Life is an adventure

    When you postpone, you might regret later. Make time and effort to do things you want to do in life, we will never know what tomorrow will bring. GT

Octopus We love to eat octopus both as a salad or grilled. Whichever form you want to enjoy you have to cook it first. I suggest using a pressure cooker as it tenderizes quickly and efficiently in a relatively less time. A friend of mine boils it 2 hours, but I cook it in my pressure cooker for 22 minutes. Clean and rinse the octopus, put it in your cooker, water to the level, add two pinches of salt, 3 pinches of oregano, 2-3 bay leaves, crack some black pepper, lemon to taste. Some put a tablespoon of vinegar instead of lemon, matter of preference, I don't. When the time is up take it from the stove, depressurize by running cold water from the top until you hear no sound, open the top carefully, take a fork, it should go with little resistance through the thickest part of the tentacle, if so let it cool in its own juice, if not then cook it 5-10 mins more.  If you are going to grill leave the skin as is, cut to desired size, drizzle a little lemon and olive oil,  a pinch of

We were passing by a park where kids aged around 4-6 were having their soccer classes. Luckily the traffic light turned to red and we were able to watch them. All kids were trying their best, the drill was to stop the coming ball with their sole, then kick it back. I told my son that it was a good start for a soccer novice. He shrugged and said it was too easy. When there is "easy" then there is "hard". I am one of those who probably don't like to classify things as such. "Hard" may have connotations that are not necessarily helpful especially to a growing personality. I told my son that there is nothing easy nor hard. There are things that we know, have practiced, and finally have mastered and then there are things that we do not know yet or we have not practiced enough. Perception is very critical in how we accept and live our lives. I simply want to teach my son that there is nothing "hard" in life, once you accept that there are things

There is a kind of bun in Turkey which is called "acma". My son loves it, when we go to Turkey that is all he wants for breakfast. This past year (2014) we couldn't go to Turkey, so I decided to look for recipes for acma. To my luck, what I found for acma turned out to be a recipe for feta bun, but patisserie style, which is totally different than how you would make it at home. It turned out to be the ultimate recipe for pogaca. Here are the ingredients: 1 egg 1/2 cup olive oil 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup water 1/2 tbsp instant bakers' yeast 1tsp salt 1tbsp sugar 3 1/2 cups flour Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and let it rise for an hour. At the end you make a small disk like shape in the palm of your hand, put crumbled feta to the middle, then fold it in such a way that the feta is inside. Put it on the tray. Once you've given shape to all, brush egg yolk on the top and sprinkle sesame seed. Bake for 30 mins at 325 degrees F.  (Picture modified from  w

This is a dessert made from semolina. In Anatolia, when a loved one passes away, on the 7th, 40th days and then every year on the day you prepare this dessert and you distribute a portion to your neighbors, or basically to people within your reach by walking, this is the tradition. Although it is yummy just because it is related to a loss makes it attractive to me. We use this recipe on the days we lost our loved ones, distribute it to neighbors, and we also bring it to work and let people enjoy. The tradition is to make people eat rather than you sit down and eat. Its kind of a good deed you do on behalf of the loved one you lost. So here are the ingredients: 2 cups semolina 3/4 cup butter 1 3/4 cups sugar 3 1/2 milk 1 tbsp pine nuts What you do is put all the ingredients in a pot, put the pot on the stow at a very low heat  and stir/mix until the pine nuts are pink. That translates to couple of hours. The tradition is that people in the house for this occasion all give a

Love cookies, muffins, I know who doesn't! Here is one that is not so bad: 3 tbsp butter 2 tbsp yogurt 1/4 cup sugar 1 egg 3/4 tsp vanilla extract just a little over 1/3 cup flour 1/4 tsp baking soda Just a little over 1 cup oats 4 tbsp chocolate chip All you do is mix them, let it stand 5-10 mins, heat your oven to 325 degrees F. Once the oven is ready use a spoon to put them on your tray. It takes approximately 22 mins to bake.