Happy Wednesday guys! I hope your week is peachy? I’m excitedly awaiting our sideboard delivery, which is happening this Friday and cracking on with DIY in between recipe testing – what a dreamy combo… A dash of caulk in your dessert anyone?
I did approximately half of the caulking last weekend, but there are a few tiny gaps that have opened up where the caulk shrunk too much and so I have to fill them again. I also have quite a bit of sanding and tidying up to do as I go along before I can whip my paintbrush out. Things take a long time if you are after a good finish, but we are certainly getting there. Finally! When I look at the photos of what our living room looked like 15 months ago, when we bought this house, it is completely unrecognisable. We stripped the ghastly wallpaper off the walls and ceiling, we knocked down two inbuilt cupboards, removed a picture rail, had a wall knocked down, replastered the walls, had new radiators installed, the floor levelled and restored, painted the walls and ceiling, installed a new ceiling lamp and are now approaching the end of installing the new skirting. It’s been a big job and we are thrilled to be on the finishing stage. Today I bring you a semi-healthy (it does feature plenty of spinach, right?) snack that hails all the way from Turkey. It’s called gözleme, it’s easy and fairly quick to make and it features fresh spinach, which is now is season, and a simplified version of my homemade vegan feta. It’s a crispy, chewy, salty, creamy and savoury parcel of deliciousness. Trust me, I’ve polished off way more than I care to admit while perfecting this recipe and shooting. They are just so easy to eat, hot off the pan. Gözleme reminds me of two things. Firstly, in my 20s I lived a stone’s throw from the buzzing Harringay Green Lanes London high street with a plethora of Turkish grocers, baklava shops (my obvious favourite!) and kebab houses which, when quieter during the day, sold steaming hot gozleme from their windows. The cooks were so skilled and I loved watching them work from the window of a bus sometimes. The second thing I’m reminded of when I tuck into one of these is having a spinach gözleme in several of Istanbul’s glorious food markets (how I wish we had something like that here) several years ago when travelling wasn’t something fraught with danger. As it will be a while before we are able to board a plane to visit somewhere like Turkey, I will travel by reviving my old food memories in my own kitchen for now.
100 g / 3.5 oz vegan feta, shop-bought** or see below 150 g / 5.3 oz fresh spinach, washed and dried 3 spring onions, green parts only sliced thinly 30 mint leaves, finely chopped (optional) ½ tsp black pepper, adjust to taste ¼ tsp salt, unless feta is very salty
HOMEMADE FETA (needs making a day ahead)
120 ml / ½ cup almond or soy milk 4 tbsp lemon juice 150 g / 5.3 oz flaked almonds or sunflower seeds, soaked in boiling water for 30 minutes 2 tbsp nutritional yeast ¾ tsp salt 1 small garlic clove
DOUGH ASSEMBLY
