LazyCook

Pumpkin soup for chili days

2012-01-14T03:16:00.000+04:00

This is one of our (and generally everyone's) favorite soup for especially very cold winter days. The recipe is here "Superb squash soup with the best parmesan croutons" by Jamie Oliver. And we made it with pumpkins instead of butternut squash (as they are from the same family of squashes!)

fried sage leaves, rosemary and pumpkins

We first fried the sage leaves until they are crisp as in the recipe. After that the vegetables (onion, celery, carrot, garlic and chili) and rosemary leaves are cooked in the same oil that we fried the sage.

After 10 minutes we added the pumpkin and the organic vegetable stock and simmered for about half an hour until the pumpkin is soft. Meanwhile we prepared the croutons from ciabatta slices with olive oil and parmesan.

soup is simmering

When the pumpkin is cooked through, we whizzed the soup with a hand blender (we left it slightly chunky).

And the soup is ready to be served with parmesan croutons and crispy sage leaves. We added a bit of cream as optional.

superb!

Cafe Market & Weekend Bakery at Galata House

2012-01-12T16:58:00.000+04:00

18 Aralik 2011'de Galata House'da ilki duzenlenen Cafe Market & Weekend Bakery etkinliginin ikincisi 15 Ocak 2011 Pazar gunu olacaktir. LazyCook olarak bu etkinligin ilkine biscotti, elmali-cevizli kek, Vicdan'in kara keki, scones ve cevizli ekmek ile katilmistik. Bu pazar gunu ise biraz daha farkli tatlar ve cesitli sandwichler ile katilmayi dusunmekteyiz. Etkinlik ile ilgili basin bulteni asagidadir:

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Galata' da açılan ilk café olma özelliği taşıyan Galata House' ta 18 Aralık 2011' de ilkini düzenlediğimiz Cafe Market & Weekend Bakery etkinliğinin ikincisi için yeni tarihimiz belli oldu: 15 Ocak 2012 Pazar günü - saat 11:00-18:30!

Geçen sefer olduğu gibi Weekend Bakery' de ev yapımı ekmeklerle yapılmış leziz sandviçler, tatlı tuzlu muffinler, kurabiyeler, cheesecakeler, kişler, sıcak şarap, tabii ki kahve ve değişik çay karışımları tadacaksınız! Bu sefer Weekend Bakery' e gelen konuklarımızı 2. Kattaki piyanolu odada da ağırlama imkanımız olacak.
Bu ay Weekend Bakery' nin konuğu: ISTANBUL CUPCAKERY ve birbirinden güzel cupcake lerle hepimizi şımartacak :) http://www.istanbulcupcakery.com/

Tabii ki;
Tasarım t-shirtler, cantalar ve yastıklarla: OLI BASTIANI - http://www.olibastiani.net/
Vintage koleksiyonu ile Pınar Kılıç - STYLEMATIQUE (www.stylematique.blogspot.com)
Şık ve narin takıları ile: MIKLA DESIGN - https://www.facebook.com/mikladesign
Polimer kil ile yaratılabilecek en ilginç şeyler ve özel tasarım ipad ve laptop çantalar ile: GUGIKO - https://www.facebook.com/killenmekguzeldir

Eğlenceli tasarım ürünleri ile: CALICO - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Calico/282059128500391?sk=wall

Ayrıca, her türlü CD, Plak, DVD, Kitap, Giysi, PS3, PS2, PC oyunlarının satılacağı: GARAGE SALE

Galata House 2. katta CAFE MARKET' te sizleri bekliyor olacak!

Sıcacık ve keyifli bir Pazar günü geçirmek için bizi ziyaret edin!

Etkinliğin facebook linki:https://www.facebook.com/events/187076228057914/

Galata House facebook linki:https://www.facebook.com/galatahouse
www.thegalatahouse.com

Ayse Bige Goktug

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Ilk Weekend Bakery etkinliginde hazirladiklarimizdan birkaci:

Artik bir LazyCook klasigi olan biscotti, Spiced Biscotti with Marsala Mascarpone

biscottis

Yagsiz Elmali-Cevizli Kek

Bu cok hafif elmali keki ilk defa yuzmeden sonra eve yururken yarim saatligine kitap-gazete okumak icin ugradigim Maya Cafe'de yedim ve sahibi Harika Hanim'dan hemen tarifini aldim. Ozellikle orada ictigim ihlamurun yaninda (ve bir saat yuzmenin ustune) cok guzel gitmekte..

1 bardak seker ile 3 yumurta cirpilir. 1.5 bardak un, 1 cay k. kabartma tozu, 1 cay k. tarcin, 3 soyulmus ve kupler halinde kesilmis elma ve birkac avuc kirilmis ceviz karistirilir ve ustune yumurta karisimi eklenir. Kaliba konup yaklasik 45 dakika onceden 180 derecede isinmis firinda pisirilir.

yagsiz elmali-cevizli kek

Vicdan'in Kara Keki

Bu kek'in ise yapimi biraz daha karisik (ozellikle ilk defa kek yapmaya calisan benim gibi bir LazyCook icin!). Ama sonuc bayagi etkileyici!

2 bardak un

1 paket kabartma tozu

- karistirilir, kenara ayirilir

4 yumurta (yumurtalar kucukse 5 yumurta)

1.5-2 su bardagi toz seker

- el mikseri ya da robotla iyice cirpilir (iyice derken 10 dakika sureyle cirptim), ustune

1 su bardagi sut

1 cay bardagi sivi yag

1 paket vanilya

2 corba kasigi kanyak (ya da viski)

2 corba kasigi dolu kakao

- eklenir ve cirpmaya devam edilir. Cirpma islemi bittikten sonra 1 bardak karisim kenara ayirilir.

hazirlanan sostan 1 bardak ayirilir

- Hazirlanan sos un karisimina eklenir ve karistirilir.

