Leyla & Serena's food bloggies
things about food
I’m on a seafood diet, I see food and I eat it.
— unknown
Welcome to our foodblog! We are Serena and Leyla, two 16 year old girls who love food. Serena is Italian and Leyla is Turkish, so we have a lot to tell you about our different cultures and kinds of food. See you in our next post!
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I really wanted to write this article because a lot of people don’t really know what halal exactly means. So, what is it?
Halal and haram are very often used in the islam. Halal means allowed by God or clean, in islam Allah, and haram means forbidden by God. Halal is what most people know for meat, but it can also be about your actions or clothes, for example wearing very revealing clothes or smoking sigarettes is haram. Meanwhile wearing covering clothes and staying away from sigarettes and other drugs is halal.
But what is halal if we speak about meat? You can find different types of halal meat in an islamic butchery or shop where they sell packed meat.
Halal meat has to do with the way the animal is slaughtered and which animal it is. Let’s first talk about the way it’s slaughtered. The butcher has to be a practising muslim, the animal can’t have any ppain before and during the slaughter and it has to be healthy. The animal also can’t be in the same room as the other animals, the animal may not be stressed and may not see the knive. The knive has to be very sharp because it has to cut the throat all at once, so the animal doesn’t endures any pain.
Bismillah, Allahu Akbar
During the slaughter, de butcher has to say “Bismillah, Allahu Akbar”, which means ” in the name of God, God is great”
After the slaughter the head can’t be removed until the organs are all removed, then the animal has to bleed out, after this all, you can say that your meat is halal.
My opinion about this ritual is that I find this a really ‘nice’, if I can say that, way to slaughter an animal. I don’t like the thought of an animal being killed but I think this is the best way to do it while the animal doesn’t have stress and other animals can’t see this happening. As people are scared from syringes, which don’t even kill us, animals are very scared of knives and I’m happy that the animal of the meat I eat, hasn’t seen the knive and didn’t endure any pain.
‘The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later, you’re hungry again’
George Miller
Ofcourse the Italians always start with antipasti, which is an ‘appetizer’ in English. What they also eat a lot before really starting with all of the other foods, is a ‘pizza bianca’ or ‘focaccia’, it actually is pizza dough with fresh herbs such as thyme and rosemary. They finish it with dried tomatoes, arugula and salt.
Then as a starter they eat varied things such as ‘prosciutto di Parma con melone’, it is Parma ham with orange melon. Another example, well, actually all sorts of pasta. It can be farfalle (butterfly), fusill (spiral), macaroni, linguine … and to be honest I really love all of them!
As a main dish for Italians, well ofcourse pasta comes back. But you still have hundreds of other dishes which are all amazing. Risotto is one of my favorites, it is rise baked in a pan, and later mixed with broth of whatever you like, it can be of vegetables, meat, fish… And how can I make a foodblog about Italian food without mentioning pizza?
“If we’re not supposed to have midnight snacks, why is there a light in the freezer?’
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This post is more of a personal one, I’m going to fill you in about my favorite snacks.
The first snack I want to talk about is ‘lupinis’ which are beans who are very bitter of themselves, but can be prepared in a way so that they become more salty. You’ll have to cook the beans, leave them in water, and later replace the water with salted water. As you probably already saw, it is an Italian snack. But if you ever want to try it, you’ll probably better look up the proper way to eat them, it is not the easiest way. Yet I really love this snack.
Another snack I eat a lot is cucumber with lemon juice, pepper, salt and lemon oil (or normal olive oil). It is super healthy, easy to make and delicious.
And if you’re wondering, yes, I also love ‘normal’ snacks like cookies, fruit or ice cream:).
The last snack I want to show you is called ‘focaccia’. It actually is a pizza without tomatosauce, with only olive oil, herbs and salt. Finished with dried tomatoes, arugula and coarse salt. Sometimes we put olives on top too. My dad makes this a lot, I love it.
The last snack I want to show you is called ‘focaccia’. It actually is a pizza without tomatosauce, with only olive oil, herbs and salt. Finished with dried tomatoes, arugula and coarse salt. Sometimes we put olives on top too. My dad makes this a lot, I love it.
‘Less regretti, eat more spaghetti.’
Food Journal
Christmas is a very big feast in Italy. Ofcourse when you hear ‘feast’ you think about food. But which food?
What Italians eat a lot around Christmas is ‘Cenone della Vigilia’ it’s actually Christmas eve dinner, you can see it as the name of what they eat on Christmas eve.
They eat a lot of fish on Christmas eve, that’s why they call it ‘the feast of the seven fishes’ or ‘festa dei sette pesci’ in Italian. The fishes they eat are anchovies, whiting, lobster, sardines, baccalà (dried salt cod), smelts, eels, squid, octopus, shrimp, mussels and clams. The menu can also include pasta, vegetables, baked good and (ofcourse) wine.
After all that food, there still is the dessert, right? Well, in Italy they always eat sweet bread after their Christmas dinner, Panettone and Pandoro.
Panettone is an Italian luxury loaf orcake with fruits and originally it origines from Milan. Nowadays it is also made with a lot of other things, such as chocolate or limoncello.
