Dairy-free Chocolate Chunk Cookies

16 days ago (yes, I've been literally counting each day), my dermatologist advised me to go on a dairy-free diet telling me that cow milk is the only dairy product that has been scientifically proved to cause acne and some other skin problems. The doctor's words sounded like a silly joke to me and I started laughing which made the doctor got puzzled. I immediately felt the need to explain the whole situation about my love of/addiction to cheese and other similar dairy products. It took me some time to make up my mind about whether to go on the diet or not. Anyway, when I took all the other factors into consideration I decided to give it a try and here we are now, on the 16th day and I'm all clean, free from all kinds of dairy products. 

Well, I have a couple of weeks more to go and in order to make things much easier to deal with, I've been trying dairy-free recipes and here is one I came up with on my own this morning: Dairy-free chocolate chunk cookies with honey instead of refined sugar.

Ingredients

• 100 ml vegetable oil
• 6-7 tablespoons (Langnese forest) honey
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 400-425 grams white whole wheat flour (sifted twice)
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 100-150 grams bittersweet chocolate (chopped roughly)

Directions

1. In a large bowl with an electric hand mixer, cream together the eggs and the honey until well combined. You will see the bubbles when done. 
2. Add the oil and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes.
3. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt. 
4. Combine the two mixtures and beat until you get a non-sticky firm dough. 
5. When well combined, add in the chocolate chunks and knead the dough for a few more minutes until all the chocolate is mixed well with the dough. 
6. Turn out the cookie dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Wrap the dough and refrigerate it at least for 1 hour.
7. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C. Line a cookie sheet with a piece of parchment paper.
8. Shape the cookies and place them on the cookie sheet and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Don't let them get too brown. 
9. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack.
10. Once cool, store in an airtight container for up to 3 – 5 days. 

TIPS on baking with honey

• BBC Food suggests that it is easier to replace one quantity of honey for each one and one quarter quantities of sugar. The ratio should be 4:5. 
• Honey has quite a strong flavour of its own - be careful substituting it in recipes where it might dominate the overall flavour. Fruit is susceptible to being overwhelmed by the flavour of honey.
• Lower the oven temperature by 25ºF when substituting honey, to prevent over browning.
• Honey is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs moisture. This ability means that cakes should turn out to be more moist when using honey in place of sugar.
• A cup of honey contains 1/4 cup of water; this means that you should cut down on liquids by the same amount.

Red Lentil Balls a.k.a. Mercimek Koftesi

Ingredients

1 cup red lentils

2 cups bulgur wheat, fine grind

2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1,5 tbsp tomato puree

1,5 tbsp Turkish red pepper paste

salt 

crushed red pepper (optional)

black pepper

small bunch of parsley, finely chopped

6 spring onions, finely chopped

lettuce leaves, lemon slices, tomatoes for garnish

Directions

1. Wash the lentils and combine them with four times their volume of water. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and bring to a boil. Then, simmer uncovered over low heat, stirring occasionally until the lentils are soft and have absorbed most of the water about 10 minutes. 
2. Stir in the bulgur and remove from the heat. Cover with aluminium foil and allow to stand for 30-45 minutes. 

3. In a skillet, heat the oil and add the onion, sautéing until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the tomato puree and pepper paste and mix well. Remove from the heat and cool. Add crushed red pepper and black pepper. Season with salt to taste.

4. Add the onion mixture to the lentil mixture and stir for 10 minutes using your hands to mix. Add the remaining ingredients mixing gently. 

5. Shape the mixture into walnut-sized balls (with dampened hands) and serve on a bed of lettuce. Serve with lemon and tomato slices.


P.S. The photo below show the most common way to shape red lentil balls in Turkey. 

Muffins with Bosnian Coffee

Coffee means a lot in the Balkans and Sarajevo is not an exception. Every now and then you find yourself with a cup of fresh Bosnian coffee getting inspired by its fabulous smell. And people who visit us get surprised when they see how much coffee we consume a day - simply a lot! 

