Hello.
I live in a small town. Here, in the villages and cities of my country, many people are making preparations for the winter season. This tradition is ancient but still continues. In the past, the winter months were long in many cities. These seasonal conditions prevent people from working and producing. That's why they survived the winter by taking precautions. Maybe it's not just something special to our country. The most important thing for us humans to live is to feed. Maybe he is making preparations for feeding in other countries as he enters the winter season. The people of Ahlat explained this issue as “We prepare for winter in such a way that we can fill our stomachs without going to the grocery store for a whole winter”.
Yesterday my neighbor was making preparations in the garden to prepare "menemen" for winter food. Menemen is a practical recipe consisting of tomatoes and peppers. Since the taste of tomatoes in winter is not as good as in summer, he has already decided to make canned tomatoes for himself. I went down to help him. He built himself a temporary hearth out of stones in the garden. Since I accidentally deleted these stages, I could not show you, but I will explain briefly.
If I want to talk about the preparation of menemen. The materials my neighbor uses; He used 10 kg of tomatoes, 1.5 kg of green pepper, 4 tablespoons of salt, 90-95 ML of oil. Green peppers are cut into small pieces and fried in oil in a pan until they change color. Cut the tomatoes into small cubes. When the peppers are roasted, tomatoes are added and cooking begins. When it boils, salt is added. 2 hours of cooking will be enough.
While the cooked menemen is hot, it is filled into jars. Jar lids have to be new. Otherwise, it will not close tightly and will not be durable until the winter season. The jar lid must be tightly closed so that the food does not spoil. When the jar is full, the lid is closed and turned upside down. We do this because when hot food touches the lid, it makes it close even more tightly.
While my neighbor was making winter food, I also thought of red pepper. I said why not when there were embers ready and bought 5 kg of red pepper from the market. I said that the fire should not burn in vain while cooking.
I love red pepper. I especially love the taste of roasted red peppers. If you haven't tried it, you should definitely try it in wood fire.
We spread the embers a little forward and added the peppers on it. We kept it there until it was cooked all over. As the embers dwindled, we burned wood in the back. We took the burning embers back to the front and added the peppers on it. We did this until all the peppers were cooked.
Before putting the cooked peppers in the bag, we spread newspaper inside the bag. After putting the peppers inside, we tie the mouth. We keep it inside with its own heat until it cools down. The reason why I do this; After this process, the skins of the peppers are much easier to peel.
After we got home, we cleaned them one by one from their shells. You should never touch water. This is a time consuming process.
By the way, there were 3 eggplants in the garden, and I plucked them and added them to the embers.
Before putting the red peppers that we have removed from their skins in the fridge, my mother cuts them in half. I put it all the way. She didn't like the seeds of those peppers, so she cut them in half and cleaned the seeds with her hands. She did this on a stand too, she. Then she kept the water in the strainer to drain.
Half an hour later we divided them into freezer bags. Then we added it to the deep freezer. You need to put it in the ice section of your refrigerator.
Before using it in winter, you should take it out of the freezer and put it in the normal refrigerator and wait for it to melt.
You can use these peppers in salads and cold appetizers. I cut it into small long thin slices at best. Then I pour garlic yogurt on it. I do the same with roasted eggplant. You can see how it looks here
Another recipe is to add salted cheese with parsley to the roasted pepper. Recipe here
After I made chili, the other neighbors saw us and took their peppers and came to us. We also roasted their peppers. We roasted a total of 20kg of pepper yesterday. Checking the peppers by the fire all the time made us tired. To relieve this tiredness, we decided to cook Turkish coffee on embers. The coffee is much more delicious because it is cooked slowly on the embers.
While the pepper was roasting, we sipped our coffee while chatting. The day ended like this, and after we made sure we put out the fire, we dispersed to our homes. I couldn't wait to share this day and my process with you. I was going to write it yesterday, but because I was a little tired, I prepared it now. I hope it will be of use to you.
Are you preparing for the winter season?
If so, what are you preparing?
Stay with Love,
xoxo