These are easy to make and about as nutritious as a cake like treat can be. I used regular flour but might try almond flour next time.
3 cups lightly packed shredded carrots
1 heaping cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 Tb. grated ginger or more to taste
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp BP
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2/3 cup avocado oil
1 cup unbleached flour
Grease an 8 inch square pan ( I used glass). Put the oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and spices in mixing bowl and combine. Add ginger, BP, and baking soda. Add carrots and walnuts. Stir to combine. Finally, add the flour and stir. Pour into the baking pan. Use spatula to level because mixture will be thick. Bake at 335 for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool before cutting into bars.
This is a sort of travelogue, memoir, and recipe book. The author begins in Odessa and travels south from there to the port of Constanza in Romania as well as various other seaside towns in Bulgaria, then to Istanbul. After spending more time there she heads east to all the ports and some inland cities near Turkey’s Black Sea coast.
I hope to learn new information and become a little more enlightened when I read–especially when reading non-fiction. This book did not disappoint. Here are a few of the things I learned:
-Odessa is a very old and once a very international city. At one point it had the second largest Jewish population in Europe. Now only about 1/3 of the residents are Jewish. Many of the restaurants serve traditional Jewish food even if not Jewish. Once in the past, Mark Twain visited there and made it famous for its ice cream.
-In Constanza, Romania, she witnessed a huge Navy Day celebration with booming gun salutes. Once upon a time, this city was famous for its Casino which now is just a glorious ruin. Here a breakfast mainstay is polenta with a mushroom topping. The author apparently liked the food because this section contains more recipes.
-Varna is the main seaport city in Bulgaria. The author’s main quest here was to see the gold, yes, gold. Once upon a time, this city was a major Roman port. Now the Museum of Archeology houses a spectacular collection of ancient gold. “Breastplates, bracelets, burial gifts, regal-looking head pieces, figurines, and pendants–all gold–shone for attention. The silent Midas room was deafening, ringing out with finery, treasure and opulence. And the loudest, biggest treasure of all, was the smallest. Tiny pendant earrings, almost inconceivably old, dating back 6000 years….these earring are the oldest ‘worked gold’ in the world. They belonged to the first known culture to craft golden artifacts, and they lived here, on Bulgaria’s section of the Black Sea in what some archeologists consider the oldest prehistoric town. But it was not gold that made this area wealthy; it was salt which was mined nearby. The world salary comes from the Latin word ‘salarium’–a Roman soldier’s stipend to buy salt.
-She goes to Istanbul and then on to Turkey’s Black Sea towns, Amasra, several a bit inland, Sinop, Trabzon, and Rize. Sinop has a particularly good harbor. There is a saying that the Black Sea has three safe harbors, July, August, and Sinop. This is in an area often targeted by Cossacks who crossed the Black Sea to raid these more prosperous areas. The town also houses an infamous prison where Russian convicts taught Turkish cellmates how to make model ships for which the town is now famous.-More than 3/4 of the world’s hazelnuts are grown in this area of Turkey. However, that did surprise me as much as the tea, yes, tea. When I think of Turkey, I think of that thick, strong Turkish coffee. However, Turkey is the fifth largest grower and exporter of tea in the world. The tea grows in the fog and mist on steep slopes that end at the sea. Several photos in the book illustrate the lush green mountains covered in tea bushes.
-When I think of Hagia Sophia, I think of the spectacular building in Istanbul, the one that has withstood invasions and earthquakes. But there is another one. On the western edges of the city of Trabzon, there is a smaller, more tranquil Hagia Sophia, one of the Black Sea area’s most spectacular monuments. It was built as a church in the 13th century, converted to a mosque, then to a cholera hospital, then a museum and finally back to a mosque in 2013. The ceiling and walls are covered with frescoes that for a long time no one knew existed until they were restored.
In addition to all the tales of her adventures and the ordinary people she meets, the book is filled with recipes that are specialties of the areas she visited. I’ve taken some ideas from several to experiment with new dishes like combining Swiss chard and sultanas (golden raisins) with chopped onions and garlic sautéed in olive oil and served over Basmati rice.
