley or coriander.

Ingredients:

4 pcs medium size eggplant, peeled in stripes lengthwise
200 gr ground meat
2 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped
2 onions, small cubed
1/2 bunch (about 25 stalks) parsley, finely chopped the leaves
1 big tomato, small diced
salt to taste
2 tbs olive oil
Enough frying oil for deep fry
olive oil for sauteing
about 1 cup hot water (or you can add tomato pasta in it)

For topping:

1 tomato, slice crescent shape
green banana peppers, as many as eggplants
parsley or coriander leaves for serving

Cara Membuat Tahu sendiri/ Homemade tofu

Have you eat tofu?- it's healthy.

Have you ever think to make your own tofu?- beside it's easy, it's also healthy because anything we make by our self, we can control what and how the ingredients we use.

Tofu was my daily food back when I was in Indonesia. I ate it almost everyday on my menu. You can eat it as a snack or as side dish. So, when I'm living here I can not find ready tofu here in Turkey.. maybe nobody eat tofu here :))

Then I feel something missing from my menu... so here I am.. making my own tofu... Try it once and you will like it too.. ^,^

Things to Prepare:
1) a large pot at least 6 liters capacity
2) Sieve/ strainer
3) Cheese cloth to filter or can use a clean cloth thin cotton.
4) Blender/ food processor
5) Tofu mould-anything you have with holes.
6) Weight or press tools

Ingredients:

• 500 grams of soybean
• Warm water
• ± 200 ml lemon / lime juice

How to make:

A) Rinse soybeans. Soak in plenty of water (see Figure 1). Soak overnight untill double its volume because absorbed water (Fig. 2). Rinse and drain (Fig. 3).

B) Blend soy bean with warm water, the ratio 1: 4 in volume = 1 for soybeans: 4 for water (Figure 4). Prepare a strainer and cheese cloth. Strain and wring out the blender yield (figure 5). You may keep the dregs and used to make tempeh gembus.

C) Put all soy milk in big pan, heat until almost boiling (Fig. 6). You can cover with lid, but let it open a bit so it won't boil overt. After almost boiling, let stand briefly until lukewarm. Then slowly add lemon juice while stirring very slow until the soy agglomerate such as figure 7, Leave it up to room temperature and precipitation settled.

D) Prepare tofu mold like a figure 8, Cover with cheese cloth (cotton filtre). Slowly, pour the soy precipitation/ sediment into the mold (Figure 9) and cover with the rest of the filter cloth (Fig. 10). Give ballast like the picture 11. As you can see at Fig. 12, residu fluid drop down from the mold. This process for about 3 ~ 5 hours.

E) If you want more dense tofu, Steamed after being pressed.
The process of making yellow tofu, add a little salt, turmeric powder and garlic powder in the cooking process No. 6.

Have a try.

Beef Saute in Pita Bread

I made Pita bread yesterday. And for filling I make beef saute with cumin for our iftar (breaking fast) menu today. Hubby said, why don't you try to make meatball for the filling next time?

Eh, why not.. ^,^ But I make this beef saute because inspired by döner kebab that he like so much. I slice the meat in very thin and wide, so it's döner look like (*_*), with strong cumin flavor which I like.. I'll bet You will get great menu for your lunch or dinner with this pita bread...

served 4~6

Ingredients for beef saute and how to make:
• ± 350 g beef, thinly widely sliced .
• 2 medium onions, finely sliced half-ring shape
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed & finely chopped
• 1 medium size tomato, cut into small squares
• 2 carliston pepper, seeded, sliced lengthwise
• ½ teaspoon pepper powder
• ½ tsp all spice powder
• 1 ½teaspoon ground cumin
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp salt or to taste
• Small amount of sugar
• Enough cooking oil for sauteing

Making beef saute:
Heat oil in a skillet, cook beef until tender--If necessary add small amount of water and cook until water dried again. Stir in onion and garlic, saute until fragrant and wilted. Combine tomatoes and carliston biber, continue stir frying until wilted. Put all other spices, check the taste. Remove from fire.

Other ingredients:
• 4 pieces of Pita bread (you can see recipe here), halved each
• Sliced onions
• Sliced tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Chili flakes for sprinkle on top

How to serve:
Arrange the salad inside slice of pita bread, give beef saute and sprinkle with chili powder/ flake if you like.

Serve warm immediately.

Pita Bread

Pita bread is a round pocket bread widely consumed in many Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Balkan cuisines. It is prevalent from the Balkans through Turkey, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The "pocket" in pita bread is created by steam, which puffs up the dough. As the bread cools and flattens, a pocket is left in the middle.

Originated in the Middle East and were traditionally cooked in tandoor ovens.

Yield 8 ~ 10 breads.

Membuat susu kental manis sendiri I / Homemade Sweet Condensed Milk I

Selam everybody....Merhaba from Turkey.

