Bizarrely normal

Recently I was thinking about the weird, strange and dangerous aspects of life here. Everyday day I notice new and weird stuff that goes. So, I thought I would share my list so far of things that make my head turn.

1. Drivers reversing up the shoulder of a highway because they missed the turn off.
2. Drivers driving up the wrong side of the road because the other side is blocked with traffic. (Then, when the taxi driver of the taxi I am riding in signals to the other driver of his disapproval at him doing the wrong thing, the driver swears at the taxi driver like it was he who did something wrong. Go figure).
3. The sign on the back of the toilet at the airport that says "Flush twice to save water" or something along those lines.
4. Reversing down a one way street.
5. Non use of seat belts. Or finding the seat belt wrapped around the back of the seat and connected to the buckle to prevent it "annoying" the driver.
6. Pedestrians walking on the side of the highway.
7. Buses collecting passengers from the side of highways, even though there is no "bus stop".
8. Walking against the red man.
9. Excessive speeding.
10. Overtaking without signal.
11. Overtaking with signal, but signalling in the opposite direction.
12. Running red lights. Inability to stop due to number 8.
13. The highest road fatality rate in Europe possibly due to numbers 1-12, except 3.
14. Mass construction of large scale office buildings and apartment blocks in heavily built up areas.
15. The lack of any kind of town planning. i.e Lets not worry about where the roads will go, lets just build, build, build!
16. The construction of gece kondu (literal meaning: built overnight). One day there's a bit of vacant land, the next, BAM- there is house. About 6 million in Istanbul.
17. Littering- people freely, without care littering.
18. Feeding of stray dogs and cats. (apologies to cat and dog lovers).
19. The large amount of stray dogs and cats.
20. Over crowding of every form of public transport.
21. Prohibition of smoking in taxis when drivers continue to do it.
22. The price of petrol. Equivalent of AUD$3.00 something....per litre that is. Luckily our car uses gas at AUD$2.50 per litre. Great savings!

There are many more strange and wonderful things that I haven't listed here. I just really wanted to give you all an idea of the funny things that life has to offer! And, those of you in Australia, don't whine again about the price of petrol! I can say however, that the good out ways the bad by far. I will soon post about the fun, wonderful and beautiful things.

Banana cake

My friend Katie from home bought me this great cookbook as a wedding gift when she was here in April. I love it. Katie is a country girl and the book is suitably titled "Country Classics" and it's from the country women's association of Australia. It is a collection of 500 classic recipes and you can find whatever your heart desires in this book.

When I was younger and bananas started to show any tinge of brown, I would not eat them. I remember my mum storing them in the freezer and later using them for banana cake or muffins. I now find myself doing the same thing. I always buy fresh bananas and never end up eating them, so I store the brown ones in the fridge to use, yes those are the brown things in my freezer below.

I really enjoy baking. I think it's because of my sweet tooth. Some nights the urge to bake something suddenly comes over me and I head for the cupboard to see what I can put together. Usually, I must admit, whatever I bake contains bananas- banana cake, banana bread, banana muffins etc.

Tonight I found the easiest recipe from the Country Classics book for a butter free banana cake.

3 bananas

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup plain flour

3/4 cup of castor sugar

1 tsp bicarb soda

1 x 125 gram packet slivered almonds

I didn't have any almonds on hand, so I just sprinkled some choc chips down on top of the cake after I popped it in the loaf tin. They suggest a loaf tin, but I'm sure any will do and bake on 180 degrees for 1 hour or until cooked. It took 50 minutes for me. Tasty and great with a cuppa!

Green beans

Last week when we did crazy shopping in anticipation of the out law arrival, we bought a kilo of beans, in the hope that Kenan's mum might cook them.

She didn't get the chance to unfortunately, so I thought I would give it a go making string beans in olive oil or zeytinyağlı Çalı fasulye. I was surprised and pleased. They turned out great! So very easy.

1 kilo beans, cleaned and cut in half length ways
2 tomatoes, diced

1 onion, grated

1 tbsp sugar

5 garlic cloves

1 cup of warm water

Basically, throw everything in the pot and boil on medium for 1 hour. What I learnt was that the sugar is the key to having it taste like it tastes in restaurants. I wondered if 1 cup of water would be enough, and it was. The beans will release their water as well and it helps to cook it all through. You can eat cold or hot.

Cooking inspiration

After my last post, I began to consider all that was in my fridge, which was a lot of food. So today I decided to whip up a vegetable sauce, similar to a ratatouille. My mum used to make lots of yummy ones back in the day so I thought I could cook that in order to reduce what was in the fridge in order not to waste. I hate to waste.

I diced up some eggplant's, zucchini's, onion, garlic, mushrooms, green peppers-sweet and mild, and used fresh tomatoes as the base- peeled the skins off them and roughly cut them up. I then added some salça, tomato paste, salt and pepper, a dash of sugar and some dry mixed herbs and let it reduce for about 20 minutes.

But then, what to do once that cooked? A post from a blog I read a while ago reminded me of the open lasagna whereby you boil the pasta sheets separately and then on the plate build your own lasagna. I put one sheet on the base of the plate then added some cheese then sauce and repeated this with 3 lasagna sheets. On top, I added some more sauce, fresh chopped parsley and cheese and presto! You have an open lasagna. It was very tasty and easy and you can make loads of sauce and then freeze.

Fridge stuffed full

I haven't had much to blog about these past weeks, which I guess you can tell.

My out-laws are here for the week. Although it's a bit cramped at home, it's nice to come home to a warm house with the smell of delicious home cooked food floating in the air, not the mention the three large boxes or food, including meat, dry ingredients and fruit and veggies they bought with them. My fridge, needless to say, is busting at the sides due to the fact that we stocked the near empty thing prior to their arrival in order to avoid the embarrassment that would follow when his mother inspected the fridge!

Cooking is a chore for me, especially since I work full-time and dinner is never on the table before 8pm, unless we called out for it! It's hard to be inspired about food when you have slaved over your job all day and then need to muster up some energy to do it all again at home. I wish I didn't feel this way about cooking as I love food and love all that Turkish food has to offer. I find it hard to think on the spot about something to cook and feel that cooking a meal is a great effort.

Recently though I have been thinking about taking a cooking class. I'm not totally hopeless in the kitchen, don't get me wrong, but living in Turkey requires some know how in the basics of Turkish cuisine in order to whip up meals any night of the week without sending myself into a panicked frenzy.

I've made an inquiry about a cooking class and hope to be able to take some casual classes in the coming months. It's not easy to find the time for that also with Turkish classes on Saturday and Sunday. But it might be a nice break away from the languages classes maybe once or twice a month in order to give me some time for something that I want to be good at, ah, not that I don't want to be good at Turkish, but, you know, something else. And also something that I can impress my husband with. He always says how good my lasagna/pasta/roast lamb is, but I can't keep cooking those same things all the time.

For you Turkish cooks out there, what are some easy Turkish meals that you whip up in no time? I'd be interested to hear.