What are you doing for fun??

exbrnxgrl

And interesting to see Bryan Cranston as someone other than a meth cooker!

Anonymous

I got to go to my niece's 1st birthday party in Nashville this past weekend. It was wonderful and such a joy to do something "normal" like that!

MusicLover

I saw the movie Non-Stop on Friday night with friends it was very good, went out to the Hamptons on Saturday night to visit with other friends and then just hung out on Sunday and today, did basically nothing. 

stagefree

oh İ missed so much lately.. 

Susan, let me see.. Of course mom has the best recipes, anatolian style.. İ'll post a couple asap..  And some of my other favorite recipes as well .. For a sec, İ thought you were here actually! My hear beat so fast of joy to possibly see you! Oh well, maybe in the spring or summer..

Why wait.. Let's start with Lebeniye, a southeastern soup from Kilis, where my roots are:

İngredients

1/2 kg of plain yoghurt  ( you call Greek it's OK ha ha)

1 egg

A handfull of rice

1/4 kg of presoaked (overnight) and boiled chickpeas

A table spoon of butter

A table spoon of flour (white )

A table spoon of virgin oil

A tablespoon of dried and powdered mint

1 lt of water

1/4 kg fat free lamb chopped / not minced to your preference ( İ like them noticable in the plate)

Salt / black pepper to add when serving to your taste

Love to cook

Ok let's start:

You put the butter and meat and stir till the meat is tender then add the water and rice( washed and soaked for 10 min. İn water) to cook. İt takes about 10-15 min max till the rice is eadably (new word?!) soft .. You mix the flour, yoghurt and egg (some folks throw away the yolk not to darken the soup but it's protein! Keep it) and boil in another pan .. Add the water from the meat rice mixture a tablespoon stirring carefully to the yoghurt mixture.. So they blend to a creamy mixture.. After making sure the yoghurt is ready to blend well with everything else, mix it all and boil 5 more min. Add the precooked chickpeas last so they won't crush while stirring.. 

İn a small pan fry the olive oil not darken it too much and stir in the mint.. One more minute and you add the minted oil to the soup.. İ rinse the small pan with a large spoon of spoup to add in, to make sure nothing is left out! ) ready.. Who am İ kidding this is actually a main course, and a respected one indeed.. 

As you see the pic İ found has a bit (!) more oil than İ described for the entire pan(İ prefer like that) .. Also İ put more yoghurt so it becomes more creamy. İt is yummy.. And after the first time you cook it, you'll find out it's quite easy to prepare.. 

Saved my stomach during taxotere days.. Still my favorite.. Here served with bulghur if you like.. As a main course.. 

Enjoy & of course please share your comments.. 

İ'll be back with the lentil recipes..

Hugs all, 

Ebru

susan_02143

Yea!!! I love this dish too. In fact, I haven't found a Turkish dish that I don't love! And, since I buy two whole lambs every year, I have the best quality in the freezer. Can't wait to see your mother's Lentil Soup recipe, which is, I am sure, the very best.

*susan*

exbrnxgrl

Mmmmmmm! This recipe is very similar to an Afghan dish. 

KiwiCatMom

Sounds fantastic!  I'll pass it on to my husband as he does most of the cooking - largely in self defense as I'm not great in the kitchen.  He said the thing I make best for dinner is reservations.   There's a lot of Turkish restaurants here and some are quite good!

Fitzy

Having lunch at a fabulous French Bistro with my Gal Pals for International Women's Day!

KiwiCatMom

Off to the Otaki Beach kite festival.  Hope to post a pic or two afterwards.  We went last year and it was fun, but I was on crutches following having the pin put in my femur.  So this year, I'll be mobile!  It's a bright sunny day so it should be great!

Heidihill

That really looks so yummy, stagefree! Have fun at the Kite Fest, Kiwicatmom!

exbrnxgrl

Have fun everyone! I'm working on report cards this weekend as conferences start on Thursday. I'll also be babysitting my sweet granddaughter tonight. Younger dd and I are counting down the days until,our California Coastal cruise!

Caryn

DivineMrsM

We spent many years doing home improvements.  Then, after the bc diagnosis, I chose to spend money on traveling and kept things as they were around here. After three years of not doing any new home decorating, now I've been sprucing things up. I purchased two lovely upholstered benches for our kitchen island to replace the wooden benches.....vastly more comfortable and so pretty.  Now I am going to change out the hardware on the cabinets from bronze to brushed nickel.  I bought a small houseplant at Lowe's yesterday to put in the place of a very overgrown one in the living room.  The one was so large it obstructed views when sitting in there for conversation.  That simple change made all the difference. The larger plant found a perfect new home in DS's bedroom.  His walls are dark red, so the large green leaves really pop.  I was happy that he thought it looked great.  Lately I've been fascinated with going to TJ Maxx, Kirklands and Home Goods and browse their merchandise; have been fascinated by all the lamps and bought a much need one for DS's room and have my eye out for one for the kitchen.  I love looking at their bake ware and dishes as well.

Tina2

Just took our nearly three-year-old great niece to her first live theatre experience, followed by pizza for lunch, followed by her first bus ride. 

A fabulous time was had by all.

Bonus: the sun is shining!