- Kek kalibina dokulur ve onceden 180 derecede isitilmis firinda 45 dakika pisirilir

diktorgen kek kalibi bu kek icin en uygunu. yukaridaki kaliptan daha genis olmasi tavsiye edilir

- Kek pistikten sonra disariya alinir, firin kapatilir. Daha onceden ayirdigimiz 1 bardak sos ortasi diklemesine yarilarak kekin icine yedirilir (burasi en onemli kismi) ve hala sicak olan (ama kesinlikle kapali) firina geri konur. 10-15 dakika sonra cikarilabilir.

uzerinde peri kizlari olan kek Weekend Bakery'nin diger muhtesem tatlilariyla

Ilki cok zevkli ve lezzetli gecen bu etkinligin ikincisinde bu pazar gorusmek dilegiyle...

tatli sofrasi @Cafe Market & Weekend Bakery

harika tuzlu muffinler

ve degisik bir tat - balkabakli tart

Lasagna Days

2012-01-08T20:56:00.000+04:00

Last week we tried two different versions of lasagna: one vegetarian - grilled vegetable lasagna from Gordon Ramsay's 'Cooking for Friends' and one classic meat lasagna - simple baked lasagna from 'Jamie's Dinners'.

First the tomato sauce for the vegetable lasagna: after heating the oil in saucepan, we added the onion, celery stalks, carrot, garlic and fresh thyme with some seasoning and cooked until the vegetables are soft. We then put the tomatoes and simmered for 30 minutes, stirring frequently until the sauce was thickened. We added a little bit of sugar here.

first the tomato sauce

In the meantime, we prepared the vegetables: we trimmed and sliced the eggplants and zucchinis, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned. We cooked them in batches on our red hot griddle pan for 2-3 minutes on each side (until they are lightly charred). For the red and yellow peppers: we cut them in half and grilled them again until they are charred, left to cool slightly, then peeled of the skins and discarded the seeds.

When the tomato sauce was ready, we added the basil and we blitzed them until smooth in the food processor. Here, we preheated the oven to 180 degrees and started to prepare the lasagna dish. First, we laid a thin layer of tomato sauce over the base, then the lasagna sheets and then sprinkled over a little parmesan.

the thin layer of tomato sauce being laid over the base of the dish

We then arranged a layer of the vegetables, followed by a layer of mozzarella and a layer of tomato sauce. And we repeated this until we reached the top of the dish.

a layer of vegetables

then the mozzarellas on top of the vegetables

and a layer of the tomato sauce

We finished with a layer of lasagna sheets spread generously with the tomato sauce and topped with a layer of mozzarella and sprinkling of parmesan. We baked for 30-40 minutes until the cheese topping is golden brown.

The only setback with this one was we used dry lasagna sheets instead of fresh ones (as we cannot find fresh lasagna anywhere) and the edges of the lasagna was tough. For our next lasagna below, we put each lasagna sheet in hot water for a second before arranging them on the dish. And it really worked out. We should try to prepare lasagna sheets at home (we have never tried to prepare any dough yet!) but this method is a good alternative.

Ingredients (for 4-6):

300g fresh lasagna sheets (about 12) - we used Barilla

75g freshly grated parmesan

3 x 150g buffalo mozzarella

a small handful of basil leaves

Grilled Vegetables:

1 small eggplant

1 large zucchini

1 yellow pepper

1 red pepper

olive oil to drizzle

few sprigs of thyme and rosemary

Tomato sauce:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 carrot, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

leaves from a sprig of thyme

2x400g tins chopped tomatoes in natural juice

1 tsp caster sugar (optional)

a small handful of basil leaves

Jamie's 'Simple Baked Lasagna'

You can visit here for Jamie's recipe. For its sauce, instead of pork belly we used bacon and put a bit more minced-meat. And instead of butternut squash, we baked pumpkin. We cooked the sauce in our Staube iron-cast pan and it made a difference. We got some real good reviews on the table!

meat lasagna from Jamie

Return of the LazyCook - 'spiced biscotti with marsala mascarpone'

2011-12-20T16:59:00.000+04:00

Yes, we're back with an Italian bakery classic (and our favorite coffee food). The recipe is from 'Marie Claire food+drink' - a great recipe book for dinner parties, cocktails and of course afternoon tea parties.

So we began with preheating the oven to 180 degrees and mixing the flour, sugar, baking powder, dried fruits, almonds, lemon zest, cardamom and cinnamon in a large bowl.

In the meantime my favorite assistant was beating the three eggs!

i'm getting help from little miss lazycook

beating the eggs..

We made a well in the flour mix, added the beaten eggs and made a sticky dough. Then we divided this (very) sticky dough into three pieces of about 4 cm in diameter (as it says in the recipe). We put these logs onto the baking tray lined with baking paper (leaving space between them) and baked for 30 minutes.

don't forget to leave space between the logs

After 30 minutes, we removed from the oven (and reduced the oven temperature to 140 degrees) and allowed to cool, then cut each of the loaves into thin slices with a sharp bread knife. We laid the biscuits on the baking tray and returned them to the oven for about 10 minutes, turning the biscuits once. (In the recipe it says 20 minutes but they turned dark and very crispy in 20 minutes in one of my trials).

slice and put them back to oven but make sure not to overcook

Perfect with the first coffee of the day...

my favorite couple

However, for after-dinner, we recommend the Marsala mascarpone dip. Supermarket price for Marsala wine is overly expensive for the dip! We used Misket, a demi-sec Turkish wine and it turned out well but next time we'll go for a sweet wine. For the dip we mixed the mascarpone cheese, wine and the caster sugar until smooth.

This was one of the favorites in the "Weekend Bakery" event in Galata House last sunday besides many amazing muffins, tarts and sandwiches. A blog post will follow about the event..And hopefully many many happy posts..It's good to be back!

Dinner with Friends

2011-06-30T14:03:00.000+04:00

We were really excited to have our first lazycook guests last week. After scanning through couple of cookbooks, we decided to go for a lamb dish (in Turkish 'tandir') and bean salad (both from Jamie); and grilled asparagus, our usual mixed salad and brown rice to accompany them. This time as a change we made a simple dessert and in fact we were successful at it (as generally we are not!)

