I love the smell of spices floating through my house... and my hands still smell a bit like olive oil, even after washing. Yum.
Today was a cooking day for me, and I had been craving Turkish food so last week after my menu planning, I got a few things so I could make it this week. Plus, it helped me use a few of these beauties:
I ordered the heirloom tomato add-on from my Bountiful Basket this week... I absolutely adore them, but they're $5 a pound at the grocery store. However this way, I got 10 pounds for $12. Is that a deal or what? They're fresh and perfect and delicious. In fact, yesterday for dinner I just sliced one up with a little fresh mozzarella:
(That's my Ancho Chili and Veggie Polenta - or kitchen sink polenta. lol. I cook the polenta and mix in roasted asparagus and mushrooms, 2 ears of sweet corn and several diced tomatoes along with sea salt and ancho chili powder. Yum.)
I think the purple ones are my favorites.
So tonight, I used a few to make the tomato sauce for my kofte with yogurt from Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food (one of my favorite cookbooks.)
I used beef instead of lamb... 1.5 pounds mixed with salt, pepper and a small to medium chopped onion. I don't love onion, so I diced mine quite small and sauteed it before mixing into the beef. I also added about a tbsp of kofte spice mix that I got at the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul. Kofte spice for kofte. Makes sense, right? I have no idea what's in it, although I'm sure paprika is in there somewhere.
You form it into patties and either grill it or broil until brown on both sides but slightly pink in the middle.
For the pita, you toast it - I cut mine first... it's easier. Toss in a little bit of olive oil in a sautee pan until brown and set aside.
For the sauce, about 1 pound of diced tomatoes (I left the skin on), 1 tsp of sugar, salt and pepper and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Cook until soft.
Layer pita, hot sauce, 4 patties, room temp plain Greek yogurt (I use fat free) and a few pine nuts. Also a drizzle of olive oil mixed with paprika.
Yum.
And now a little catch-up on my 29 Days of Love album.
The 23rd was "Today I love something in my purse." I used this fabulous little wool pouch I picked up at the Alpaca showroom in Cusco. I use it for all kinds of little things I carry with me and I just love it. And it's cute!
The 24th was "Today I love my favorite letter" and I was going to do this... the letter "G," of course, (mostly because there are several fonts where it just looks cute) but I was inspired by my Bountiful Baskets instead. As much as I love those and continually get new people hooked on them, they can't be left out of this book.
Check the punch art action! It's been a long time since I've done any of that.
Yesterday's prompt was "Today I love someone that comes to visit me" (Or someone in my house, but since I live alone I used the visit option.)
I put Melody's cute kiddos on there :)
Today's prompt hasn't been posted yet, so I decided to just wait until later and catch up with it.
Time to get ready for a new week. Sigh... the weekend never seems to last long enough :-P
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