I see you, hungry reader whose life is crazy right now, who has a hard time finding the time to cook even though you love food, who opens the fridge to grab a quick lunch to take to work in the morning rush only to find NOTHING that seems good enough, who values the big bowl of comfort food pasta above all else, who is not asking for much other than GOOD FOOD that is made for REAL LIFE.

I see you. I know you think I’m not watching because I’m on the other side of this computer-ma-jig, but I’m watching (um, in a not-creepy and not-literal way – just felt like I should clarify. pls don’t leave.).

So since I see you and understand you because I am just like you in these feelings, today I honor you (us?) with this super cozy, big-time nutritious, easy to prepare soup.

This is called Detox Crockpot Lentil Soup, which means nothing scientifically as you’ll notice that my bowl of DETOX soup is topped with a few thick chunks of Parmesan cheese and served with that addicting crusty-warm bread. Right, about that.

Do not use nuts (pepitas and sunflower seeds are good options) and replace the nut butter with sunflower butter.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a big spoon to mix them together until the two are evenly combined and no dry oats remain. This takes some arm muscles, but you can do it! If the mixture was easy to mix together, that’s a sign that you need to add some more oats—sprinkle in more oats until you can’t incorporate any more.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared square baker. Use your spoon to arrange the mixture fairly evenly in the baker, then use the bottom of a flat, round surface (like a short, sturdy drinking glass) to pack the mixture down as firmly and evenly as possible.
Cover the baker and refrigerate for at least one hour, or preferably overnight. (The oats need time to soak up some of the moisture so they aren’t sticky.) When you’re ready to slice, lift the bars out of the baker by grabbing both pieces of parchment paper on opposite corners. Use a sharp knife to slice the bars into 4 even columns and 4 even rows.Wrap individual bars in plastic wrap or parchment paper (if you store them all together, they will stick to one another). Bars keep well for several days at room temperature, a couple of weeks in the fridge, or several months in a freezer-safe bag in the freezer for best flavor.

With the fashion of third generation coffee making, concept coffee shops entered our lives. The trend that spread rapidly all over the world affected most of the world cities over the years. Well, which countries are famous for their coffee?
Coffee, which admires itself with its smell and leaves a unique taste on the palates, is consumed fondly all over the world. For this special flavor, which has hundreds of different trees, varieties, ways of processing and roasting, October 1 is celebrated as a coffee day all over the world. Coffee, which is very important in almost all world cultures, appears as an indispensable flavor for its lovers with its smell, taste and different aroma. Which countries are famous for this unique taste that we sip to start and continue the day well? Enuygun.com invites you to discover the world’s most famous coffees.

Turkey – Turkish Coffee
The coffee brought to Istanbul by the governor of Yemen Özdemir Pasha in 1543 was renamed Turkish Coffee with the cooking technique reinterpreted by the Turks. Today, Turkish Coffee, which is consumed by being loved “for 40 years to be remembered”, is a taste that attracts the attention of the whole world. This flavor, which dates back to the present day, can be drunk without sugar, cappuccino and sugar upon request. Turkish coffee is served according to the different tastes in different regions of Turkey.

Soak the peppers. Soak the peppers in super hot water to rehydrate them. If you want to be extra, you can toast them over a low flame to coax out some extra flavor before soaking.
Season the meat. While the peppers are soaking, season your meat generously with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Make the marinade. Grab your blender and blend together the peppers, garlic, oregano, cumin, beef stock, and vinegar.
Marinate overnight. Marinate as long as you can, or for at least 2 hours so the beef can get super flavorful. Don’t forget to season your beef with salt and pepper first.
Make the stew. Sweat the onions to build up caramelization and sweetness, add the beef (you can sear it if you want, but we’re aiming for soft and tender meat) along with all the marinade, then top it off with extra beef stock, bay leaves, and cloves. Done.

Add 1/2 cup butter in a saucepan, swirling, until butter foams and starts to turn brown and smells nutty. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
Shape the balls. Punch the dough down and divide and roll into small balls, about 1 to 1 1/4 inch in diameter. If you want to be precise about it, each ball should weigh about 15 grams.
Dip the balls into the brown butter and roll in the cinnamon sugar mix. Place each coated ball into a lightly buttered bundt pan, repeating until you finish all of the dough. Cover the bundt pan with plastic wrap and let rise for 20 minutes.
Heat the oven to 350°F.
Optional: While the oven is warming up, mix the leftover brown butter with 2-4 extra tablespoons of melted butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Just before you put the monkey bread into the oven, pour the brown butter syrup evenly into the bundt pan.
Bake for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Cover with foil if the top starts browning too quickly. Cool for 5-10 minutes, then very carefully invert onto a large plate.

