Fooooood

It's been a while since I've posted some food pictures. I haven't been doing as much Turkish food cooking as I would like - hopefully that will change! In the last week I've been invited to a couple of different houses where the women are tremendous cooks - lucky me! Last week I went to Aysegul and Mehmet's house - Mehmet is a good friend of my roommates and a previous occupant of this house, and Aysegul is his fiance. Aysegul picked me up mid-afternoon and we took a jerky ride (she's just learned to drive...) we got some coffee then went to her house and ate some delicious food! She absolutely went overboard with the amount of food but it was fun and I got to take some leftovers.



I'd always seen this but never tried it - it's semizotu and yogurt. I had no idea what it was but it's purslane and yogurt and garlic? Anyway, it's delicious! The combination just really works and it's a great side dish.
A quick side story - a few weeks ago at Cengiz's brother's house I made a little fruit salad - oranges, bananas, and pears - with a little yogurt to hold it all together (a trick from Anna - thanks Anna!). They went CRAZY over it and were shocked when I told them it was yogurt. They never considered or found the appeal of yogurt and fruit together, which is sooo normal for me and my family and my culture. Here, they put broccoli and yogurt, or spinach and yogurt together - now that's strange to us!



No Turkish household is complete without a big plastic container of pickled vegetables in the cabinet under the sink. I think most of these came from her family's garden in Edirne.



This I could not stop eating. She cooked some short noodles, then added some cooked shredded chicken breast along with some mayonnaise and yogurt. It was topped with oil and paprika heated together. No joke, I ate 4 helpings.



Some red peppers from her family's garden, pickled and with lots of garlic - yum!



Homemade chicken soup, with oil, paprika, and vinegar to top it.



Some fried peppers, again from her family's garden.



Unfortunately I had no room for the main dish, stuffed eggplant.

Part of the reason I went over to their house was to try on some motorbike equipment. It's been too cold for us to ride on ours but we need to get some protective attire so I tried some on at their house.



Yesterday was my off day and I went to Avcilar (the very west of the city, almost outside of Istanbul) where I hung out with Cengiz and Bertal for a little before Cengiz went to teach his classes, and then I hung out with his sister in her house. She doesn't speak any English so it was good practice for me. We talked for a while, ate food, and made Valentines. It was a lot of fun and she's so sweet and energetic and it's always nice to get out of my neighborhood where I live, work and go to the gym.



We went walking by the Marmara Sea.



Of course, she made some delicious food. In the middle is rice with ground beef and lots of other flavors, yogurt with celery root and walnuts, and borek with carrots and spinach. There was also delicious soup and salad.



My Valentine-making station.

A quick funny/not-so-funny story:

For over a month I've been having mouse problems, and I must say, this mouse has good taste - it goes for my special stash of Oreos and gold coins that I carried over from Greece, my Reeses - really, it goes for the good stuff. It's also waking me up at night. So I bought some poison and I went through the WHOLE box and it still didn't die. The other morning I opened up my closet and saw it wobbling around. I shouted and slammed the door at it but it wasn't scared and just moseyed around my closet, climbing on my books and Christmas tree. So I got a plastic container and sacrificed a Reese to bribe it in there and sure enough, it went in and I quickly slammed the top on. I marched outside carrying this mouse and tried not to make eye contact with anyone as I threw it into the street. I was feeling pretty relieved as I went back into my room and no joke - 10 minutes later ANOTHER mouse ran across my room. Sigh. Time to get some more poison. It was a really cute mouse I have to say.