STARTERS

Good Old French Bean Salad

We boiled the beans for 4-5 minutes and prepared the French dressing with mustard, white-wine vinegar and olive oil. Then seasoned it with salt and pepper and added shallot and capers (optional but definitely recommended). The trick with this salad is that the beans should be steaming hot when you put the dressing on top, otherwise they don't take it. And it should be served warm.

French dressing and capers..

bean salad served hot!

Grilled Asparagus with Olive Oil, lemon and parmesan

We grilled the asparagus in our griddle pan and dressed them with lemon juice and three times as much with olive oil. We seasoned them with salt and pepper and added shaved parmesan on top. Best way to serve asparagus!

MAIN

Incredible roasted shoulder of lamb

The incredibleness of this lamb is coming from its slow roasting. After we prepared it with garlic and rosemary, we put the lamb in the oven (covered tightly with tinfoil) with 170 degrees and left it for 4 hours. After 4 hours we checked if the meat was pulled apart easily and it was like Turkish delight! (this is a Turkish expression indicating its softness). We put the lamb on chopping board, covered it with tinfoil and then tea towel and left it there for resting, as it is written in the recipe. Meanwhile we prepared the gravy with the sauce from its roasting tray, vegetable stock, capers, fresh mint and red wine vinegar. By the way, it is a big change for us to be able to use red/white wine vinegar here as they don't sell them in Dubai. When our guests came after babies went to sleep, we put the lamb in the microwave for couple of minutes to warm it. And served it with gravy and brown rice.

DESSERT

Plum Crisp

While shopping for our dinner, I saw big red plums in the market but unfortunately they really tasted sour and then I decided to try this dessert from Nigel Slater (see the recipe at the bottom of the page from guardian.co.uk). It is really simple to prepare with white toast breads and we served it with vanilla ice cream. The sourness of the plums actually made it better and I didn't put much sugar (less than what is written in the recipe). We had another dessert from our friend - apple torte, which was really tasty as well.

I think our first lazycook night went well! But everybody's favorite was the bean salad.

Now we're thinking if we should go for Turkish since we are in Istanbul now. What do you think?

Good Old French Bean Salad

Incredible roasted shoulder of lamb

Plum Crisp

'We're Glad to be Back' Chicken Roast Pasta and very Green Salad

2011-06-20T01:31:00.000+04:00

Yes, we're really happy to be finally back to the lazycook kitchen. In these last couple of months that we disappeared we changed countries - moved back to our home country after living in Dubai for almost a decade, added a new lazycook junior to our family and he is now 2.5 months old and built our new kitchen where we will cook and create lots of new recipes to family and friends.

The first of these recipes is a chicken roast from Jamie's Dinners 'Everyday Crispy Chicken with Sweet Tomatoes' which we served on top of pasta. It was easy to prepare as you can see from its website but resulted in a very delicious pasta dish.

Pasta with Crispy Chicken Roast

And as a side dish we chose a rich, green salad with asparagus, avocado and goat's cheese from our Comfort Book which will definitely be added to our basic menu list.

For the salad, we seared the asparagus in our griddle pan with a little olive oil and seasoned it wilt salt and pepper.

We peeled the avocados, cut them in half and drizzled with a little lemon juice to prevent the discoloring. We placed the halfes on top of rocket leaves and top with asparagus and goat's cheese. For the dressing, we combined some balsamic vinegar, olive oil, 1 crushed clove garlic, 1 teaspoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon mustard and salt and pepper and whisked them all. Simple and perfect..

Afiyet olsun!

'Everyday Crispy Chicken with Sweet Tomatoes' from Jamie's Dinners

Another Soup and Salad Night

2011-01-20T19:03:00.000+04:00

And our second dish from our new cookbook, Gordon Ramsay's 'Cooking for Friends' is the Italian-style Turnip Soup which is really quick, healthy and warming..

Turnips and bacon frying...

We started with frying with a knob of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil...first the chopped bacon (3 slices of streaky bacon) for 3-4 minutes...then the chopped onion (1 medium), chopped turnips (2 medium) and some salt and pepper joined for another 8 minutes until the vegetables are soft and golden. We added the vegetable stock (1 cube) and partially covered the pan. The soup was simmered for 15 minutes before we added a handful of macaroni (the recipe is with risotto rice to be added before putting the stock but we preferred macaroni) and then another 5-6 minutes. Before serving, we stirred 2 tbsp of grated parmesan. And added more parmesan with some chopped parsley leaves while serving.

Turnip Soup

And of course we had our usual mixed salad with herbs and feta cheese accompanying the soup...and a glass of red...very heartwarming...

Get N_K_D

2011-01-19T19:26:00.000+04:00

We ordered our first NKDPizza on their first opening day here in Dubai on 17th January Monday. It was the Mediterranean with feta cheese, artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes. The crispiness and the taste of the custard which is made from 10 grains plus prebiotic fibre (read all about it on their website) what really impressed us as the pizza doesn't get soggy and one doesn't feel bloated even after eating around midnight (as we did on Monday night).

We will definitely try all NKDPizzas in the menu!

The Lazyburger

2011-01-19T10:15:00.000+04:00

I don't know why we delayed putting one of our favorite foods on LazyCook for so long. There is nothing like a juicy burger with some cold beer in front of TV. Sounds sad but true! Anyway, the key to a great burger is obviously the patty. We used our recent favorite from Waitrose, the low fat, grain fed Irish minced beef. We started by working the beef with hands until slightly sticky with 1 chopped medium onion and 1 clove of garlic. We added some chopped fresh thyme leaves and few drops of Worcestershire sauce for some tanginess. We formed the patties and let them chill in the fridge for half an hour.

the divine ingredients!

