Cheese Pastries (Peynirli Poğaça)

Although there are tens of different kinds of poğaça (savory pastry), none resembles anything like Italian focaccia, where the term poğaça derives from. There are two main ways of preparing savory pastry dough: with or without yeast. Non-yeast pastries are favored by many for their rich-in-butter-nature; yet, most people make pastries with yeasty dough because it requires less amount of oil. Since I don't bake poğaças very often, I see no harm in indulging myself with feta and butter.

makes ~25 cheese pastries

2 sticks of butter, melted
1 egg, white for the dough, yolk for brushing the tops of pastries
3 cups of flour
~1/2 plain yogurt
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup white cheese or feta crumbles
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
sesame seeds

-Mix cheese and parsley in a small bowl.
-Put flour in a bowl. Pour butter, egg white, and salt. Mix well.
-Start kneading and add yogurt as much as you need to make slightly soft, easy-to-shape dough.
-Roll walnut-size pieces in your hands to make balls. Press the ball between your palms to make a flat round, ~3-3.5 inches in diameter.
-Place a small amount of cheese+parsley filling in the middle of the flat round dough. Make it in to a ball by bringing the edges into the middle and covering the filling.
-Place on a cookie tray. Brush the tops with egg yolk and sprinkle sesame seeds.
-Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 20-25 minutes.
-Traditionally poğaças are served with tea, but you can also serve them for dinner as a side. Although there are tens of different kinds of poğaça (savory pastry), none resembles anything like Italian focaccia, where the term poğaça derives from. There are two main ways of preparing savory pastry dough: with or without yeast. Non-yeast pastries are favored by many for their rich-in-butter-nature; yet, most people make pastries with yeasty dough because it requires less amount of oil. Since I don't bake poğaças very often, I see no harm in indulging myself with feta and butter.

Strawberry Jam (Çilek Reçeli)

In the farmers' markets in Turkey strawberries are sold in two different piles on the same stand. One pile is for small strawberries which are sold for "jam" (reçellik) and bigger strawberries, the ones for the table (yemelik), would be in the other pile. I haven't seen this at the American farmers' markets, but you can always go to a strawberry farm and pick up your "jam" strawberries. That is exactly what we did. Last weekend we were at the Washington Farms in Athens and picked up gallons of delicious strawberries for jam and the table.


























This easy and guaranteed strawberry jam recipe is from my mom.

If you are planning to keep the jam in the fridge, the ratio of stawberry to sugar is 1 to 1. If you will use 1 lb of strawberries, you need 1 lb of sugar or 1 kilo of sugar for 1 kilo of strawberries. However, if you intend to make multiple jars of strawberry jam and to preserve them in your pantry, than the ratio of strawberry to sugar should be 1 to ~1.2.


























5 cups of strawberries make ~3 cups of jam, ~18 oz jar

2 lbs small strawberries (if you start with big ones, slice them into two or three pieces), washed and stemmed
2 lbs of sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp water

-Place the strawberries in a pot and add 2 tbsp water and cook on medium. Once it starts boiling, start the timer for 10 minutes.
-After 10 minutes of boiling, add sugar and stir gently. Once it starts boiling again, turn it between low-medium and set the timer this time for 25 minutes.
-Stir infrequently and carefully skim any foam with a slotted spoon.
-At the 23rd minute add lemon juice.
-Turn it off and pour in a clean glass jar. Close the lid and let it cool. Store in the refrigerator.

Savory Spinach and Feta Cake (Ispanaklı ve Beyaz Peynirli Kek)

In several previous posts I have mentioned the importance of afternoon tea time in Turkey and the snacks that we would have with our tea. This cake is a total green deliciousness that my mom used to make for our lazy afternoon tea hours. Years later during another tea gathering with her friends she learned a recipe for sweet spinach cake (I know it sounds weird, but it doesn't taste anything like spinach. Spinach is there just to make it green and distract the ladies from gossip by causing curiosity for the source of its color), and unfortunately stopped making this one. I never cared much about sweet cakes, so this one is definitely my most favorite green cake.

As you can see from the ingredients, it is a very flexible cake. You can add more herbs or take out the ones you don't like; use feta or grated mozzarella or cheddar; use crushed pepper flakes and make it spicy or very spicy. It's all up to you. Because of the spinach puree and the amount of flour this is a moist, spongy cake, not a dry one.



























serves 6-8 people

1 lb spinach
2 cups flour
1 cup oil (olive, canola, or vegetable; I used half olive and half canola)
3 eggs
1/3 cup Turkish white cheese or feta cheese, crumbled
1/3 cup black olives, sliced (you can use canned olives but they won't bring any flavor to your cake)
1 green bell pepper or 2 green chili peppers, fınely chopped
2-3 green onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 tsp oregano leaves
1-2 tsp salt (depending on how salt the cheese is)
2 tsp baking powder


























-Put washed spinach in a food processor with a couple of tbsp of olive oil and make into a puree. You should have approximately 2 cups of spinach puree.
-Beat 3 eggs with salt in a mixing bowl until it doubles in volume.
-Add remaining oil, spinach puree, dill, parsley, peppers, green onion, sliced olives, and cheese to eggs and mix with a spoon.
-Add flour and baking powder to this mixture and mix.
-Grease a baking pan, any shape you prefer, with butter. Pour the mixture and bake in a preheated oven at 350-360F for 45-50 minutes. Baking time might vary with different shapes and ovens. Check with a knife or wooden skewer/toothpick.

Wıth all its greenness this is my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging that was started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and is now organized by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once, and is hosted this week by Katie of Eat This.