Recipes Cooking

Serving 1/2 cup - 2 points



1- 20 oz. can Lite Cherry Pie filling

1- can Fat free Eagle brand condensed milk

1- 12 oz. container F/F cool whip

1/4 c. lemon juice

1- 8 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained



Mix milk, pineapple and lemon juice. Add pie filling and cool whip.Keep in refrigerator.



keywords: dessert

Roasted eggplant salads are very common in Thrace, where I come from, during the summer. Thrace (Trakya in Turkish) is the northwestern corner or the European part of Turkey. Thrace is a historical and geographical region that spreads over Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Turkish part is the Eastern Thrace. Eastern Thrace, in years, witnessed major waves of migration--like the two big ones after the Ottoman-Russian war and the Lausanne Treaty--which created the marvelous ethnic, cultural, and culinary mosaic of the region today.

My favorite jewel of this culinary mosaic, Tunçilik, is one of the many different versions of roasted eggplant salad or meze (=appetizer) thats made in the region. Tunçilik is a specialty of the southwestern part of Turkish Thrace around Tekirdağ.



















for 6 people
4 eggplants
5-6 big red peppers or banana peppers
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
6-7 tbsp of vinegar
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt
1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
Theres nothing written in stone. You can use more or less of everything. Whatever you do, make sure you use all the ingredients. Theres no such thing as Tunçilik without parsley, peppers, or tomatoes, or vinegar. Make it less vinegary or more oily or peppery, but have all the ingredients.
















-Roast eggplants and peppers on a grill, or in oven at 450F. Roast tomatoes along with eggplants and peppers for 4-5 minutes.
-Let them cool first. Then peel eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes. And seed them.
-Chopped them all finely.
-In a bowl mix crushed garlic, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and parsley.
-In a small bowl, mix vinegar, olive oil, and salt. Add this on vegetables.
-Mix well. Taste. If you think you can handle a little more garlic and vinegar, do not hesitate to add more.
-Tunçilik goes well with red meat or poultry, especially if theyre grilled. And do not forget to soak the juice with fresh bread.

One of the readers of the blog, Tash, has made some wonderful suggestions to perfect this recipe (also see Tash comment below). Id like to share them with you:
- After removing the roasted eggplants from the hot ashes, they are cut length wise, salted and kept vertically in a colander for a few minutes to drain. This I am told drains the bitter taste out of eggplants and removes excess moisture for a more consistent texture in the mix. 
-Roasted tomatoes and peppers are not always peeled to add texture and smokier taste to the mix. Just brush off the ashes. 
-If available Tahini and little lemon juice with a little roasted garlic was sometimes added to the mix.
-I also noticed that lemon juice was omitted if the roasted tomatoes were in the mix. 
-Mixing in fresh kaymak (solidified heavy cream) to the basic mix was my favorite version.

These are my suggestions for healthier choices when you visit the salad bar and decide to have a fruit salad...

Posted: by Sandra

·Strawberries, sliced
·Raspberries
·Blueberries
·Kiwi slices
---Along with raspberry vinaigrette

·Blueberries
·Raspberries
·Peach slices
·Nectarine slices
·Strawberry slices
·Cantaloupe cubes
·Watermelon cubes
---Along with poppyseed dressing

·Blueberries
·Grapes
·Peaches slices
·Nectarines slices
·Mango slices
·Kiwifruit slices
---Along with raspberry vinaigrette


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Tip:  Please feel free to print this out to take along when you visit the salad bar, or upload my mobile app for when you are there or at the market shopping.

Its bean season around here! I think weve picked more than 3 bushels of beans so far... more to come. Many of them are now residing in our freezer waiting to be added to winter meals, but were still eating lots.

I had some rice left over from another meal when I made this, and thats a good plan. You will need to cook about 1 1/3 cups extra rice to end up with approximately 4 cups.

This was a nice simple salad, and the leftovers kept quite well and were delicious the next day.

6 servings



Make the Salad:
4 cups chopped green or wax beans
1 medium sweet onion (about 1 cup when chopped)
1/4 cup finely minced fresh dillweed
4 cups cooked brown rice
200 grams feta cheese

Wash and trim the beans, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Steam or boil them until just tender, 4 or 5 minutes then immediately rinse them in cold water until they are cool. Drain well.

Peel and dice the onion, and mince the dillweed finely.

Mix the beans, onion and dill with the cooked rice in a large bowl. Rinse and drain the feta cheese, and crumble it into the salad. Mix well.

Make the Dressing:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
the juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon mustard
plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Mix the above in a small bowl or jar, an whisk or shake until mixed. Toss with the salad.

You are not likely to need salt, but it will depend on how salty the feta cheese is.

We ate this salad a lot in Turkey. Whenever you ordered any döner (rotisserie grilled meat) meal in Turkey, the odds were about 9 out of 10 that some version of this would arrive on the side.

The other main salad consisted of chopped lettuce with chopped cucumbers and chopped (greenhouse, at this time of year) tomatoes, and which was called - wait for it - chopped salad. For me, the out of season tomatoes made it meh, and the cucumbers made it inedible so I would always try to be sure we were getting this salad, instead. Its really very simple, as you can see - three main ingredients. The cabbage is softened and marinated in lemon and oil, which is what takes it from being three raw veggies put on a plate to being a salad I could eat every day and never tire of.

The marinated cabbage will keep, covered, in the fridge for several days, so it can be added to your salad whenever you want it, making it very convenient. You can also eat it all by itself. Actually, Ive got some sauerkraut in the fridge and Im going to try mixing it with that... the technique for this is kind of like the way sauerkraut is started, but without the fermentation.

In Turkey this was always made with romaine (Cos) lettuce, but of course if you are making this here, now, it will have to be hydroponic lettuce if you want it local. In the late summer and fall, though, you can make it with romaine. 

4 to 6 servings
2 hours - 20 minutes prep time


Prepare the Red Cabbage:
4 cups finely shredded red cabbage
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
the juice of 1/2 lemon

Trim the white core from the cabbage and chop the rest finely; you will need about half of a small head. Put it in a bowl and massage in the salt thoroughly. Turn the cabbage into a strainer and leave to drain in the sink for about half an hour to 45 minutes. Rinse and drain it well.

Toss the cabbage with the olive oil and lemon juice. Cut the lemon in half lengthwise; then the other half can be used as wedges to be passed with the rest of the salad.

Finish the Salad:
1 small head Bibb (Boston) lettuce
OR 4 cups chopped romaine lettuce
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 of a large lemon, cut into 4 wedges
extra-virgin olive oil
salt & pepper

Wash the lettuce and drain it well. Chop it quite finely and arrange it on either a large serving platter or individual salad plates. Peel and grate the carrot and arrange a pile of it on or next to the lettuce, along with a similar pile of the prepared red cabbage.

Pass the salad with extra olive oil and wedges of lemon, as well as salt and pepper. 



Last year at this time I made Cranberry Marshmallows.