While patties are resting, we caramelized one sliced large onion in the pan. For this we simply fried the onion in a splash of olive oil on low to medium heat without burning. You can accelerate the process by adding some sugar.

After the onions we sauteed some sliced mushrooms in butter, salt and pepper.

For cooking the burgers nothing beats the flame grilled barbecue. We opted for the second best choice, our heavy stove top grill pan. 5-6 minutes on each side was just enough to get them cooked through.

sizzling sizzling...

Once done, we layered the patties on soft buns crisped on the pan with caramelized onions, sauteed mushrooms and all the other usual suspects; crispy bacon, mature cheddar cheese, lettuce, drops of chili sauce, mustard and mayo.

It was simple and absolutely delicious!!

can't wait to eat this burger!

Seriously Purple Salad with some Green Pasta

2011-01-17T20:49:00.000+04:00

We started the year with the immortality elixir i.e. salad with roasted beetroots! We have a new cookbook of Gordon Ramsay's, 'Cooking for Friends' (as a good bye gift from a colleague) and it looks like we will have lots of favorites from it. Accompanying this colorful salad we cooked a very simple pasta with broccoli, garlic and chili from the same book.

Beetroots roasted in the oven

First we roasted three medium beetroots for 30 minutes, as told in the recipe (see below), in the foil on top of salt crust and scattered fresh thyme leaves. We peeled the beetroots while they were still warm (we used food storage bag as we didn't have gloves to prevent red stains on the hands while peeling!). In the meantime we cooked the lentils, bacon, carrot and celery stalks with a few thyme sprigs until the lentils are tender. The smell around the kitchen was very appealing at this moment! We discarded the bacon, vegetables and thyme. Divided the lentils and sliced beetroots between the plates with mixed greens, herbs and crumbled goat cheese. The salad was super tasty but next time we will try to add the marinated beetroot option and also pomegranate syrup would add some wonders to this salad if you have it.

Purple Salad with goat cheese on top

And for the pasta (for 4), we simply put a pack of spaghetti to be cooked until al dente and a few minutes before the pasta is ready, we heated a large pan with 4tbsp olive oil (low-to-med heat). Added 5 large sliced garlic cloves, 1 red chili (deseeded and chopped) and a pinch of salt and sauteed for a minute. When the garlic turned a bit golden, we added broccoli florets from 1 large broccoli head and a splash of water, covered the pan with a lid and left it for 2 minutes. We then squeezed over the lemon juice and tossed the broccoli with more salt and pepper.

Broccolis with garlic and chili.

After draining the pasta (don't forget to reserve a little of its boiling water), we put it into the saute pan (adding a little of its reserved water). Drizzled over a little olive oil and served immediately.

the Green Pasta

We really loved our first trial from our new book and so did our usual guest (Ari)!

Goat's cheese, beetroot and lentil salad from Gordon Ramsay

Another Seafood Pasta out in the Balcony

2011-01-11T15:32:00.001+04:00

(Supposed to be posted sometime in December!)

January will be our supposedly last month in Dubai and now we are trying to enjoy the beautiful weather and the garden as much as possible (in between the chaos at work and home). For dinner last night we went with the impulse of buying whatever we found in the organic supermarket next to my office and it turned out to be a delicious romantic dinner out in our balcony overlooking the lush green and Chrysler buildings! (not in NY but in Dubai Media City).

While buying Asli’s favorite salmon fish, the giant shrimps and the scallops looked very tempting to me and I thought we can cook a seafood pasta (very similar to our seafood pasta extravaganza). We scanned through Epicurious.com and there was a perfect recipe - ‘Fettuccini with Shrimps, Scallops and Mussels’ (but ours is without the mussels). We did couple of modifications i.e. we couldn’t find the yellow squash but used more zucchini instead, we didn’t have mussels but we used fish stock (not the cubes but real stock)..

Breadcrumbs being sauteed with herbs

Vegetables being stirred

Shrimps and scallops in pan

Vegetables and seafood combined

It was very fulfilling with tasty seafood sautéed with vegetables; and the breadcrumbs sautéed with herbs added a nice flavor to it but be careful with the amount of breadcrumbs as I think they suck the moisture of the sauce and leaves the pasta a bit dry.

And the pasta in our usual pasta plates!

Bon appetit!

See recipe in Epicuirous.com

Steak Salad with an Amazing Sauce

2011-01-11T14:01:00.000+04:00

End of last year, one of the Lazycooks was coming back from his long long trip just at dinner time and I thought a light meal with a glass of wine would be just suitable for that night.

I went ahead with “The Flank Steak with Chimichurri Dressing” (apparently the famous Argentine herb sauce) from Epicurious.com and we were very happy with the result. The crispiness of the mixed greens and the fresh flavors of the dressing on top of our tenderloin fillets (which were grilled to our liking and sliced thinly) made this meal wonderful. I also added some slices of potatoes (first boiled and then grilled) as a side dish.

Chimichurri Dressing

Steaks grilling

Steak Salad

See the recipe in Epicurious.com

Martins & LazyCook cooked some serious fillet on Weber

2010-12-30T07:42:00.000+04:00

Here we are again, after I don’t know how many weeks, on a beautiful winter night, out at our crazy garden with our much-loved friends Tracey & Garth and our family, braiing a whole 1 kg organic tenderloin steak on Weber..(well the steak which Trace had ordered before and marinated and Garth and LazyCook cooked together on weber).

ribs

1kg fillet on weber!

As appetizer we had the ribs (bought as frozen from Spinneys) and boerwurs grilled on Weber and a crispy green salad with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Then, the real deal – 1kg whole fillet steak slowly roasted on Weber. The key to the process was to stack the coals on the both sides of the grill and keep the space in the middle for the dripping tray and whole potatoes wrapped in foil (we keep forgetting them before, finally we remembered to put them on time) Then we put the whole fillet on the grill and closed the lid with vents open. Steak was roasted in half an hour. Although Weber did not need any help from us, we never left him alone, poking and turning every five minutes, brushing with extra marinade. The result was amazing!! Even the well-done part which normally becomes dry and tough was juicy and tender.