Anyway, this morning, while I was having my morning coffee, the idea of adding coffee to the Sunday muffins happily walked into my head. How come I hadn't thought of this before? The idea is simple: Make some coffee, cool it to the room temperature and add in to the muffin mixture along with the liquids. Cool, isn't it? Well, if you don't have any coffee from the Balkans on hand, no worries, Turkish coffee or espresso would also work with these muffins. However, remember to use less with the latter since espresso has a higher concentration and more caffeine than Bosnian coffee. 

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
2 medium eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup Bosnian coffee, cooled to room temperature 
powdered sugar (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 185 C and lightly grease or line a muffin pan with paper liners. 
2. In a big bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In a medium bowl, beat the sugar and eggs with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add the oil and milk beating well. Stir in the vanilla extract and the coffee. 
4. Combine the two mixtures, blending until the dry ingredients are moistened.

5. Fill the muffin cups about three-quarters full. Bake for about 15-18 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. 

6. Cool completely on a wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar (optional).

Turkish Beef Casserole

“The Oxford Companion to Food” by Alan Davidson says:

“Gyuvech is the Bulgarian name for a kind of earthenware casserole or the dish cooked in it. The name comes from the Turkish word güveç, which has the same meaning. The casserole is fairly shallow with a large surface area allowing for maximum evaporation. It comes round or oval and lidless…These vessels found all over the Balkans are used for cooking almost anything of a savoury nature, including fish as well as meat, poultry, and game dishes.”

If you are confuzzled (confused&puzzled) with the variety of Turkish güveç recipes on the Internet, please try to keep in mind that the dish is still called güveç no matter what kind of meat and/or vegetables are used as long as it is slow-cooked in an earthenware casserole. The choice of ingredients for güveç all depends on the variety of meat, vegetables and spices where you live. You can always add others or remove some from the recipes. The idea is that everything is in rough, bite-sized chunks to be cooked very slowly (preferably in a stone oven) with spices. Just because of this freedom with ingredients, the dish is also called 'türlü' which literally means 'varied' in Turkish: layering various vegetables with meat and slow-cooking in a clay pot. 

Ingredients

400-500 grams beef

1 large onion

1 large eggplant

1 large carrot

250 grams grean beans

2 small zucchinis

1 large potato

1 large bell pepper

2 large tomatoes

salt and black pepper

1/3 cup olive oil

Directions

Step 1: Prepare the vegetables

Onions

 Chop the onion into bite-sized chunks.

 Carrots

 Peel and slice off round coins from the carrot by cutting it crosswise.

Green Beans

String the beans if necessary and slit in half (French cut). 

Zucchinis

Trim the zucchinis and cut into large pieces.  

Potatoes

Peel and cube the potatoes.

Eggplant

Remove stem from the eggplant, peel off 1 cm strips of skin lengthwise at intervals giving a striped effect.  Cut the eggplant into chunky pieces. Spread the pieces on a tray and sprinkle liberally with salt.  Leave for 30 minutes, then pat dry with paper towels.

Bell Pepper

Cut top of the bell pepper and remove the seeds and ribs. Slice it in chunks. 

Tomatoes

Peel the tomatoes and slice them into big chunks.

Banana Pepper

Cut top of the pepper and remove the seeds and ribs. Slice it into two.

Step 2: Layer the ingredients

1. Remove bits of fat from the meat. Cut the meat into bite-size chunks.

2. Place the casserole over medium heat. Put the bits of fat into the casserole and let them melt for a few minutes. Add in the beef chunks and saute them until lightly browned. 

3. Add in and saute the onion.

4. Add in the carrot coins.

5. Add in the green beans.

6. Add in the zucchini chunks.

7. Add in the potato cubes.

8. Add in the eggplant chunks.

9. Add in the bell pepper slices.

10. Cover with tomato slices and sprinkle with salt and black pepper. 

11. (Optional) Top with banana peppers. Drizzle olive oil. 

12. Cover the casserole and cook over low heat up to 2 hours until vegetables and the meat are done.

P.S. Garlic would be a great addition to the dish. Add it minced with the onions if you feel like it. While layering the vegetables, feel free to sprinkle with any other spices you prefer. 