This lemony green pasta recipe tastes as bright as it looks! It’s easy to make with kale, pasta, and peas—they all cook in the same pot. Serve this pasta immediately for the best color and texture; leftovers are best consumed within a day or two. Recipe yields 4 servings.
This lemony green pasta recipe tastes as bright as it looks! It’s easy to make with kale, pasta, and peas—they all cook in the same pot. Serve this pasta immediately for the best color and texture; leftovers are best consumed within a day or two. Recipe yields 4 servings.

Bring a large pot (5-quart capacity or greater) of heavily salted water to boil. Meanwhile, prepare your kale by slicing or stripping the leaves from the stems (save them). Discard the rough bottom of the stems, then slice the stems into pieces about ¼-inch wide. Place the stem pieces in a fine-mesh sieve.
When the water is boiling, place the sieve in the water, resting the lip against the top of the pot. Cook the stems for 3 minutes, then remove the sieve and add all of the kale leaves to the pot. Put the sieve back in the water on top of the leaves and cook for 5 minutes (do not drain the water).

Use maple syrup instead of honey.

MIX-IN OPTIONS: Any combination of nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc.), seeds (pepitas or sunflower seeds), chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate, shredded coconut and/or dried cranberries or cherries. For the bars shown here, I used 1 cup pecan halves, ½ cup pepitas, ¼ cup shredded coconut and ¼ cup roughly chopped dark chocolate. Keep in mind that anything larger than your pinky nail will need to be broken into smaller pieces. If you don’t have a food processor, chop them by hand.

GRANOLA BAR TEXTURE: If you’re using old-fashioned oats and would prefer a more smooth, less chewy texture (shown in my photos), blitz your oats in a food processor for 3 to 5 seconds to break them up. Then, add them to the bowl.

CHANGE IT UP: These bars can be sweetened (mostly) with Medjool dates, if you’d like to increase the fiber content. Soak 12 dates in piping hot water for 10 minutes, then tear them in half and remove their pits. Place them in a food processor with 2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey and blend until completely smooth.

MAKE IT GLUTEN FREE: Be sure to use certified gluten-free oats.

Do not use nuts (pepitas and sunflower seeds are good options) and replace the nut butter with sunflower butter.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a big spoon to mix them together until the two are evenly combined and no dry oats remain. This takes some arm muscles, but you can do it! If the mixture was easy to mix together, that’s a sign that you need to add some more oats—sprinkle in more oats until you can’t incorporate any more.
(The oats need time to soak up some of the moisture so they aren’t sticky.) When you’re ready to slice, lift the bars out of the baker by grabbing both pieces of parchment paper on opposite corners. Use a sharp knife to slice the bars into 4 even columns and 4 even rows. Wrap individual bars in plastic wrap or parchment paper (if you store them all together, they will stick to one another). Bars keep well for several days at room temperature, a couple of weeks in the fridge, or several months in a freezer-safe bag in the freezer for best flavor.

Best Way To Make Bacon
I prefer to bake my bacon in the oven. Yep, you read that right—I place it on a baking rack over a baking sheet, and I get uniform crispy bacon every time. Check out my step-by-step guide: How to Make Bacon in the Oven.

THE BEST POTATOES FOR LOADED BAKED POTATOES
Simply Recipes has an excellent tutorial on baked potatoes, so I won’t reinvent the wheel here. I essentially follow the method in that article.

I shoot for medium-to-large potatoes (less than a pound per potato, for sure). I scrub mine well and stab them with a fork many times all over. Then, I rub them with some olive oil and a good sprinkle of coarse salt. Bake the potatoes at 400˚F until they have wrinkled skins and are very tender on the inside; about an hour is a good guideline.

I wouldn’t alter from the classic here. Russet potatoes are what you want. That said, I would stay away from the Godzilla-sized potatoes that you can sometimes find. A lot is going into these, and you don’t need to start with a pound of potatoes. I shoot for around 10- to 12-ounce russet potatoes.

