What do you call a day that doesn't belong to you? Nacho day!

Life-long dream fulfilled in a pan of baked nachos

Monday was not a good day.  Have you ever had one of those days when everything seems to have compounded into one giant thing and suddenly it's all turned into that boulder from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, thinking, "Whoa, that's crazy!" only to realize that you are Henry Jones, Jr., and not only is it crazy, but your life is on the line.  Or, as was the case Monday, my outlook on life was on the line.

For the first time in my life, you see, I realized that I'm proud.  And my pride is a complete and utter weakness.  I don't know how I, with my self-esteem issues, have allowed pride to fester, but I have, evidently.  I started feeling a sense of guilt and shame that made me feel awful.

I went to the grocery store to get a few staples: eggs and syrup, having already bought bacon at a meat shop.

The egg selecting went splendidly,  but the syrup selection was overwhelming.  I mean, really, why do we as a people, need to have half of an aisle dedicated to mixtures of faux maple flavoring and corn syrup?  Is there any reason that my eyes need to be bombarded with so many variations of brown?  After finally having picked one, I proceeded to the checkout area, only to find at least seven older couples in each of the open lines.  In the smallish store I was in, I assure you, that's a lot of people.  Because of my recent crisis, I stopped dead in my tracks, said, "This is not going to happen," put my syrup back on the shelf, and the eggs back on theirs.  I proceeded to drive to Aldi, which has become my favorite grocery store now more than ever.  There, I discovered all the fixings for a quick, easy, and delicious end to my bad day.  Nachos were just the ticket, seeing as I had ground beef in the freezer, a lot of extra pico de gallo, and almost as much guacamole.  Chips, taco seasoning, and a can of refried beans.  TADA!

If you're just here for how the delicious things at the top were made:
When I came back home, I sulked for a while, but eventually made my nachos.  I browned the beef with 1/2 a packet of seasoning, heated the beans, and sliced a fresh jalapeno.  Layers upon layers of chips, cheese, beans, and meat.  I baked each layer separately at 450 degrees for about 3 minutes each, until the cheese (a mix of cheddar and mozzarella) melted.  It smelled fantastic.  I put the fresh jalapeno slices on the top layer before baking it.  Then I dumped a lot of pico de gallo atop it all!  They were fantastic.

This is not really a recipe, I suppose.  But then, I don't want this blog to be all about food.  I'm not just about food!

I feel like my way of thinking has been slipping lately.  I need to fix things again and stop being so hard on myself.  I'm not perfect, but sometimes even imperfect, unplanned, un-reciped, made up along the way, messy meals eaten on the living room floor are flavorful and worth it if you have some good conversation and someone to hold you when you cry about the day before the nachos.

I have problems, but so does everyone else.  So the next time it's not your day, remember it's nacho day!

"I have come to the conclusion that these are not bagels" - boyfriend

Don't these look delicious?  And you don't even know what they are yet!

Last week, I told someone that I didn't think I wanted this blog to be all about food.  Then I waited until I made something super delicious to write anything.  I'm working against myself, I guess.

Anyway, as outlined in my first blog, Turkey changed my food tastes.  That might not be entirely true, but getting older, changing my eating habits, and going to Turkey all coincided in a perfect way.

When we Americans go to theme parks, baseball games, or any place where we may desire a hot, salty, carb-filled snack, we go for a hot pretzel (and if you're me, that fake cheese sauce whose deliciousness can't be explained).  When we Americans walk around Istanbul, a place filled with all sorts of awesome things and historical sites, pretzels can't be found.  Not to worry, though!  There is an answer to this need or carbohydrates and it is called simit!

My first simit in Istanbul!

It looks strange at first and I have to admit that, I was afraid to try it.  I didn't think I'd like it, but they smell amazing!  That and street vendors, shop owners, and  my stomach are all more demanding in Istanbul, especially after having been awake for thirty-two hours.

Wednesday, after much preparation, I decided to try my hand at simit.  I don't often admit this, but I'm sort of terrified of dough.  It's odd, considering how much I love to make cut-out sugar cookies and how often I helped make bread as a child, but there's something about the combination of stickiness and goopiness that gets to me.  After my week of gozleme, though, I thought I might have conquered the fear - especially since this doesn't require any rolling out of dough.