As dessert we had our usual cheats dessert inspired by Jamie Oliver: Ice cream (any flavor but preferably vanilla, although I prefer Belgian chocolate) on top of crumbled ginger biscuits with berry sauce (different kinds of berries simply boiled in water with some sugar and couple of drops of lemon juice). You can add some fresh strawberries on top as well. Original recipe requires orange juice sauce with oranges (see the recipe).

Such a perfect night!

To Lalala Manager and Nixi from Mrs. and Miss LazyCook with Love

2010-12-02T22:03:00.000+04:00

for a lifetime of happiness

This morning me and the Miss LazyCook Jr went into the kitchen with all the ingredients and equipments we bought the other day to make colorful mini and heart-shaped cupcakes (first time in our lives!) for our amazing dearest family Asli (aka Hotel Lalala Manager) and Eren (aka Nixi) for their most important day tomorrow in San Francisco.

We love you, we miss you terribly and we wish we were there when you say "I do". But we're happy that our other LazyCook is there with you and we look forward to seeing you very very soon....

we're ready to make colorful cupcakes first time ever!

muffins and colorful icing are ready

our cupcakes not so perfect but they taste great!

we love u..

Just Soup and Salad

2010-11-23T22:47:00.001+04:00

Sometimes when you don’t want to eat meat or pasta or fish or anything solid, soups come as a savior. And especially after indulging in food and pastries and cakes during Eid (Kurban Bayrami) and gaining more than we supposed to gain (I’m talking about me and the tummy!), we craved for a really green soup and more greens on the side!

So as always we opened our Jamie at Home and started with the Creamy Asparagus Soup (without the poached eggs this time but we definitely urge you to add the poached eggs, it twists the zest of the soup) which is very easy to prepare. We started with frying the chopped white onions, leeks and celery (please check the link below for the full list and recipe). About 10 minutes later we added the chopped asparagus stalks (the tips reserved for later use) and our organic vegetable stock to simmer for about 20 minutes with the lid on.

onions, leeks, celery and asparagus stalks

In the meantime we prepared the spinach salad with a pack of baby spinach leaves, some cubed bacon pan-fried for 5 minutes, goat cheese slices which are blended in one egg and some breadcrumbs to be fried (in vegetable oil), a handful of sliced mushrooms, a little bit of walnuts and our usual vinaigrette (with juice of half a big lemon, extra virgin olive oilof twice the amount of lemon juice, a couple of drops of balsamic, one teaspoon honey mustard, one teaspoon egg-free mayonnaise, chopped herbs of whatever we have, salt and pepper, one tablespoon water).

goat cheese-spinach salad

blending the soup

When the soup is simmered, we blended it with hand blender (we should have blended more!), seasoned it and put it back to heat with the asparagus tips for a few more minutes. We served the soups drizzled with a little bit of cream and with a slice of toasted country bread.

back to heat with asparagus tips

soup & salad

As our dear guest commented the meal was light yet fulfilling! I would prefer the soup to be a bit more liquidy and also the poached eggs would enhance the zest (as we’d done before). The goat cheese-spinach salad was just right to complete our mini dinner.

Creamy Asparagus Soup from Jamie Oliver

Incredible pappardelle with parma ham, leeks and porcini

2010-11-11T22:01:00.005+04:00

After rushing to If Boutique in the evening for an hour to see its annual warehouse sale with 80-90% discounts on last years’ and summer’s collections (see the note below), I rushed back home to meet the other lazy cook to prepare for the pasta we’ve planned to cook for tonight. We were so excited about it the other day while reading the long recipe with leeks, parma ham, dried porcini, breadcrumbs (why don’t we open a pasta shop as we are obsessed with pasta? But then there is a good chance we will hate it!).

Anyway, first the leeks and parma ham were cooked in a large pan with thyme leaves for about half an hour (parma ham covering the leeks).

In the meantime breadcrumbs and porcini mushrooms mixture with rosemary leaves (which is called pangrattato) is prepared.

For pappardelle we basically bought fresh lasagna, put all the lasagna sheets on top of each other (sprinkling a little flour to each sheet) and cut the lasagna sheets in 1 cm strips. They needed only a minute to be boiled.

All ingredients went back to the pan to be tossed for the last few minutes before serving.

Aside from its juicy sauce; with the pangrattato and on top a good amount of Parmesan cheese, the pappardelle was absolutely fantastic. Thank you Jamie, again!

Full recipe is in Jamie at Home.

A small fashion note: I’m very proud with what I’ve found from If Boutique warehouse sale. It is a limited edition skirt by Geoffrey B. Small which is 7th from 10 pieces only and its AED 300. Also a cotton bag with a mouse printed on it. All 90% off and sales continue until Saturday (If Boutique Facebook Group).

The Caponata (fresh from Sicily!)

2010-11-10T23:34:00.000+04:00

Well not exactly, but this Sicilian dish is like our Turkish mixed vegetable dish (vegetarian “Turlu”) but with a big twist and lighter and more tender. You can eat it hot (as we did with plain rice) or cold (like any 'zeytinyagli' dishes). And the recipe is from Jamie’s Italy.

big chunks of eggplants getting golden in the pan

So we needed 2 firm eggplants that are cut into large chunks (Jamie advises not to cut into small cubes as they absorb more oil if they are cut small), dried oregano, 1 small red onion (finely chopped), 2 gloves of garlic (finely sliced), a small bunch of parsley (leaves picked and stalks finely chopped), 2 tablespoons of salted capers (rinsed), a handful of green olives (pitted), 2-3 tablespoons good quality herb vinegar (in our case balsamic) and 4-5 ripe tomatoes (roughly chopped).

vegetables simmering nicely

First we started with eggplants to be fried in olive oil (enough to cover the pan) with oregano for a couple of minutes and seasoned with a little salt. When the eggplants turned golden on each side, we added onion, garlic and parsley stalks and continued cooking for a few more minutes. Then capers and olives were thrown in with vinegar drizzling all over the vegetables. When the vinegar evaporated, we added the tomatoes and left it for simmering for 15 minutes. Before serving we drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled chopped parsley leaves (you can add slightly toasted sliced almonds here as well, we didn’t have it). Our rice was ready in the rice cooker in the meantime. And we had a healthy, fulfilling, South Italian dish in our breezy backyard.