Plov is a common dish throughout Central Asia and is the national dish of Uzbekistan. All plov contains rice and usually meat like lamb or beef. Here is a vegetarian version. I found a vegetarian recipe and modified it using the ingredients I already had. The original recipe used chickpeas but I had already cooked Peruano beans so used them.
1/2 large purple onion, coarsely chopped
1/2 fennel bulb, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup kalamata olives, chopped
1 drop coriander essential oil
1 drop cumin essential oil
1 drop cilantro essential oil
Chili flakes (optional and amount to taste)
1 cup cooked Peruano beans
2 cups greens (I used spinach and arugula), coarsely chopped
1 heaping half cup of basmati rice, rinsed
butter or olive oil for sautéing
Heat the oil or butter in a heavy casserole dish. Add onions, garlic, and fennel. Saute until tender. Stir in the spices. Scatter the beans and olives on top of the onion mixture. Do not stir! Add about 1/4 to 1/3 cup water. Layer the greens on top of the beans and olives. Flatten the greens with a spoon. Do not stir! Let greens wilt then layer the drained rice on top. Pour in enough boiling water to just cover the rice. Cook on high heat until the liquid has boiled off. Poke holes in the rice to allow steam to escape. Cover pan with lid and turn off heat but leave pan on the burner. Let the rice steam for 20-30 minutes.
To serve, stir the contents and serve in large bowls. You can add extra fresh herbs and lemon if desired. I just served as is and found it delicious. You do not have to use essential oil but can use ground herbs or fresh. If using essential oil, use a safe brand for cooking. I used Edens Garden but have used others, e.g. Doterra.
I enjoyed the previous book by Caroline Eden so much I searched for this one. I doubt I will ever make it to Samarkand or Tashkent, places sort of on my bucket list, so what I do is read everything I find about these fabled cities on the Silk Road. The sub-title of this one is “Recipes and Stories From Central Asia and The Caucasus”. It starts with Samarkand and the story of Tamerlane, the legendary hero who conquered a lot of this area and a large portion of surrounding areas in 1370. He was a military genius who loved chess and made up his own chess game with twice the number of pieces.
What foods show up in both the stories and recipes? Beets, fruit–dried and fresh for which the area is famous, tomatoes, cucumber, pomegranates, cabbage, lentils, rice, lamb and mutton, and all sorts of kebabs and flatbreads. I learned there is a huge beach on Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. It is one of the world’s largest alpine lakes and in summer people from Russia and all over Central Asia flock to its shores. People who own guest houses there make all their money for the entire year in the brief summer between mid-July and mid-August.
In the remote mountains of Azerbaijan lies the small town of Gyrmyzy Gasaba above the Qudiyaleay River, a town where all the people are Jewish. Even though Azerbaijan is a predominantly Shia Muslim country, the people in this town have peacefully lived here for hundreds of years. This town is considered the last surviving pre-Holocaust Jewish town untouched by WWII.
If you are a lover of apples, then consider this country, Kazakhstan, the place where apples originated. All apples in the world today come from the original apples here. The name of the largest city, Almaty, whose older name was Alma-Ata means fatherland of apples. In Ile-Altalan National Park on the northern slopes of the Tien Shan mountain chain thousands of acres of wild apples flourish.
Even though this book was published less than ten years ago in 2016, a lot of people must have been interested in reading the stories and recipes because the copy the library found for me is not in the best condition. Before I return it, I will copy some of the recipes to try.
Some probably would not call this a real chili. Nevertheless, it is healthy and vegan unless you garnish it with shredded cheese.
1 cup chopped purple onion
3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
Olive oil
2 cups black beans–either use canned or cook your own. I prefer to cook my own.
I can corn, drained
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 cup canned salsa–I used one that was fine and medium heat. Add more depending on your preferred texture for chili.
1-2 Tablespoons berbere or chili powder. I used berbere.
Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil. Add bell peppers and saute until tender. Add the black beans and corn. Stir and add salsa and spices. Heat through and serve with condiments and shredded cheese of your choice.
I started out thinking I would write a poem per day for National Poetry Month. Well, I’m a bit behind on that, but here are two of several I have written so far.
Spring
The mockingbird awakens me with his song.
A hummingbird, dressed in green with an iridescent
orange collar, flits by my head then sips nectar
from a scarlet bougainvillea blossom.