Mine turned out different in looks from the street simit I enjoyed for the first time nine months ago, but the taste is pretty spot-on.  I followed the recipe from Binnur's Turkish Cookbook, but since the pictures there are a bit hard to follow, I'll just elaborate a bit.

If you're anything like me, you don't have some of these ingredients at home, so you should head on out to your local grocery store and maybe - for a better price on sesame seeds - to your local Middle Eastern food store.

Dough:

-7g dried instant yeast

-1 Tbsp sugar

-1/4 cup warm water

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

-1/2 tsp salt

-1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

-3/4 cup warm water

Topping:

-water (enough to dunk the simit rings in)

-un-toasted sesame seeds (I think I used about a half cup total)

1)  Mix the yeast according to the instructions on the packaging.  They should be as outlined in italics above: yeast, a tablespoon of sugar, and a quarter cup of warm water.  Let that sit for about 15 minutes.  It'll get all bubbly and delicious-smelling!

Yeast after 15 minutes!

2)  While you're waiting, put the flour, salt, and olive oil into a bowl.

Dry ingredients + olive oil

When the yeast is all bubbled, slowly add it, along with 3/4 of a cup of water, kneading it all into a dough.

Simit dough in its first (of many) forms!

After all of the dry ingredients from the sides of the bowl have been incorporated, slap that sticky dough onto the counter and knead it for 15 minutes.  Simit is, apparently, all about timing.  Obviously, after I started kneading with both hands, pictures weren't an option!

3)  I found it helpful to ask for some assistance in this next step, as my hands were super sticky.  Oil a large bowl with about 1 Tbsp olive oil.  I think Pam or any other spray oil would work just as well, probably, but this is what the directions say - and what I had on hand!  Put the dough into the oiled bowl, cover it with saran wrap, and kiss it good-bye for one hour - at "room temperature."  I put mine on a shelf out of sight so I wouldn't get antsy about it. 

Before

After!

It should about double in size.  This is the first of many waiting games you'll play with simit, so it might be a good idea to have an easy-to-abandon distraction to go back and forth to between shifts.

4)  Take it out of the bowl, put it on the counter, and punch the air out.  I don't have any pictures of this, but a video was taken.  However, upon viewing, I determined it to be far too unflattering to post for the world to see.  Anyway, punch the air out.  I got a little too into it, but all of my frustrations from the day disappeared into oblivion, so that was a nice side-effect!  Or, it was, until the next step appeared!

Six little pre-simits!

Now you're supposed to shape it into a "baton bread shape."  I tried, but it was really far too sticky.  Then, this really smart guy walked into the kitchen and asked if I'd like him to oil the counter.  I was hesitant, but it worked like a dream!  Putting a little counter oil on my hands helped a lot, too!

Cut the dough into 6 pieces, then shape them into balls.  Put them on an oiled section of counter, then cover them with plastic wrap.

Leave these alone for 20 minutes.

During this wait:
-Set up your finishing station, which should include a bowl of water and a bowl or plate of sesame seeds.

You'll need a lot more sesame seeds than that, but I didn't know and wasn't about to waste them!

-After you've prepped that, it's a good idea to get your baking pans ready.  Line two pans with parchment paper.  I used oiled foil, but next time I'll be sure to pick up some parchment!

5)  Now it's time to make simit rings!  The saran wrap will have stuck to the dough, take it easy and you'll get most of it off with little difficulty!

Waiting to be baked.

Again, oiling the counter and my hands helped make this step much easier!  Roll each ball into a long strip approximately 15 inches long.  It's a little tricky (and again, not the easiest thing to photograph with oily/doughy hands), but it's fun!  Then stick the ends together to make rings.

Now, one by one, to the the finishing station!  Dunk each ring into the water for a quick dip, then dip them in the sesame seeds until fully coated with the little guys.  I also made one plain simit, but I think the one who requested that understands now that the seeds are what give this the majority of its flavor.

Put three sesame-ed rings on each pan and let these site for 45 minutes.



During this wait:
-Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 20 minutes.  That means you can either do it right away or, like I did (because I had yogurt incubating!) wait until 25 minutes into your wait.
-Fill a spray bottle with cold water.  (I didn't have one, so I sprinkled mine with water in subsequent steps, but I think a spray bottle would more evenly distribute the water.