Note: So what make this dish different than our usual ‘Turlu’ is obviously adding olives and capers to vegetables and vinegar while cooking them. Also non-peeled big chunks of eggplants and tomatoes make the dish really light and tender (as they don’t absorb too much oil and get squashy).

Sicilian aubergine stew from Jamie's Italy

Turkey Piccatta

2010-11-09T23:21:00.000+04:00

When I was shopping for Asli (we always want her to try different things other than usual chicken, meatballs and veggies however most of the time we’re unsuccessful!), I bought turkey thighs in order to make her a turkey schnitzel. And for us as well, of course. As we were scanning one of our new cookbooks (a gift for my 35th), we came across a different version of schnitzel called piccatta. Instead of breadcrumbs he was using parmesan cheese. We thought it would be nicer and decided to cook this one. The book is called "Chef at Home" By Uwe Michelle (he is apparently a chef in Dubai and won couple of awards).

turkey thighs cut into thin slices

So we took the thighs, cut them into thin slices and season with salt and pepper. We combined 2 beaten eggs, some chopped parsley and grated parmesan cheese together. We first dusted the thighs with flour, then dipped them in the egg mixture and fried them until they are golden. They looked in fact more like omlettes because of two eggs (I guess) and taste not better than a usual schnitzel (and to be honest a schnitzel is crispier). However with a home-made pesto pasta* on the side and a bottle of beer we had a perfect dinner in the backyard (by the way if you’re ever looking for a non-alcoholic beer, Holsten is the best). And most importantly our daughter liked it (the piccatta, not the beer!).

piccatta and pesto pasta

*For pesto: Combine ½ clove of garlic (chopped), a pinch of salt and a bunch of basil leaves (chopped) and pound them in a food processor. Add a handful of very lightly toasted pine nuts and grind them again. Put them in a bowl to mix with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Stir while adding some olive oil (just to bind the sauce). After seasoning with salt and pepper, add some more parmesan cheese and olive oil until you’re happy with the taste. Add a squeeze of lemon juice if you like.

Another feel food and feel full pasta – Tuna Puttanesca

2010-11-02T20:29:00.000+04:00

One of our favorites for a Saturday night (after a busy weekend) is eating pasta while watching our favorite series (probably I’m repeating this a lot here). This Saturday tuna puttanesca was picked among our favorite pastas list. Especially after we found out that the best source of Vitamin D is fatty fish (as I have Vitamin D insufficiency in one of the sunniest places on Earth!), we try to include fish in our meals as much as we can.

So we started with cooking a classic tomato sauce (from Jamie Oliver). For this, we fried two chopped gloves of garlic with some chopped basil stalks and a pinch of dried oregano for a few minutes. To spice it up we threw in a whole red chili pepper (pinched so it doesn't explode!). Then we added two cans of good quality plum tomatoes, seasoned it with salt and pepper and let it simmer for half an hour. Towards the end we added a swig of balsamic vinegar to sweeten the sauce.

tomato sauce simmered and the puttanesca ingredients added

For our puttanesca we added a handful of pitted black olives, a couple of anchovies (drained), a handful of capers and a can of tuna flakes. By the way the best canned tuna we’ve found until now is 'Pan de Mar' from the Organic shop or Calvo (from any supermarket). The pasta was ready within 5 to 7 minutes.

two bowls of delicious pasta

We love pasta and Mad Man!

Chicken on Weber

2010-10-31T22:05:00.000+04:00

Now that the hype around the house calmed down and as the weather is getting sweet, we decided to take out our favorite cooking tool – Weber and cook a 1.5 kg whole chicken in it. The free-range chicken is chosen from the Organic shop and we used a ready-made chicken marinate that we borrowed from a braimaster (Garth!) to marinate it (we added some herbs as well).

marinated chicken

We tied the legs, put one carved lemon under the legs, put some butter under the skin and put the chicken in the Weber (don’t forget to put an aluminum plate under the grill so that the drips won’t go into the fire and it’ll keep the chicken moist) to be cooked for about 1.5 hours. Closed the lid with the vents open (circulating air in the Weber gives a great smoky taste). Ah and don’t forget to put some whole potatoes into that plate as we were so upset with ourselves later. The potatoes roast so well there as you would probably imagine.

on Weber

As the chicken was cooking in the garden, we prepared the Turkish broad beans dish (Zeytinyagli barbunya). For this we first fried the onion until it got softened for about 5 minutes. We then added the capsicum and carrot for another 4-5 minutes. The tomato and about 2 cups of water then were added to the pot with some salt and left for simmering. In the meantime the beans were boiled for about 15 minutes and drained to be added to the simmering pot with one teaspoon of sugar. The beans were cooked in about 30-45 minutes in medium heat covered. They are left for cooling until the chicken was ready.

Zeytinyagli Barbunya

And the chicken was ready in 1.5 hours. We carved the chicken after it rested a little bit, drizzled the sauces that dripped down to the aluminum plate! And served with our favorite green salad (with fattoush modification) and plain brown rice..

carving the chicken

Ingredients for Zeytinyagli Barbunya:

- 1 kg broad beans

- 1 green and 1 red capsicum (sliced)

- 1 carrot (sliced)

- 1 medium onion (diced)

- 2 small tomatoes (cubed)

- 1/2 cup olive oil

- 1 teaspoon sugar

- salt and pepper

And Kiki’s Halloween/birthday party

2010-10-27T22:18:00.000+04:00

After thinking and planning for couple of weeks, finally the day Asli turned to 4 came and we did the Halloween dress-up party on Friday.. Asli was the cute little witch in ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ (Majo no takkyubin by Hayao Miyazaki) that we watched couple of weeks ago (and we are obsessed with the movie now). We found her a purple dress and a huge red ribbon (from Monsoon/Accessorize). And of course the main accessories of a witch – a broom (from a party shop) and a black cat (after going to each toy store, I could find it in Borders and it’s the cutest black cat toy).