Pandoro is a bit simpler, it is an greasy, high, cake with powdered sugar spread over it.
We mostly have like 10 panettones and pandoros underneath our Christmas tree, in all sizes, tastes, and different (special) boxes.
Have you ever wondered what Easter looks like in Italy? Today is your lucky day:).
Easter is called ‘Pasqua’ in Italian. Ofcourse this is still a food blog and I will tell you about the food that is made during Easter, and not all about the typical habits.
Well let’s get started, in Italy, the most important dish that is made during Easter is ‘Easter pie’ or ‘Pizza di Pasqua’. It is NOT pizza. You can compare it with bread, filled with al kinds of things. You can put in cheese, bacon, eggs, herbs…
Delicious!
They don’t only eat ‘Pizza di Pasqua’, they also eat easter eggs, boiled and chocolate ones. They usually give it to each other as a gift. Another dish is lamb, a typical Italian dish during Easter.
Feeling curious about Italian Easter? Subscribe to this channel and wait for our next foodblogs!
“baklava has a ton of nuts, it’s practically a protein bar”
Baklava. The most known dessert of Turkey. It is made of different layers of puff pastry, honey & pistachios.
Most people only know one type of baklava, but there are a lot of variations. You have different forms and flavours, let’s take a look at it.
To begin with, you have the traditional layered baklava with honey and pistachios. They are mostly cut in squares, but you can cut them as you like, for example in a diamond form.
Then you also have this green pistachio baklava, which is made of pistachios obviously.
You should definitely try these out when you visit Turkey, or go to a multicultural market if you want to try them immediately!
Most types of baklava contain pistachios, if you don’t like them, you must try our baklava with walnuts. They are delicious!
These delicious looking baklava cups aren’t typical Turkish, but I think they look very cute and would like to try them. They would go nice with çay, which is Turkish tea and is very ften served with baklava on the side.
As a final, this one is definitely going to be your favourite…
Chocolate baklava, yes it exists. You don’t find this one very often, but I’ve tried it one time on a market and it was like heaven.
Cooking sarma in 2 hours, eating it in 2 minutes.
– Turkish Problems
As everyone knows, Turks love cooking and eating food. When you eat with a Turkish family, the first thing you will get is çay. This is typical turkish black tea.Çay is served in a small glass and you can choose how dark you want the tea to be. This tea is very often consumed with ‘çekirdek’, sunflower seeds, Turkish people are literally addicted to them. Another famous drink in Turkey is ayran, this is a mixure of 3 ingredients: water, yoghurt and salt.
A Turkish meal mostly starts with a soup or with an appetizer, the most common one is ‘börek’. This is puff pastry filled with beef, feta or spinach and they come in different forms, a popular one is ‘sıgara börek’ in the form of a cigar. Another appetizer is sarma, this is rice and beef rolled up in a vineleaf. It is very delicious and mostly eaten with feasts.
The main dishes in Turkey are very various, my favourite one is ‘kuru fasülye (pilav)’, which means literally ‘dry beans (rice)’. these are, as it says, dry beans. They are most of the time in a red sauce and rice is added if you like. Another famous dish is mantı, this looks a bit like ravioli, but is way smaller and are only filled with minced meat, eaten in tomato sauce and topped with yoghurt.
Then we have come to the sweet part of Turkey. The most popular dessert is baklava, this is a dessert made of puff pastry, honey and pistachios, for more information, you should check my post that’s all about baklava. Another one, not so well known in the world, is künefe, this heavenly dessert is made of cheese, shredded Kadayif noodles soaked in syrup. You have to try it.
Obviously there are way more Turkish dishes, which you will get to know in our next posts!
It’s Ramadan in 4 months, my favourite time of the year, especially The Sugar Feast on the end of the month.
First, let me give you some information about what Ramadan exactly is. You can compare it to the fasting period before Easter, but way more strict. At Ramadan, muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, for one whole month. This is the 9th month of the islamic calender. After sunset, at “iftar” we eat lots of delicious food at home, or at events to eat all together.
Now the part where we celebrate the end of Ramadan, The Sugar Feast, or in Arabic “Eid-Al-Fitr”
This feast is about 1-3 days, it depends on how your family celebrates it. To prepare us for this day, we go shopping and buy new clothes or put our prettiest clothes on, have our hands decorated with henna, but when you have guests coming over, you have to think about all the food that you have to prepare. Here are some typical dishes we eat at The Sugar Feast:
The most popular one is baklava, some families make it themselves, but most people just order it from a Turkish bakery.
Another famous sweet is Turkish Delight or ‘lokum’ in Turkish.
This ‘dish’ is not sweet, but it is on of my favourites. Sarma is rice and minced meat with a lot of other herbs, wrapped up in a vineleaf. It’s really worth the try.
Şekerpare is one of the very popular sweets eaten at The Sugar Feast. These are soft balls of almond based dough, dipped in syrup with a little almond on top.
Do you want to know more about Turkish sweets and different feasts of my culture? Then keep following our blog for more!
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