I know, I know, I’ve promised 2 recipes since last week. Something occurred, though. Two days ago, I was searching for a solution dealing with some soured whipping cream... and I ended up clicking the recipes on my blog.

So, I told myself ’Why not make a list of recipes to bake/cook when we’ve got ingredients about to spoil?’

I’d like to keep it updated, by categories!

Basic ingredients

cottage cheese: papanaşi, baked papanaşi, Dobrujan pie

egg whites: Pavlova, pricomigdale, walnut cookies

milk: supangle, muhallabieh, galatopita, trileqe, condensed milk

sour cream: ashta

whipping cream: savarine, molehill cake

yoghurt: Romanian donuts, lemon pound cake

1 yolk: tart crust

several yolks: crema catalana

Fruits

apples: apple pie, apple strudel

bananas: Banoffee Pie, vegan coconut and strawberry dessert, vegan banana cookies, vegan banana and peanut butter cookies, vegan banana pound cake, banana and oatmeal cake, banana muffins

blackberries: syrup

grapes: grape pizza, grape cake

quinces: upside-down quince cake

raspberries: smoothie

rhubarb: rhubarb and strawberry cake, rhubarb sauce

Vegetables and herbs

basil: pesto

eggplant: mirza ghasemi

spinach: spanakopita

Already-processed foods

condensed milk: colchão de noiva, Deliciu

preserves: negresă (Romanian brownie)

rice cakes: chocolate cake bars

♥

My weeks are tough. I work so much that I cannot stick to my daily chores (the recipe should have been published yesterday). To top it all, today’s my name day (which nobody knows about), but I made a cake and a pizza, to keep things festive. J 

And I recall Iran. I miss Iran, I miss my friends there, I miss the taste of this mirza ghasemi... I miss wandering around – I have travelled through Romania this year, but I wish to do it worldwide, without restrictions. I wish to be able to hug anybody without asking if he(she) allows me to.

Each trip to Iran had a certain warmth about it. I haven’t found this warmth anywhere else but at home.

This dish from northern Iran (around the Caspian Sea) saved me on many days, while I was trying to navigate through the labyrinth of non-vegetarian lunches and dinners.

I liked it so much the first time that I tried it (I was in Masuleh) that I congratulated the chef and I asked for an extra portion. Our waiter told us how to prepare it and I wrote down the recipe knowing that I’d surely use it someday.

Mirza ghasemi is not hard at all to make.

For 4 portions, you’ll need

4 eggplants

3-4 garlic cloves

3 tomatoes

(Marcel insisted to add 1 onion to the mix)

1 large egg

salt

+olive oil for frying

Smoke the eggplants. Let them cool and clean them.

Start frying the garlic (cleaned and cut into pieces), then add the tomatoes (cut into pieces) and the thinly-cut onion (and fry everything on medium heat for about 5 minutes). Add the cut eggplants and a pinch of salt (and fry for 5 minutes more).

When the ingredients are well done, break the egg and mix well.

Serve warm.

This is an appetizer, but I also served it with rice or fries. You could also spread it on a slice of bread or a flatbread.

The flavour is fantastic! At least from a culinary perspective, we do travel.

My last memory connected to mirza ghasemi is its cooking by a dear friend met on Qeshm Island – he was from the north, I was craving mirza, he knew that I wasn’t going to find it anywhere, so he cooked it... and Marcel happily helped him. 

P.S. The eggplants were from a close friend of mine. J