All her friends’ costumes were amazing including different versions of witches, pirates, an Incredible Hulk, a butterfly and the cutest little pumpkin. We had some decorations around the garden with lots of orange and black balloons and a pumpkin piñata which took an adult’s strength to be broken (after the children hitting it for half an hour)!

And for the food: In the morning Asli, Ayse (anane) and Bulay hala made cookies with sesame seeds. We will get the recipe from Bulay hala as they were so delicious and the kids loved them. We had our usual (and everyone’s favorite) cheese pastries (sigara boregi). We had Halloween shaped cookies from Lime Tree Café, marshmallows and monster shaped sweets and chocolates.

Asli rolling the dough for the cookies

and here it is to be turned into circular cookie shape

adding sesame seeds

ready to go into the oven

And the birthday cake for which we designed the shape (same as her invitation) from Sugardaddies. They have done a great job with the shape and the cakes from there are always delicious. (The photos for the food are limited as we had chaos throughout the party). The children had so much fun and we all sweated like crazy because of the humidity.

After everyone left (except the family), and our little exhausted Kiki fell asleep, we had a very pleasant dinner with our aunt, cousins and parents with a big pot of our favorite feel-good-pasta (see here), a mixed salad and a bottle of red wine celebrating once again…

Thanks to everyone who were there with us….

Sugar Daddy's Bakery in Dubai

Kiki's Delivery Service

A Mid-autumn night

2010-10-26T16:14:00.000+04:00

(This post supposed to be posted last week...but we've been busy busy busy and lazy.)

Last night we had a pleasant, sober, chilled party in our crazy garden (the plants in the garden suddenly grew like crazy as the weather is getting better and it feels like we’re in the midst of a jungle).

our jungle

We had some hot and cold tapas (no photos unfortunately) including:

- Broiled beef and chicken meatballs:

For the beef meatballs as usual, minced meat, chopped parsley, chopped onion, cumin, salt & pepper and olive oil (all according to your taste) well mixed and rolled into medium size balls; for the chicken meatballs, minced chicken, one egg, chopped onion, grated zucchini, grated parmesan, salt & pepper and olive oil mixed and rolled same as in beef meatballs. They are cooked in about half an hour in the preheated 200 degree oven.

- Turkish cheese pastry (sigara boregi – by Ayse Aksit):

For this no dough beats the Turkish one (yufka!), which our moms bring whenever they come to Dubai. First the big circular dough is cut into big triangles. For the filling feta cheese, grated mozzarella cheese (optional), chopped parsley (optional) and black pepper is mixed. The filling is put into the base of the triangles, then rolled like a burrito. After the rolling, you should put the edge of the triangles into the water to be able to paste it (see ‘Annem Sigara Boregi Yapiyor’ chapter in Orhan Pamuk’s latest book “Manzaradan Parcalar” for a nice and graphical version of how to roll this pastry!).

- Sausages:

Just boiled..

- Rice Salad (idea by Ayse Aksit):

First we boiled the rice (no oil, no salt). We chopped some parsley, mint, and dill. We boiled some sliced mushrooms as well. We mixed all above and the sweet corns adding lemon juice, olive oil and balsamic vinegar (and salt & pepper) according to the taste. It is colorful, light and tasty.

- Cold-cut and cheese platters with Spanish garlic bread:

These are classic for parties with different kinds of cheese and cold-cuts. For the bread after toasting, we rub them first with a cut garlic glove and then with a cut tomato. This way they get all the flavors and perfect for the cold-cut & cheese platters.

And we had several drinks including a Moet&Chandon…and we had cookies (made by Candan Ayhan) and we had a big chocolate cake (which was surprisingly light) from Sugardaddies (our cup-cake place)..

And we had a good weather…and a very good company…

Feel Good Pasta

2010-10-16T14:35:00.000+04:00

It’s been and will be really busy days for Lazy Cooks that’s why the limited posting. Travelling, crazy office hours, having our friend over, then having our family over. Coming birthday party for big girls, then coming birthday/Halloween party for little girls, coming dinner parties for the family…all exciting and fun stuff and we’ll keep posting as much as we can…but before all this here is our Feel Good Pasta for a quiet evening:

We were surprised that among the 39 posts we blogged since July, we haven’t included one of our favorite quick pastas. It is the zucchini-bacon pasta we’ve modified over the years. There is the carbonara version as well. However uncooked egg may be harmful for some of us right now! Anyway, it is light, healthy, tasty and quick to prepare, so on a weekday night you can crawl on the sofa with your bowl of pasta and a glass of red and watch your favorite series (House Season 6 or Mad Men Season 3 for us!).

Ok, we first slice the zucchinis very thinly along with the onion. We take out our cubed pancetta and start with frying the pancetta and onion in olive oil for 10 minutes until the onion becomes soft. We add the zucchinis, some fresh thyme leaves, a tablespoon of chopped parsley and one or two stalks of fresh rosemary leaves (if you don’t have fresh go for the dry one, but fresh is highly recommended), grated garlic and grated zest of 1 lemon. Season with salt and pepper and the sauce is ready when the zucchinis are cooked, which takes generally another 7-8 minutes.

onion, zucchinis, bacon & herbs in the pan

After the pasta is cooked al-dente, we don’t forget to reserve a half glass of its water before draining it. We combine the sauce and pasta in the same pot and add its reserved water (as it’s needed). Don't forget to add lots of grated parmesan. And the pasta is in the bowls, little girl is in the bed, The Mad Men is starting…a happy quiet Tuesday evening…

pasta in our usual pasta bowl!