How To Make Ratatouille?
You’ll find the full rundown in the recipe below. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the recipe—it’s not hard. Here’s the gist:

Prep your veggies and preheat the oven.
Toss the eggplant with olive oil and salt on one baking sheet, and the squash and bell pepper on another baking sheet. Arrange the vegetables in an even layer. (Using two pans gives the vegetables room to breathe and lets us split the veggies by cook times.)
Bake both pans in the oven at once, stirring halfway. The eggplant will finish sooner than the other pan.
Meanwhile, make a simple tomato sauce on the stovetop. Stir the roasted vegetables into the simmering tomato sauce as they’re ready.
Lastly, add fresh basil and seasonings. Serve immediately, or let it cool to room temperature before refrigerating for later.
Serve ratatouille as a stew, with crusty bread on the side. Toasted if you wish.
Serve it over freshly cooked pasta. So good.
Leftovers make a great breakfast. Just add cooked eggs: fried, scrambled or poached.

how to make pizza dough

I searched to the ends of the internet to find a simple, foolproof, quick whole wheat pizza dough recipe. I went through a couple of bags of flour in the process and made quite a mess.

First, Jim Lahey’s no-knead dough failed me at least three times. I think it was because I was making it with whole wheat pastry flour. Lesson learned: Whole wheat pastry flour and yeast don’t get along.

I also tried Cook’s Country’s skillet dough, which turns out to be fried flatbread. No thanks.

It’s made from scratch with basic, wholesome ingredients.
You can make it in your food processor (or by hand).
This dough requires zero proofing time. You can make your pizzas right away.
The dough requires minimal effort—just a couple of kneads and a few rolls with a rolling pin.
Let’s make some pizzas!

Finally, I turned to one of my favorite bloggers and sweetest friends, Melissa of The Fauxmartha. She posted an adaptation of Cook’s Country’s quick grilled pizza dough. My version is a combination of the two and is made with 100 percent whole wheat flour.

Do not use nuts (pepitas and sunflower seeds are good options) and replace the nut butter with sunflower butter.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a big spoon to mix them together until the two are evenly combined and no dry oats remain. This takes some arm muscles, but you can do it! If the mixture was easy to mix together, that’s a sign that you need to add some more oats—sprinkle in more oats until you can’t incorporate any more.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared square baker. Use your spoon to arrange the mixture fairly evenly in the baker, then use the bottom of a flat, round surface (like a short, sturdy drinking glass) to pack the mixture down as firmly and evenly as possible.
Cover the baker and refrigerate for at least one hour, or preferably overnight. (The oats need time to soak up some of the moisture so they aren’t sticky.) When you’re ready to slice, lift the bars out of the baker by grabbing both pieces of parchment paper on opposite corners. Use a sharp knife to slice the bars into 4 even columns and 4 even rows.Wrap individual bars in plastic wrap or parchment paper (if you store them all together, they will stick to one another). Bars keep well for several days at room temperature, a couple of weeks in the fridge, or several months in a freezer-safe bag in the freezer for best flavor.

Use maple syrup instead of honey.

MIX-IN OPTIONS: Any combination of nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc.), seeds (pepitas or sunflower seeds), chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate, shredded coconut and/or dried cranberries or cherries. For the bars shown here, I used 1 cup pecan halves, ½ cup pepitas, ¼ cup shredded coconut and ¼ cup roughly chopped dark chocolate. Keep in mind that anything larger than your pinky nail will need to be broken into smaller pieces. If you don’t have a food processor, chop them by hand.

**GRANOLA BAR TEXTURE: If you’re using old-fashioned oats and would prefer a more smooth, less chewy texture (shown in my photos), blitz your oats in a food processor for 3 to 5 seconds to break them up. Then, add them to the bowl.

CHANGE IT UP: These bars can be sweetened (mostly) with Medjool dates, if you’d like to increase the fiber content. Soak 12 dates in piping hot water for 10 minutes, then tear them in half and remove their pits. Place them in a food processor with 2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey and blend until completely smooth.

MAKE IT GLUTEN FREE: Be sure to use certified gluten-free oats.

Add 1/2 cup butter in a saucepan, swirling, until butter foams and starts to turn brown and smells nutty. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
Shape the balls. Punch the dough down and divide and roll into small balls, about 1 to 1 1/4 inch in diameter. If you want to be precise about it, each ball should weigh about 15 grams.
Dip the balls into the brown butter and roll in the cinnamon sugar mix. Place each coated ball into a lightly buttered bundt pan, repeating until you finish all of the dough. Cover the bundt pan with plastic wrap and let rise for 20 minutes.
Heat the oven to 350°F.
Optional: While the oven is warming up, mix the leftover brown butter with 2-4 extra tablespoons of melted butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Just before you put the monkey bread into the oven, pour the brown butter syrup evenly into the bundt pan.
Bake for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Cover with foil if the top starts browning too quickly. Cool for 5-10 minutes, then very carefully invert onto a large plate.