Apple Cake with Cinnamon Topping

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely 

 be called happiness; it has no taste.” 

Ingredients

• 1½ cups sugar
• ⅓ cup oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup buttermilk (you can sub milk+vinegar, or plain yogurt+milk)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2½ cups flour
• 1½ cups chopped apples 

For the topping

• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1,5 tablespoons butter

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 165C. Prepare the pan. Watch the video here. 
2. Mix ingredients in order given (except the last 3 ingredients for the topping).
3. Pour batter into the pan.
4. Combine last 3 ingredients to make a topping and sprinkle it evenly over the batter.
5. Bake for at least 45 minutes up to 1 hour. 
6. Serve it warm. 

What Do Chestnuts Taste Like?

Seed, raw or cooked - which one would you prefer? I love them roasted. 

Well, how would you describe the taste then? 

"A somewhat astringent taste raw, it improves considerably when cooked and is delicious baked with a floury texture and a flavour rather like sweet potatoes" they keep saying.  It sounds so ordinary, doesn't it? There must be some other adjectives to describe that taste but which ones?

A friend of mine, after much thought, decided that chestnut to him is the father he has been missing. I appreciated his ability to describe the taste so delicately. However, what concerns me more than his conscientiousness is the fact that he compared the chestnut taste to the lack of hope in his relation with his father. This has been constantly bothering me - what could it be that made him feel that way when he ate some well-roasted chestnuts? 

Until... until I came across Dr. Edward Bach's flower remedies today. All that time, I was wondering whether chestnuts contain some magical substance that exceptionally works on people and unlocks the doors to hope that could heal all the wounds of the past. Then, I read about how chestnut is used in Bach flower remedies - the keywords for prescribing it are 'Extreme mental anguish', Hopelessness' and 'Despair'. Let me quote Dr. Edward Bach:

“For those moments which happen to some people when the anguish is so great as to seem to be unbearable. When the mind or body feels as if it had borne to the uttermost limit of its endurance, and that now it must give way. When it seems there is nothing but destruction and annihilation left to face.”

It can't be a simple coincidence. It must be the very magical content that I've been tracing for weeks. I still do not know what exactly it is - starch, one of those various sugars, unsaturated fat, or even vitamin C it contains. Whatever it is, it is something to cheer up the souls in need of hope. Perhaps, Dr. Bach and his remedies are not so effective after all, who knows. However, when you feel hopeless despair, and you feel an intense sorrow and feel destroyed by it, as Dr. Bach indicated, roast some sweet chestnuts and eat them. They must help. Reassuring, isn't it?

The photograph below shows a sheet of vintage water slide decal made in Italy by Art Deco-Cals. I'd been keeping it since I got stuck with finding the right adjectives to describe the taste of chestnuts. I decided to post it here after I read Dr. Bach's interpretation of chestnuts' healing power. Please drop me a line, if you want the decal. I'll post it to you immediately. Even the decal of chestnuts might cheer you up. Who knows?

Pyhllo Tartlets with Pear and Cream Cheese

“The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to

 nod back. The little boy was neat, clean and pretty. The 

peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at

 the height of its beauty.(...) Every hour is filled with such 

moments, big with significance for someone.” 

Ingredients

phyllo pastry

1 small egg

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

butter, melted

pears, ripe

cream cheese, 1-2 desert spoons for each tart shell

powdered sugar

ground cinnamon

Prep the sauce

Break the egg to medium bowl and add the milk and vegetable oil. Whisk until mixed well.

Assemble and bake the mini pyhllo tarts

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C.

Brush the melted butter into the tartlet shells. 

With a sharp knife cut layers of pyhllo into circles the same size of the bottom of the tart shells. 

Lay one pyhllo circle into the tart shells and brush the sauce onto it. 

Slice the pears very thinly and place them on the pyhllo layer.























Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Lay two more circles and keep brushing the sauce onto every other of pastry.

Spread the cream cheese and keep layering the pyhllo circles until the shells are full. 

Top the tartlets with more pear slices. 

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon. 

Bake until golden brown on top.

Cool on a rack until warm and serve with more powdered sugar.