6)  Spray/spring the rings with cold water, then pop them in the oven.  Two pans wouldn't fit side by side, so I had to alternate their rack placement accordingly.

Bake them at 450 degrees for 7-8 minutes, then reduce the heat to 425 degrees for 18-20 minutes.  Mine got done more quickly than this, around 13 minutes or so.  I suggest monitoring them closely, especially if you're dealing with a (always!) finicky electric oven.

This is a beautiful thing.

This is why I bought un-toasted seeds!

Around the same time I pulled
the simit out of the oven, I checked
the yogurt,which turned out even better
than last time!  Hardly any whey! I'm
curious about what variable made the
difference:  I used my own starter,
wrapped it in a dishcloth, and its
last hour of incubation was in a
fuzzy blanket, not the oven!

7)  Remove from oven, then remove from pan.  They don't need to cook anymore and you don't need to wait anymore!  Eat them!

Although we sampled the plain one right out of the oven, breakfast the next day was the real treat!  We discovered that they toast really well on low!

Someone who shall remain nameless went for American bacon
and eggs with the Turkish simit.

I went for a totally Turkish inspired meal:
simit, homemade yogurt, and fruit!

Reflection:  I cooked a lot of stuff on Wednesday.  No, seriously, we're talking a whole Mexican thing with marinated chicken, guacamole, and pico de gallo, a half gallon of yogurt, strawberries cleaned, cut, and dusted with a bit of sugar, and simit.  I shopped for most of the stuff on Wednesday morning.  It was a busy day.  Without a job, people have been telling me I have too much time on my hands and that I shouldn't be so interested in these things.  I understand that I need a job, world!

While I'm looking, though, what's the harm in rediscovering that I love to cook and write and take care of the people I love?

I'm really proud of the stuff I've been making lately and the purest kind of joy I get out of watching the snow fall, finding out my yogurt turned out with a perfect texture and light tanginess, and smiling like a little kid when I become and airplane for the first time in sixteen years.  I feel like I'm getting to enjoy life for the first time in a long while.  I'm not living an expensive existence, but I'm living a pretty full one.  I'm applying for jobs, spending time with loved ones, venting my feelings to caring ears, and remembering parts of myself I so often forget, and eating a lot of yummy things.

Life can be delicious in every way!

Growing yogurt

Last May, I spent three weeks in Turkey.  And with that trip, all of my sugary yogurt-laden days were ended.  Now the most I do to yogurt is drizzle a little honey or plop a little jam on top.  While traveling, it was available to me every day at breakfast and dinner - and I bought Ayran whenever I had a spare lira.  Sometimes I dream about Turkish breakfasts, so different from our American variety.  Cucumbers, tomatoes, bread, yogurt, jams galore, simit sometimes - and of course, Nescafe for coffee.

Since being home, I've dreamed about Turkey at least once a week.  Usually, I'm just passing through somewhere familiar or eating something delicious.  With all of the spare time I've had since graduating, I've been cooking a lot.  It started with the usual things: cookies, Mexican food, spaghetti squash...

Perfect Oatmeal-Mixed berry-Almond Cookies

Then - BAM - that cartoon light bulb flickered on above my head.  Surely Turkish food couldn't be any more difficult than any other food!  Almost immediately, last summer, I learned how to make my favorite vegetable staple, a cucumber and tomato chopped salad.  In between job searching and applications, I started looking for sites that could tell me how to make my favorite Turkish foods - and maybe some I'd never tried there, I thought, I could try here.  The excitement reached an all-time high when I remembered gozleme, which my boyfriend likes to call "Turkish hot pockets."  After some Americanization and experimentation with fillings, they're becoming a new favorite.  I can't wait to eat part of one for lunch!

Gozleme and Cucumber tomato salad

Then, by some providence, I clicked on a link that took me to a wonderful place.  Can you guess what it took me to?  I'll give you a few seconds to guess.
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Yogurt!  The idea of making yogurt had never occurred to me before, but I knew right then and there that I needed to do it.  Like any well-trained researcher (shout out to my historian friends), I watched videos, read countless articles, and then - when all was said and done - prayed for and dreamed of perfection.  This time, however, I wasn't hoping for a good grade, but a yummy yogurt - a much more satisfying end, I assure you.

