cook-food

Sigara böreği takes its name from the shape of cigarettes. Although I truly loathe cigarettes, I love cigarette rolled boreks! Addictive is the right word to describe these little rolls. In Turkey , they are usually served as appetizers, for breakfast and as an afternoon snack with a hot Turkish tea. I have tried making these numerous times using whole fat Turkish white cheese and each time the cheese would leak during frying and ruin their appearance and taste. I have tried rolling them differently, adding an egg white to keep the cheese together but it kept leaking. Then I realized I was using cheese with whole fat which was causing the leaking. Since I couldn’t find low fat Turkish white cheese, I used low fat feta and for the first time I prepared rolls that did have leaked cheese during frying. They were so good to look at I was hesitant to eat them (no, not really) J I do not normally purchase anything low fat or diet so I had to make an exception for this. They tasted incredibl...

With winter comes, my favorite winter vegetables: chard and leeks. I started buying chard and leeks because of their nutritional value which I feed my little kids on a weekly basis. I grew up eating chard which I was not fond of but my mother only made it with a yogurt soup with grain which is eaten cold. I don’t recall eating it any other way. For böreks, my mother only used spinach and never chard. After I learned cooking many years later, I tried böreks with Swiss chard and regular chard and I was very happy with the results. This time I wanted to add leeks since I had them on hand and really it was so light and delicious! I prepared the stuffing ahead of time and froze it as it is almost impossible for me to make everything the same day with two little kids and work.  I made the dough the same day I made the böreks and the stuffing tasted as if fresh. We all enjoyed them; especially my boys. They kept wanting more and more. Even though I was in a hurry when making them and...