Tina

stagefree

Well Susan.. I asked mom for a couple of recipes..her answer "she should come over here.. " I explained you were not in Istanbul… shall return with a few soon

hugs

Ebru

susan_02143

Ebru,

Like mother, like daughter.  :-)

My husband and I are arguing about our next trip. I say Istanbul. He says Barcelona. We have family in Istanbul with  young girls growing older. Barcelona? Don't know a soul, but he really wants that time in Basque Country. To be honest, I don't begrudge him this wish. Too bad we can't afford trips every 6 months.

*susan*

GatorGal

I, like just Judie, would love a trip around the world meeting all my BCO buddies.  That would be so cool.  Have been lucky enough to meet some  and I have to say, we are all lovely people!  Y treat this week is going to Lancaster, pa withmy sister to see Trisha yearwood in concert.  We are hoping she has a special guest appear, namely her DH, Garth brooks!  

Forever49

My husband and I bought 30 weeks vacation package for resort suites/condos only.  I figured I may as well use some of that retirement money I've been saving all these years to travel now since who knows if I'll be here in 10 years when we want to retire.  Haven't been on a real vacation in 5 years.  We're taking our children (21 & 17) to Lake Tahoe this summer.  Can't wait!

sandilee

Made plans today to visit my son up north in a couple of weeks.  Made hotel reservations, found someone to take care of my dog, and moved my oncologist appointment back 10 days so I could make the trip. TAKE THAT,  stupid cancer!  :-)  I'll be going up to see my son and DIL, whom I haven't seen since Christmas, and  traveling with DIL's mum, who is about the most fun person in the world. Really looking forward to it!  I could feel my soul soar as soon as I made the decision. To think that I almost let the fact that I had an oncologist appointment that week stop me. Ha! 

susan_02143

Ha indeed! Sounds like a wonderful trip!

*susan*

exbrnxgrl

Forever49,

Tahoe is lovely in the summer. We've had a terribly dry winter here in Northern CA, but the lake should still be lovely.

Sandilee,

You sound so excited! Enjoy every minute of it.

I had posted some time ago about booking another cruise. I was worried that my older dd would be unhappy that I was going with younger dd (younger dd and her husband's family were on the NZ/AUS cruise). Happily, it's all worked out and we'll be doing a California coastal , including Ensenada, in early April. We've been to all the ports before but there's always something new to discover. Looking forward to a winery tour in Ensensda and then the best fish tacos, bicycling in San Diego and then just some strolling around in Long Beach and Santa Barbara. Most of all I'm going to enjoy the tranquility of our sea days!

Caryn

sandilee

It sounds lovely, Caryn, and that "tranquility" will be even more enjoyable with the special people you're with. That's hard to beat.

susan_02143

I did something fun this week. Well, it was fun for me. For a while, I was having some issues with muscle pain and back strength. I did my allowed PT sessions and that helped with my core strength. But, I was unable to loosen the muscles behind my shoulder blades. After doing some research, I decided to have a massage with someone who had been trained in oncology massage. A few sessions with this young woman, and I felt so much better. She was very aware of the lymph system, and was able to avoid the triggers and didn't increase my Faslodex butt pain. I had my last session with her about 2 months ago.

Last week, she called me. Turns out she teaches oncology massage and had two patients coming from Bermuda and Malaysia respectively and needed a body to massage. What fun! We spent about 40 minutes discussing how I got here; the students had such great questions; and then of course, the massage. I had forgotten how much I love to teach. Oncology massage is so important for breast cancer patients, and it seemed like a really wonderful way to ensure that patients elsewhere have access.

*susan*

exbrnxgrl

Susan,

How wonderful on two counts. 1) the massage made you feel better 2) you helped others learn this valuable technique. I have always loved massages but have been skittish since my bmx. All I can say is ahhhhhh.

Caryn

Tina2

Taxes!

Okay, that was my joke of the day.

Tina

chele

I've been anxious to get started gardening!  But the weather isn't cooperating. Years ago I reclaimed some glass block and glass cabinet doors with the intention of building a cold frame.  I finally got that done!  Hoping it will have warmed the ground enough to plant tomorrow.

I'm intrigued by vertical gardening.  I'm also intrigued by all the pallet projects I've seen online.  So, I put the two together and built two vertical strawberry beds!  I have some two year old plants I'm hoping to successfully transplant.

I had to buy a Sawzall for my project arr arr arr (remember Tim Allen?)  Fun running it!

Tina2

Very cool, Chele.

Tina

chele

Thanks Tina!

exbrnxgrl

wow, Chele! I grew up in NYC, not much on home gardening. When I had a house of my own, I really got into growing veggies. I live in a townhouse now, but a few raised beds, so manage to grow a small amount. Love the vert gardening idea.

Caryn

exbrnxgrl

I did a 5K walk today. The city of Dublin, CA sponsors it as part of their St.Patricks Day Festival. DD and SIL ran it. I posted this on another thread but it was pretty amusing, so I'm posting it here. As we were walking back to the car, we came to a crosswalk. A young man had set up a table and was urging people to "Register to vote, lower health care costs, help a cancer patient." My daughter promptly took my arm and guided me across the street. Yup, she helped a cancer patient!

Caryn

susan_02143

Chele,

How cool is that? I raked my herb garden dirt. Someone has been digging in that bed and I want my chives to have a shot at coming up whenever Spring decides to come and visit. Hope that you will post more pictures when your strawberry plants go in.

*susan*