Have you ever think to make your own sweet condensed milk? Maybe for you who can find it easily around corner in your place, making it at home will consuming a lot of effort and not practical at all. But for those who's just like me, finding this product is like finding a water in desert :))

Maybe because in Turkey not many people know and use this sweet condensed milk. And indeed, provide need demand, right? ^,^

In my homeland, mostly people using this, we call it "susu kental manis". Even you can find in economic packet for you to bring anywhere ^,^

Well, anyway... If you like to make everything by homamade, or you can't find it in your place, or you just want to try to make it.. here it is my recipe for homemade sweet condensed Milk

Yield ± 250 ml

What you need and how to make it:
 50 gr unsalted butter
 ¾ cup granulated sugar
 ¾ cup water
 1 cup powdered milk

Pandan and Coconut Steamed Cake

Pandan or Pandanus amaryllifolius one kind of tropical plant. The plant is rare in the wild but is widely cultivated. It is an upright green plant with fan-shaped sprays of long, narrow, blade like leaves and woody aerial roots. The plant is sterile, flowers only very rarely, and is propagated by cuttings.

used widely in Southeast Asian cooking as a flavoring-wikipedia

Beside can give such a nice flavoring in foods, some kind of pandan can give beautiful natural green color, I just love it.

This pandan we can plant it either on garden yard or inside pot. Too bad I don't have it in my home here. I have no idea even if I can bring this plant here, whether it can survive in 4 season country like Turkey. I remember my mom plants this pandan in pot at our house in Indonesia.

Last time my friend brought me pandan paste from Indonesia and give me 1 small bottle. I was so happy cause I miss it's fragance and I miss some Indonesian food (mostly dessert and cake) using this pandan falvor...

So here it is my 1st Pandan cake in Turkey @(^,^)@

You can try to find this pandan paste in Asian grocery store in your country/ city, maybe you'll get lucky to have one...

Ingredients A:
• ¾ cup grated coconut (fresh or dried)
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar

Ingredients B:
• 3 medium eggs
• ¾ cup caster sugar
• 1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tsp vanilla powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of fine salt
• 1 ½ tsp pandan paste
• 100 gr unsalted butter, melted and mixed with ½ cup olive oil

Friendly Tag... I'm in

I've been tag by My dear foodie friend Ping. Hai Ping..! thanks for tagged me and be part of this friendly event. Here I just copy paste the rule to enliven this event from her page.

This tag is all about your own stuff. I think it's a great idea to highlight some long forgotten posts or some lonely, neglected, uncommented recipe ... especially during one's early days of blogging. I'm happy to be tagged by Ping, from Ping's picking to take part in this 7 - Link Challenge. That's 7 of your own posts in relation to the categories and then to nominate 5 victims bloggers to join in. No extra cooking or baking required.

2 simple rules:

A) publish links for the categories below (1 link per category)

I'm not sure exactly when the post should be published, so I just choose my posts only publishes in 2011

Here are my links:
1. The most beautiful post:
Steamed Chocolate brownies with Sun Flower decoration

I consider this one to be most beautiful post in this 2011 until I felt pity to cut this cake ^,^

2. The most popular post:
Popular post based on google search this year, goes to:
Pırasa Böreğı

3. The most controversial post:
Frankly speakıng I don't really understand what ıs most controversial post is. 1st in my thought, controversial means, I post something, then suddenly somebody else claim it as his/ her post ..hehehehehe...anyway, then I decide my LAHMACUN to be controversial post. Why? I read on my tweeter some people claim this food came from their country, not Turkey. I know, some countries in same area (middle easter and mediteranean) have similarity in food and culture. Just like in south east asia, we have some similarity in food and culture, between, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore. Every country has differential and it's own characteristics :)

4. The most helpful post:
I think it will go to: Ayran-Cold yogurt drink

5. The post that was surprisingly successful:
Goes to: Cheddar cheesecake with fruits topping

6. The post that did not get the attention it deserved:

I know, most of you probably unfamiliar with this food, but once you try it.. you will like it. it's healthy vegetable snack during your empty hour :))

Meet: Ote-Ote/ koheci/ Weci/ fried vegetable snack

7. The post that I'm most proud of:
Tiramisu Cheesecake is the most I proud of. It's new for me also and I'm surprisingly amazed how great when Cheesecake mix with tiramisu flavor ^,^

B) nominate up to 5 bloggers to take part

And my next 5 nominees are.....

1. Erin - Dinners, Dishes, and Desserts

2. Kelly - Eat your self skinny

3. Madeja - Cranberry Jam

4. Akheela - Torview

5. Sizuka - The Cat, The Rabbit & The Hedgehog

Chicken Cardamom with Bulgur Pilaf

Selam everybody.....Merhaba from Turkey.

Who doesn't like cardamom? If you don't like it, you better try it.

If you are looking for dinner or lunch menu idea, I recommend this one. Quick and easy to make but the result isn't as simple as how it's prepared. I guarantee it will be repeatable menu for your family.

I made this bulgur pilaf deliberately simple so it can go with your other favorite meal.

Served 4 .

Cardamom Chicken Ingredients:
 4 pieces of chicken thighs, stab at some places with a fork
 1 medium onion, grated
 3 cloves garlic, grated
 2 tsp cardamom powder
 1 teaspoon ground cumin
 ½ tsp pepper powder
 ½ tsp powdered ginger
 ½ tsp chili powder
 4 tablespoons canola oil or other vegetable oil
 1 tablespoon molasses (can be replaced with honey)
 1 ½ tsp salt or to taste

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