Here's what you need if you want to make it like me:

-1/2 gallon milk

-individual container of yogurt with "live and active cultures"

-a large airtight vessel for incubation/fermentation

Here's what I did:
1) Pour the milk into a sauce pan to heat on a burner set to medium.  At this point, go ahead and take the yogurt out of the fridge - it needs to be room temperature when you use it as the starter.  Monitor the temperature of the milk with a thermometer (or, if you've boiled a lot of milk, until just under boiling) until it reaches 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is the contraption I made using a spoon handle, a clothes pin, and a meat thermometer because I don't have a candy thermometer.

I stirred almost the entire time and still wound up with some burned milk on the bottom, so I skimmed as much out as I could.

The milk near 180 degrees.  Just in case you need a guesstimate look!

2)  Remove the pan from heat and monitor the temperature until it gets down to around 115 degrees.  I actually poured my milk into another bowl because I was concerned about the burned milk.  As you can see, my thermometer only goes to 130, so I just guesstimated where 120 would be and guessed 115 accordingly.

Contraption number 2.

This takes a while.  Go watch a show or take a shower or apply to a job.  Return in half and hour or 45 minutes.

3)  Turn your oven on its lowest setting, which I hope is "warm."  Let it pre-heat.  This guy needs to incubate around 115 degrees.  Alternately for incubation, I've read that filling a cooler or crockpot with hot water and wrapping it all in towels works, though I used the oven.

Now for the fun part!  Although I didn't do this, I suggest stirring your yogurt container to break it up a bit before dumping it in the milk vat.  Dump it in, stir it up - I improvised with a spoon, though pretty much every recipe I read said "whisk."  Whichever, make sure it's smooth, with few lumps and bumps.

4)  Put the concoction into its vessel.  I had a lovely giant Ball jar, but any sealed heat-proof container should work just fine.  Pop on the lid.

5)  Now, say good-bye to your milk/yogurt goop for approximately 8 hours.  Put it in the oven, close the door, and turn the oven off.  A lot of recipes say to wrap it in towels, but I don't have any spares and my jar was so big the towels would have hit the coils and I really don't want to start a fire.  Don't open the door!

6)  Is it eight hours later?  Okay, you can open the door. Open the door!  Take it out, put it in the refrigerator.

When I reached this step, it was nearly 1 am and I was worried that I had too much whey - yeah, you'll get some of that nasty-looking yellowy stuff.  I was devastated.  I put it in a hot water bath, warmed the oven back up, and put it in again.  Then I started to think about it - for a half gallon, it wasn't that much whey.  Maybe it was just enough and I was - as usual - freaking out about nothing.  I ran back to the oven and took it out and stuck it in the fridge.

I didn't sleep well, worried, for the first time, about yogurt.  This morning, while trying to explain that I was almost afraid to get out of bed because I thought I'd messed up the yogurt, I was told, "Well, it looks like yogurt."  "I think there's too much whey!"  "You used a lot of milk..."

7)   Open the fridge.  Gaze at the yogurt vessel.  Take it out.

Tell me this doesn't look a little gross at first.

Because of my (now obviously) irrational worry in the wee hours of the morning, I drained the whey to see how much there was.

I was worried about 5 ounces of whey coming out of 64 ounces of milk and 6 ounces of yogurt.  I laughed!

I actually added some back in for flavor, but have some left.

8)  Eat it!

I added some honey before I thought to take a picture of the consistency, which is a little runny, but it tastes good.  I wonder if it would be different with whole milk or how added powdered milk would affect the tanginess, which is a little lacking for me.

Now, the sites tell me there are so many things I can do with this - make cheese, Greek yogurt, sauces, dressings, etc. - but I'm about 99.9% sure I'll just eat the yogurt and make some more next week, making sure to save just enough to be "starter" then.

I grew yogurt.  If I can, you can!





Reflection:
I'm curious as to how my great grandmother would have reacted to my using one of her canning jars to make yogurt in.  I also can't help but think of how much Nana would have gone after me for using a blue Ball jar for something not artsy/crafty/decorating, but for food.  I remember antique-hunting with her for these as a kid.  I'm really nervous I'm going to break it, but I'm thankful my butter-fingers have gotten less greasy with age.  To a long and happy life filled with delicious yogurt!