Delightfully Turkish

Going through my freezer I found a batch of falafel from a little while ago, and that was all the excuse I needed to put together this Turkish extravaganza. I do love being on holidays with time for excessive cooking - there is no way this will happen once classes start up again!

Falafel freeze reasonably well, but I haven't yet found a recipe I'm really happy with. I would like to try using dry chickpeas and soaking them myself as I find the falafel I make from tinned chickpeas is too soft and lacking in texture. I would quite like to try this recipe Falafel Recipe from the Closet Cooking blog I follow.

The didn't make the bread myself, I buy it (fresh on the day I intend to serve it) at the local Turkish take away shop, but all the rest I do myself. The yogurt is really easy but makes all the difference, just combine 1/2 cup of low fat natural yogurt, the juice of half a lemon and a tablespoon of tahini, I also garnish mine with sumak but that is completely optional. The tabbouleh is very traditional, very similar to this recipe but I use about 1/2 cup of Bulgar and 3 tomatoes.
I often omit the lamb to have a healthy vegetarian meal, but when I make the effort and include it it's the most popular part of the meal. The natural high fat content of lamb makes this a little less healthy, but also makes it taste like a classic greasy late night kebab. I fry up a diced onion and 2 or 3 crushed cloves of garlic for a few minutes before adding 400g of lamb mince, 1 tsp each of ground Cinnamon, coriander, cumin, and a little Cayenne pepper and salt. The lamb recipe is based on one in The Student Cookbook which I love, it is absolutely full of quick, easy, tasty and mostly healthy recipes.
 

I went even further than usual with this meal and put together a Turkish desert as well. I bought some Turkish delight and made some Turkish themed pastries. The pastries are pistachios, slivered almonds a little sugar, water and rose essence whizzed up in a food processor, wrapped in circles of short crust pastry and baked in the oven. I made a honey and rose essence syrup to drizzle over them.

The Gift of Infinite Chocolate Cake

I love teacups, tea shops, frilly floral or polka dot aprons, gingham tablecloths and anything else related to tea. Cake in a Teacup makes a wonderful, elegant, tasty gift. Include the recipe and you have wrapped up, in cellophane and ribbons, INFINITE chocolate cake!

Mug cake recipes are all over the Internet at the moment, either use a search engine to find one you like, or try this link for ideas:

10 mug cakes that you can make in minutes

I bought a few different cups to give to different people and unfortunately some had metallic paint and could not go in the microwave. I had to get creative cooking the cake in one cup, then transferring it to the metallic cup before dusting with icing sugar. Avoiding cups with metallic paint would be a better solution.
I had to experiment a little to get the right quantity of cake in the cup, there were a few overflow "cake in, on and around a teacup" disasters, a rare incident of too much cake actually being a problem.

I typed up the recipe I used on printable canvas from a stationary supply store, the extra weight and texture just makes it feel more special, and makes it more durable. I also included the box that the teacup came in, it was too pretty to leave out, might be useful for future teacup storage and made gift wrapping easy and pretty. I love playing with ribbons!

Future possibilities for using a stencil when dusting with icing sugar have got me all excited. I'll add some photos as soon as I give it a go!