Turkish Recipes, BBQ Tenderloin, and Strawberry Cream Cheese Pancakes

Burası İstanbul.

More Turkish recipes! Thought I would add a picture for excitement.

I discovered nearly every culture has some version of rice pudding, but Turkey's is definitely my favorite. SO YUMMY and easy!

Sutlaç

1/2 cup white rice
2 cups water
1 lt (4 cups) milk
3/4-1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup corn starch

First, cook the rice with 2 cups of water until most of the water is soaked up.
Add the next 3 ingredients (not the corn starch!), and cook over low heat for around 30 minutes (STIRRING A LOT).
Mix the corn starch with a bit of water and add to the mixture.
Cook for at least 5 more minutes, or until it reaches the consistency you want.
NOW is the Turkish part. Put the pudding into a small pan (or if you have those oven-safe single serving dishes that would be perfect!) and broil for a few minutes until the top turns brown. YUMMY! Serve hot or chilled!

Nohutlu Pilav
This is super common in Turkey, you can get it almost anywhere. It's suuuuper good, and healthier than regular rice if only for the protein added by garbanzo beans. It's probably a bit high in sodium due to being cooked in chicken broth but WHO CARES. Enjoy.
1 cup rice, soaked for 30 min in warm water (I use baldo rice that I brought home from Turkey but regular white rice works fine)
1 medium chopped onion
1/2 cup cooked or canned garbanzo beans
2-3 Tbsp. butter
2 cups boullion (chicken, preferably)
pepper!

Saute butter and onions together until the onions are soft.
Add rice and garbanzo beans and saute for another couple of minutes.
Add boullion and pepper, bring to a boil.
Put cover on and cook over low heat until all the boullion is soaked up (don't stir during the cooking process!)
Take off heat and cover with paper towel or kitchen towel. Place lid on top again. Leave sit for 10 minutes.
Take off cover and fluff with fork; serve.
You can add stuff besides garbanzo beans! Cooked chicken is common, but veggies like tomatoes or cooked carrots would be yummy too.

Recipes are courtesy of almostturkish.blogspot.com, my Turkish friend's mom, and modifications by me!

BBQ Pork Tenderloin

Pork Tenderloin
~1 cup BBQ Sauce (My recipe is here: http://verslareesa.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html)
3 small red potatoes
Mixed veggies

Marinate the tenderloin overnight in about half of the BBQ sauce.
The next day, poke some holes in the potatoes and cook in microwave for 1-2 minutes (they shouldn't be fully cooked but at least partially!)
Cut up potatoes, place in glass baking pan with tenderloin and mixed veggies (I used a frozen Mediterranean mix from the grocery store--probably about a cup of them.)
Pour about 1/4 cup of remaning BBQ sauce over the tenderloin and some olive oil on the veggies/potatoes.
Cover with tin foil and cook for at least an hour at 350. It should be almost completely white in the middle (a tiny bit of pinkness is doable.)

This was a collaborative recipe between my mama and I. Mostly my mom.
Strawberry Cream Cheese-Filled Pancakes
I came up with this idea of filling the pancakes because cream cheese and jam wouldn't cook well. They heat up nicely in the middle of the pancake and seem like a surprise when you eat it. You could try other fillings--peanut butter and choc. chips, cheese, or blueberry sauce.
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 1/4 cups buttermilk (5 tsp. vinegar and the rest milk to equal 1 1/4 cup)

1 egg

3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tsp almond extract

Filling:
Strawberry jam
Cream Cheese

Mix dry ingredients for pancakes together.
Make a dip in the dry ingredients and add the wet ones.
Mix well with fork.

Heat canola oil or butter in a pan over medium-low heat.
Pour some batter into pan, and immediately put a dollop of cream cheese and one of jam on top. Pour more pancake batter on top to cover.
Cook both sides until brown.

Pancake recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com, modified (of course) by me. When do I ever make something like the recipe says... :S