Ingredients for 4:

- 500 gr zucchini (or courgette), cut as matchsticks

- 70 gr cubed pancetta, streaky bacon is just as good

- 1 small onion, thinly sliced

- Grated zest of 1 lemon

- 1 tablespoon of each fresh rosemary, parsley and thyme leaves (chopped)

- 2 cloves of garlic

- parmesan cheese

Jazz Bistro Salmon-en-croute

2010-10-06T20:59:00.001+04:00

For a short while we lived in one the most charming cities in the world - San Francisco (well, Alp lived there longer but together only for 6 months). And Jazz Bistro on Ellis Street was our second home. This place is timeless for us with its live jazz music every night, the most tempting chocolate croissants and fresh black coffees early in the mornings, its traditional French food and above all having a good chat with our cousins at the back office and family dinners at the dinner area just before it gets crowded.

So last night we decided to cook one of the classic dishes at Les Joulins Jazz Bistro – ‘salmon-en-croute’ for our friends who came to Dubai for a few days from Istanbul. For this we went through couple of recipes and decided to go ahead with Gordon Ramsay’s. This experimental dish (for us) is actually described in Gordon’s video (in the website) very clearly from a to z, it is really hard to go wrong.

de-skinning here

We first started with de-skinning the salmon (of course this could be asked in the supermarket where we bought the fish!). Thanks to one of Gordon’s video, this wasn’t as difficult as it seemed. The trick is to hold the skin and with a very sharp knife cut deep into the skin (not into the fish). Otherwise most of the salmon is wasted.

dill-basil-thyme-lemon butter

pasting the butter to one of the fillets, the other one gets the mustard

salmon sandwich

We prepared the mixture to be pasted to the salmon with roughly chopped fresh dill, basil and thyme which are then mixed with softened butter and lemon zest. This paste was applied to one of the salmon fillets. For the other fillet we applied grainy mustard and these two fillets were combined like a sandwich.

salmon in the pastry

The short-crust pastry we bought from the frozen section of the supermarket needed to be thawed for 1.5 hours at room temperature. And we put our salmon sandwich in the middle of the pastry. We applied 1 beaten egg to the sides of the pastry around the salmon and seasoned it with salt and pepper. We closed the pastry, did another egg wash on top of the pastry and put it in the oven which was preheated at 200 degrees.

boiled potatoes with herbs

broccoli with garlic and chili

While the fish is in the oven, we prepared the side dishes: boiled new potatoes with drizzle of olive oil and chopped fresh dill, basil and thyme; and broccoli which are first boiled for a few minutes then stir-fried with olive oil, crushed garlic and red chili pepper for another few minutes.

just out from the oven

le salmon en croute

The fish was cooked in about 20-25 minutes and that’s when the pastry became golden. It looked beautiful (but not as fish shape as in Jazz Bistro!) and all of us really found it delicious, we decided to include this classic Jazz Bistro dish to our guest menu..

Jazz Bistro San Francisco

Gordon Ramsay's 'salmon en croute'

Saturday Night’s ‘Sultan’s Favorite’ Dinner Party

2010-10-05T22:58:00.000+04:00

This weekend’s special was Turkish cuisine for a dinner party of six at Lazy Cooks’. We were excited again to take out our oldest and the best Turkish cook book ‘Ekrem Yegen’ from the shelf and start cooking Hunkar Begendi Kebabi (Sultan’s Favorite Kebab with mashed eggplant) and Zeytinyagli Fasulye (green beans cooked in olive oil) after a brief beach session followed by a supermarket run on a not so hot Saturday morning.

our Ekrem Yegen book

We bought around 1.2 kg of cubed lamb for the kebab; three big size eggplants, shredded mozzarella cheese, plain flour and milk for the eggplant mash; and 1 kg Lebanese green beans that you can find in Waitrose (not the long, thin ones) which are very close to our 'Ayse kadin fasulye'.

First we fried one onion in a big pot with 50 gr butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil (this is much less than what Ekrem uses) and added the cubed three medium size tomatoes. We added the meat with one glass of boiled water and started to cook which lasted for about two hours. But here the trick is adding a glass of boiled water every time the water is reduced in the pot to keep the meat tender and soft and juicy. So don’t forget to check it every 10 minutes like we did! (At the end of 1.5 hours we saved the lamb just before it was burned and had to transfer to another pot and continue cooking for a little bit more. I think here it lost a little bit of its tomato juice!). We added oregano to the lamb while it was cooking.

In the mean time, we started to char the eggplants over the stove and prepare the mash. For this we put 3 tablespoon flour and some butter to a medium sized pot and stir them at low heat for 2 minutes until the mixture turned into a golden color (and left aside). We added the charred and mashed eggplants to this mixture while vigorously stirring and returned the pot to the heat with 2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 liter warm milk. The milk should be added really slowly. Later, 100 gr shredded mozzarella and some parmesan cheese were added to the mash.

stirring the eggplant mash

After taking out the sides and the edges, we organized the green beans inside the pressure cooker on top of two onion halves. And added two whole gloves of garlic, 2 medium sized tomatoes (shredded), ½ cup water and ½ cup olive oil, salt and pepper. This way the beans are cooked in about 15-20 minutes. We transferred them to the serving plate and left for cooling.

green beans in the pressure cooker

green beans cooked

The most suitable side dish to the kebab would of course be plain white rice. With an advice from Ayse Aksit, we added roasted pine nuts (frying the pine nuts with a knob of butter) on top of the rice for decoration.

Sultan's Favorite with rice

We had another lovely dinner with Martins and Jabours (see our Lebanese dinner with them). A bottle of very nice Lebanese red wine went very well with our Sultan’s Favorite and towards the end of the night with the coffees we had tel kadayif (a dessert made with pistachios and shredded dough) with pistachio ice cream from Mado* and ‘koeksisters’ (a very delicious sweets of South African origin).

* Mado