Flour Halva (Un Helvasi)

Halva is a typical dessert in Middle Eastern cuisine. Some of them are made with tahini and nuts. The ones that are cooked at home are made with flour-base or semolina-base. It is a very simple dessert that requires only 4 ingredients. Butter, flour, sugar and milk. The only drawback is you have stir the flour and butter for about 15 mins. But the smell and the taste are worth every effort you make.

What do you need?

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 stick unsalted butter

How do you make?

• In a sauce pan bring milk, sugar and water to boil and let it cool down completely.
• In a pan melt the butter and put the flour in and cook the flour and butter for about 15 mins stirring constantly. At first flour will be crumbly but after 5 mins it'll get easy to stir.

• Pour the syrup over the flour and butter mixture once they are done and stir very fast so it does not get crumbly. Turn off the heat and cover the pan and let it rest for 5 mins.

• The resulting color should be like light brown. Once you pour the syrup the color will darken little bit.
• Shape with two tablespoons and serve. You can serve warm or cold. This recipe yields 20 pieces.
  

SHEPHERD'S SALAD (COBAN SALATA)

This salad is so good I can eat it as a main meal. The exact translation from Turkish to English is 'Shepherd's Salad' but it is also called 'Spoon Salad' or simply 'Chopped Salad'. The idea is you dice everything small so you can eat it with spoon. It goes very good with rice pilaf.




What do you need?

• 2 onions (red, white, any kind)
• 1 cucumber
• 2 tomatoes
• olive oil, vinegar and salt
• fresh parsley (optional)

How do you make it?

• Slice the onions and place them in a bowl.

• Put salt on top of the onions about 3 tbsp. Do not worry you are gonna wash it. Rub the onions with salt as if you are kneading them. In Turkey we call it 'Killing the onions'. You rub them until they become soft and lose their juice. Wash and drain them.

• Dice tomatoes and cucumbers very small. Mix them with onions. If you want you can add fresh chopped parsley.

• Put olive oil, vinegar and salt to a small bowl and whisk. If you do not like vinegar you can replace it with lemon juice. Pour the dressing on top of the salad just before you serve.
  
• Grab a tablespoon and dig in the bowl :)
  

GINGERSNAPS

These spicy, crisp cookies with crackled tops are very good to dunk into tea or coffee. Since it is the holiday season it is time for me bake more:)









What do you need?

• 2 1/3 c all purpose flour
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 c shortening
• 1 c sugar
• 1 large egg
  
• 1/3 c molasses
• 1/2 c cinnamon-sugar (simply mix 1/2 c sugar with 2 tsp of cinnamon)

How do you make it?

• Preheat oven to 375F
  
• Sift flour, spices, salt and baking soda in a small bowl.
• In a mixing bowl beat together sugar, shortening and egg until creamy.
• Add molasses and beat until blended.
• Slowly add flour mixture until you obtain a soft and smooth dough.
• Drop 1 tsp rounded cookie dough into cinnamon-sugar mixture and roll them until they are covered with sugar.

• Line them on a lightly-greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.

• Bake them 10 mins until golden brown.

• Cool them on a wire rack.

Please note that these are snaps so they are supposed to be crispy. But be aware that they are gonna be soft when you first remove them from the oven. So do not bake them in the oven until they are crispy.
This recipe yields 72 about 1 1/2 inch cookies. But I ended up with 70 cookies as I ate 2 cookies-worth dough :)