Ship & Tuzlu Kurabiye

This week’s drawing is a simple coloured pencil sketch of a ship:

I saw this ship while visiting cousins in Corsica one summer. I made the outline for the drawing while pregnant with my son (over three years ago) and have since misplaced the photograph, so I had to do most of the colouring from memory. It probably would have turned out better had I been able to use the photograph, although as I recall it was a little blurry, so perhaps it would have made no difference…

This week’s dessert is somewhat “healthy” as it contains no sugar. We ate quite terribly over the holidays and I’m feeling a little sick of sweets! (That probably won’t last long though!)

Tuzlu kurabiye translates as salty biscuit, and here is my grandmother’s recipe:

4 cups flour
1 cup yogurt
1 cup butter (the recipe calls for oil, but I prefer using butter)
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 pinches salt (I’m guessing here, my grandmother’s recipe simply says “salt”)

Simply mix the ingredients to form a soft dough, then let it rest half an hour before shaping the cookies. One can also coat each cookie with some egg yolk and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top for a little extra flavour. Bake on parchment lined cookie sheets at 350 F for about 25 minutes.

I made them a little too thick and ended up having to overcook them, so they were harder than they should have been. I think an extra pinch of salt would have been good too. But they were still enjoyable when dunked in a cup of tea.