Baked Olives

These are most delicious and so easy to prepare!

Two different olives were used and brushed with olive oil, crushed hot Manitoba chilies were used for one and Japanese nanami togarashi was used for the other!

Bake for about a half an hour and cool before serving

Patlican- Biber Tava- Fried eggplant and peppers with tomato sauce

Patlican Biber Tava is Fried eggplant and peppers with tomato sauce

In this recipe instead of frying the vegetables, they were baked in an oven.

The eggplant was peeled in alternate lengthwise strips(leaving strips of peel between), then cut into slices.  I did not sprinkle the pieces of eggplant with salt and let sit, as felt it is an unnecessary step!

Brush eggplant with olive oil and bake in a hot oven until golden brown.  A red pepper and 3 banana peppers were cut into strips, brushed with oil and also baked.  2 zucchini were cut into slices, brushed with olive oil and also baked until golden brown.. they were all flipped one during the baking process. About 30 to 45 minutes  for the different cooking times of the vegetables.

For the sauce, uncooked tomatoes were suggested but with the weather in the 30ths,  a can of plum tomatoes, diced was used instead. Seasoned with pepper, garlic, olive oil.. Sugar was suggested but not used as sweet enough and just noticed that vinegar should have been added.

The sauce was thickened on a slow simmer but watched carefully as tomatoes can turn bitter.. A slotted spoon was used to pour this hot sauce over the vegetables when they were plated.  The plated dish was chilled until serving time!

Olive oil was drizzled on the vegetables and seasoned with fresh crushed peppercorns before serving.

Another addition to the appetizer platter was baked olives in olive oil and hot spices

This dish was served with Greek Yogurt and slices of lemon. The olive oil used was a subject of conversation as it was an Italian Olive oil.  To my astonishment,  one of the guest was able to differentiate the difference! 

However, this appetizer disappeared quickly!

Piyaz- Turkish Bean Salad

Piyak is a Turkish Bean Salad 

Cook white beans, when tender, add one onion sliced thinly into semicircles. Add lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil to the beans. Season to taste.  Chill for a couple of hours.

The interesting part of this salad is the presentation as it is assembled in layers.

First mix in chopped parsley into bean mix. Using a large plate spread the bean mixture into it.  Layers of black olives, quarters of tomatoes and hard boiled eggs are added. Drizzle Olive oil on top and season with pepper. I added a hot chile to the salad. 

  

A perfect way to enjoy a hot summer night with some crusty bread!

Lahmacun- Turkish Pizza

Like any good pizza, you need basic bread dough. In this case, I used about 4-5 cups of flour. Thank goodness as the number of guests was at first 3 and by evening went up to 10!   

 My Turkish Friend had prepared the lamb topping for the Lahmacun.  Interesting this was the first time she had made Turkish pizzas or any other pizza!

Ground lamb was used!  One recipe used tomato paste along with such spices as cayenne pepper, cumin, sweet paprika,  cinnamon along with garlic, plum tomatoes, small onion and serrano chile and parsley.  Another recipe used a can of tomatoes, onions, fresh parsley, garlic and paprika.  The recipe for this pizza used was

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tomato, diced
1 Jalapeño, chopped
paprika and cayenne pepper
fresh Mint and fresh parsley
juice of one lemon




The traditional way is to roll out the dough is into very thin discs.  In this case we divided the dough into about 12 balls.

The meat was spread evenly to the edges.  In some recipes, olive oil is brushed on, while others brushed milk before spreading the topping, one recipe spread caramelized onions before the meat topping was added.

My husband made has become quite proficient in making Dirty Banana Cocktail which was a refreshing end to this Turkish meal 

Kids Can Cook

Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinners are always so much better with friends or relatives present.  My cousins visited on their way to Manitoba. 

Lamb meatballs with Arugula 

Healthy servings of Baked Beans, Caesar Salad, Orzo Salad with Black Olives, Pork Tenderloin stuffed with feta and spinach

For dessert a Rustic Rhubarb Raspberry Pie with scoops of ice cream!

Quebec Baked Beans

Bonnie Stern in the article below from The Regina Leader Post on Saturday, May 24, 1980 writes that Canadian Food is something French Canadian. 

 Using the Quebec Baked Bean recipe in the above article, with some modifications, we baked great northern white bean casserole at 275 degrees for over 8 hours.

Maple Syrup from Quebec, Crosby's Molasses from New Brunswick, Manitoba Organic Hot red chilies from our family farm! And a Can of Guinness!


Recipe: beans, pound of bacon, molasses, maple syrup , can of beer, onion left whole, seasonings with pepper, cloves, dry mustard, bay leaves!

The recipe called for leaving the onion whole, but with baking, the onion fall apart and would have looked much better diced.

The smell of this dish baking most of the day was most mouth watering! The results were a thick dark colored baked bean! I had added one hot red chilli, but could have used more heat! I also had doubled the amount of maple syrup and Molasses, but could have used 1/3 of a cup less of sweetness.

Talk about a dark and rich colour

Baked Beans were part of the Sunday meal!

And breakfast of Champions today!

Rhubarb Pie

Rhubarb pie 

Fresh Manitoba (Strawberry) Rhubarb out of my garden!

I like my pies tart so in this case I added about a cup of white sugar and flour to thick the sauce as it bakes. Use as much fruit as your baking pan can hold.  

Roll out your pastry so that it fits the bottom of your pan and that the pastry can be pulled over your filling and hold it so it doesn't leak .. if you look closely, this one did, but I also cut off some for my grand-daughter to use for her tarts! Did it matter that it leaked out.. No!

Right into rolling the pastry!

Look at the busy little hands and how quickly she knew what she was doing!

And she certainly had fun!

My unbaked pie, structurally weak in the upper right corner!!!

Serve warm with ice-cream! or in my case just plain without ice cream

 The final inspection by the littlest cook!