The neighborhood barn owl hoots at dawn and dusk.
A black and red/orange bird I’ve never seen before
lights on a palo verde limb.
A Western Bluebird dips its beak repeatedly in
the talavera birdbath.
Remember
In this world steeped in senseless violence remember
The author of this book, Guadelupe Rivera, is the daughter of Diego Rivera by the woman to whom he was married before he married Frida. Diego went on a trip to Russia and his then wife, the author’s mother, became attached to her previous boyfriend, the poet Jorge Cuesta. She and Diego divorced and then he married Frida. Eventually, the two couples became friendly and at one point they all lived in the same house.
Thirteen years after Diego married Frida, the author moved in with them. This book details her life living with Frida and her father, how Frida learned to cook, how she decorated the Blue House in Coyoacan, the fiestas, the food, the adventures. The book includes photos and recipes of Frida and Diego’s favorite foods, photos of the house, and places the author visited with Frida. It is also a story of many of Mexico’s famous people at the time.
I own several books about Frida but this one is the most revealing and intimate in many ways. If you like Mexican food and find the life and art of Frida and Diego of interest, read this book.
Note: It was also written by the journalist Pierre Marie-Colle with photos by Ignacio Urquiza.
I could not stop reading this book. The setting is a US military outpost during the Afghan war in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of Kandahar. The weather is brutal–extremes of cold and heat, sand storms, heavy fog early in the mornings. Suddenly, after a brutal battle where they lose some soldiers, a young Afghan woman, Antigone, with stumps for legs shows up pulling a cart. Her brother, who the soldiers think was part of the Taliban, was killed in the battle; she wants her brother’s body for a proper Muslim burial. The soldiers do not know whether she is who she says she is or a suicide bomber. It confuses them even more when she plays hauntingly beautiful music on her rubab every night. All this leads to a lot of confusion over and raises many questions about morality and duty. Each chapter is from a different viewpoint, the young woman and various soldiers in the outpost.
Note: The rubab is a traditional Pashtun 12 string guitar-like instrument. You can find recordings on YouTube.
This is super easy and perfect for the colder weather. It is also good left over warmed up. You can adjust the amount for the number of people you plan to feed.
1 beet sliced about 1/8 inch thick
2 medium parsnips sliced same thickness
1 medium sized sweet potato, peeled and sliced same thickness
1/4 large sweet onion, coarsely chopped
Garlic powder
Olive oil
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Pour enough olive oil in a heavy oven appropriate pot to cover the bottom. Layer the vegetables with the chopped onion and a small amount of olive oil. Sprinkle garlic power over the top. Place lid on the pot. Bake until the vegetables are tender.
You can use any root vegetables. I used some of my favorites. I never bother to peel beets or parsnips. If you buy large parsnips, you may have to remove the core because it can sometimes be rather hard and bitter.
It is too hot to do a lot of cooking in many parts of the US these days. Salads are a good alternative. However, if you get tired of just salads, here are two easy vegan dishes to enjoy that require little cooking time. If you are not vegan or vegetarian, you can add some cubed meat as you are sautéing the veggies.
Sauté coarsely chopped onion and garlic in olive oil. I have not specified amounts because amounts can be adjusted to your taste. Coarsely chop 1/2 medium sized beet and add to the onion and garlic. Cook this mixture until tender. Add 1/2 seeded and coarsely chopped red bell pepper. Add 2 Tablespoons of Thai red curry paste and mix well. Finally, add 1/2 cup coarsely chopped Thai basil and 2 cups arugula. Sauté until wilted stirring constantly. Serve over rice.Sauté 1/3 coarsely chopped medium sized sweet onion, six small carrots cut into coins, and 5 coarsely chopped garlic cloves in olive oil. When nearly tender add five sliced mushrooms. When these are tender, add 1/3 coarsely chopped red bell pepper and sauté until tender. Finally, add 2 cups arugula and stir until the arugula is wilted. For spices add basil essential oil or World Market Greek Mediterranean Seasoning Blend. Serve over pasta of your choice. If you like cheese, grate fresh parmesan or asiago, my favorite, over the top.
Note: these recipes can be adapted by using your favorite vegetables, e.g. spinach in place of arugula.
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