Another month has ticked away as have done many more before so. However, these days they just pass by and I ask myself: 'What have I done?' ... and I can't remember. Then things just go on ...
Yes, we have to go on with things. Due to the fact the month already has progressed so far, I don't want to miss to blog my contribution to this month's Bloggers Around the World: Turkey.
This is a simple chickpea soup with meatballs. The soup is named after the city of Adana which is located in the Southern part of Turkey. It's the fifth populous city in Turkey. Adana is a major agricultural, industry and commercial center. So far about geography. Now to cooking ...
Ingredients:
300 g chickpeas
1,5 l beef stock
200 g minced beef
A small bunch of parsley, chopped up
2 tomatoes, cut into smaller pieces
Cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper
White wine vinegar
Method:
The first thing to do is to cook the chickpeas in the stock until they are soft.
In the meantime mix the minced beef together with the parsley a pinch of salt, pepper and cayenne pepper and make small meatballs out of it.
When the chickpeas are ready, add the meatballs and the tomatoes to the pot and cook for further 15 minutes. Feel free to adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
Well, it's already time to eat. Serve on plates or bowls as you like it and finish off each portion with a splash of white wine vinegar.
So, here we go with my contribution to Bloggers Around the World: Turkey. It feels a little bit lazy, but ... hey ... who cares. The soup tasted fine and ... everything's fine.
Are you ready for May then? Bring it on then, it will be as good as the ones before ...
No, don't expect any kind of history lesson, although this was one of my favourite subjects before I went to school and maybe the first few years while in it. That would be ancient history then with the pyramid building Egyptians and the Romans, yes, even Julius Caesar.
Indeed, 'alea iacta est' - 'the die has been cast'. Apart from that phrase and a few others, my Latin isn't that good anymore. Another one of my favourites is ... you probably think 'veni, vidi, vici', but no, it's 'mihi equus est', although that has never been true for me. I never had a horse.
'Alea iacta est', but not in the meaning of 'I have reached the point of no return', although that might be more true than the horse thingy. I guess, I better get on with my point then. 'Alea iacta est' can only mean one thing in my case: 'the die has been cast' and that in a literal kind of way. It's time for random recipe again. For that I always use my 100-sided die to determine a random cookbook.
However, it wouldn't be random recipes, if there weren't another trick to come. Well, it would be random recipes, too, but it's more likely it comes with an additional twist.
This time it is that Dom has teamed up with Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline from Caroline Makes. The result of that is a random recipes and AlphaBakes combination. According to that we are heading for a random recipe starting with the letter 'A'.
Well, the first book that came up, didn't have any recipes with a letter 'A'. So I decided to roll the die again. Once more 'alea iacta est'. The second book was one that features dishes for 1 person. At least that would help not to eat too much this time, but would it be something lovely? Edible, sure, but would it be delicious and enjoyable?
There were indeed four recipes starting with the letter 'A', two sweet one including apples and two savoury ones. Fine, one of the savoury ones included apricots, but the die stopped on the final one ...
... Avocado Salad with Egg and Salmon. Oh, I might try that book again. The avocado salad was good and there was really not much effort involved to prepare it. In fact it took longer to randomly pick a recipe than actually making it.
You just have to have a hard-boiled egg and cut it into small pieces, peel and cut an avocado, cut some smoked salmon into stripes and whip up a dressing with a tbsp. of oil, the juice half a lemon, one tsp. of mustard, a pinch of cayenne pepper, a tsp. of rosemary and salt and ... there you go, a quick and light lunch, kind of.
I have another one for you ... 'errare humanum est' ... wait, one more ... 'in vino veritas', not that I am suggesting you are having some wine with the salad or that you I am going to reveal all my secrets, when you fill me with a bottle of wine.
Enough then with our Latin lesson, although you might need one or the other word of Latin in your life at some point.
Anyway, AlphaBakes random recipes ... I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did or ... well, it suffices already, if I enjoyed it, but there is no harm in making others enjoy things ...
I know, there are quite a lot of things I haven't tried before. There is still a lot of food on my list to feed on ... eh to try, cook and eat. Sometimes I think, I should be cooking all day. Eh, well, for some thing you nearly have to do this literally, like for example pulled pork. An acquaintance talked about it, that he wanted to try it and then I saw something lovely on the net somewhere that encouraged me to try it, finally.
So I had a bit of a look on how to do it and then I had a go ...
Together with the pulled pork I wanted to have some Herb and Beer Cheesebuns.
