Tag: Nutrition

Summertime Veggies with Yogurt and Mint

26 June 2025

Summer is in full flow so it’s time for some lighter dishes that bring to the fore fresh seasonal ingredients at their best. I found this on-trend recipe that uses fresh peas, broad beans and runner beans while going through some old stuff in the UK recently.

A taste of summer

I was at my late parents’ old place and during the archaeological dig I found a copy of the first vegetarian cookbook that I owned – Elaine Bastable’s Vegetarian Feast, a Christmas present from way back in 1985. It was sold by Marks & Spencer under its StMichael guise.

Vegetarian Feast was quite advanced for its time with a recipe for Avocado (and Stilton) on Toast, a Felafel recipe and other dishes that were very exotic for Margaret Thatcher’s meat-heavy Britain of the 80s. The cookbook’s over-reliance on butter comes across in the 2025 filter as a bit dated, but it still stands the test of time in many respects.

A blast from the past

1985 was the year I finally took the plunge and went vegetarian. It had been coming for a while. As an impoverished student the meat that I could afford was of the type that had featured in documentaries of the time looking at the meat industry.

Affordable processed products such as burgers and sausages were shown to contain all parts of an animal – mashed up eyelids, lips, bollocks and toes, to be precise.

Although there are now many more vegans and vegetarians, not much has changed in the meat industry – as I write the Guardian is carrying this article on the shocking rise of factory farms across Europe and the UK.

Here’s the recipe

In the summer of 1985 I had just finished uni and I was travelling through Yugoslavia, as was, to Greece via Bulgaria and Turkey. Bulgaria was a veggie turning point. Cafe menus featured a wide selection but when asking for a particular dish a frosty niama (approx: We don’t have it) was the usual response. Baked meat (of dodgy provenance) was the only option other than abundant salads. Who needed meat, especially baked meat of unknown origin, with all those veggies on offer?

Moving on into Greece, after the vegetarian heaven of Turkey’s ev yemekleri cafes, I finally started eating tomatoes, which I’d hated with a vengeance since my childhood. The tomato breakthrough opened up many new veggie avenues. From that point on I stopped eating meat and haven’t looked back since.

So, turning back to Vegetarian Feast, I found the recipe for this side dish of summer vegetables and Datça market came up trumps with fresh peas, broad beans and runner beans. Check out the recipe in the picture above.

Almond Party Time in Datça

12 February 2025

Almonds are on the agenda in KCC’s spiritual home of the Datça Peninsula this weekend as the Turkish seaside town hosts its annual Almond Blossom Festival.

The festival, which celebrates the blossoming of the peninsula’s almond trees, takes place between 13-16 February. Alongside live entertainment, with local faves Rampapa performing on Thursday and Anatolian psych rock legends Moğollar headlining on Saturday, there are cookery competitions, sports events and a speedy almond cracking contest.

Datça’s tasty almonds, badem in Turkish, are rightly famous all over Turkey – I remember sitting on a terrace in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, back in the days when it still had tables on the street, when a guy came round selling ice-chilled Datça almonds.

Bademli havuç tarator (carrot and almond tarator)

In Istanbul and along the Aegean coast tarator is a yogurt-infused meze made with carrots or courgettes and walnuts (recipe link here). Tarator started life in the eastern Mediterranean as a tahini-based dipping sauce for falafel. In Ottoman times it referred to a sauce made from walnuts, breadcrumbs and lemon juice (often served with kalimari), before it took on its yogurt iteration in the modern day. In Bulgaria, Tarator is the name of a yogurt-based, cold soup.

We adapted the recipe to make it vegan by replacing the yogurt with almond cream and gave it more of a Datça vibe by using almonds instead of walnuts and throwing in some local capers to give it an umami kick. The resulting dip had a thicker consistency than the yogurt version – it came out more like a savoury carrot halwa, but was still delicious.

Ingredients

  • 100 g blanched almonds
  • 50 ml cold water
  • Two teaspoons apple cider vinegar
  • 20 capers (with brine)
  • 150 g carrot
  • One or two garlic cloves (optional)
  • Pinches of herbs and spices of your choice (e.g. oregano, black pepper, salt, sumac, red chili flakes)
  • One teaspoon nigella (black cumin) seeds

Method

  • If your almonds have skins on, then pour hot water over the almonds and leave for a minute or two. Drain off the water and peel the nuts between your fingers. Set aside 20 g of the nuts. Cover the remaining almonds with cold water and leave to soak overnight.
  • Drain the almonds and put in a blender bowl. add the vinegar, capers and water and blitz to a smooth cream. Add more water if needed (10 ml at a time) to get the required creamy consistency.
  • Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan, grate the carrot and saute it in the oil for ten minutes over a medium heat. Add diced garlic (if using), the remaining almonds (crushed with a rolling pin or wooden spoon) and pinches of herbs and spices (as needed).
  • Allow the carrot mix to cool and then blend with the almond cream. Garnish with nigella seeds and some unblanched almonds. Serve as part of a meze set or as a dip.