Category: Appetizers & Snacks (Page 3 of 5)
Deviled Eggs with Blue Cheese
September 14th, 2013 in Appetizers & Snacks, Eggs by Julia Volhina
Blue cheese and boiled egg yolks seasoned with fresh parsley, tobasco sauce and mayo tastes a bit unusual and a bit spicy. But if you are true lover of blue cheese this recipe is definitely for you.
By the way if you like it to be more spice – use a bit more tobasco sauce, or you can skip the sauce all together otherwise.
If you would like eggs to look a bit more festive, use pastry bag with a star tip on it to arrange stuffing mix into egg halves, simple ziplock can be used too (just staff mix into it, seal it and cut one of tips off), or just a tea spoon.
Quick Crescent Rolls with Meat and Cheese
July 20th, 2013 in Appetizers & Snacks by Julia Volhina
I was short on time this couple of weeks having visitors at home and at work. So I didn’t have much time to prepare a recipe in time for today.
It is a bit unusual of me to use “ready-to-use” ingredients in my food, but they save time if you need it to attend to other things.
Crescent dough sold in store makes decent rolls, which are good when you need to cook something to bite fast. So here is one of recipes for these.
I used ham as meat for this recipe, because that is what I had in my fridge. But you can be creative and use cooked bacon, or canadian bacon, or hot dogs, or another sausage, or a combination of these to your taste.
Jellied Meat (Kholodets)
November 10th, 2012 in Appetizers & Snacks, Beef, Chicken, Main Dishes, Pork by Julia Volhina
Another traditional dish of various east and west european cuisines (russian, ukrainian, polish, and many others): jellied meat, also knows as kholodets, studen, dragli, aspic, and many other names.
Main ingredient to successful preparation of jellied meat is using meat with cartilages (hocks, years, tails, etc), without these broth will not jelly (pig or chicken skin helps too).
If broth doesn’t jelly (too less cartilages used) you can dissolve a bit of gelatin in the broth before pouring it to the dish. I don’t like using gelatin, but it can be a fail-safe mechanism if you want to make the dish is ready in time for an important event.
Chicken and Feta Stuffed Mushroom Caps
July 21st, 2012 in Appetizers & Snacks, Chicken by Julia Volhina
I saw these gorgeous fresh mushrooms in the store, and it seemed they were asking to be stuffed – clean, big and even sized.
I decided to stuff them with creamy chicken and feta cheese mix dressed with sour cream and a bit of fresh parsley. If this sounds like a good idea to you, try this recipe.
And by the way, it can be served as an appetizer (especially if you use bite size mushroom caps), snack or even main course.
Layered Liver Cake
January 28th, 2012 in Appetizers & Snacks by Julia Volhina
Layered liver cake, dish of traditional Ukrainian cuisine, is often served as appetizer on various celebrations, in fact I tried it first time on a wedding.
For this recipe I used chicken liver, but beef liver will work good as well.
Carrots and onions stuffing can be skipped all together – it will decrease cooking time and reduce amount of mayo to be used (since layers will not need that much mayo to stick together). However carrots go great with liver.
How many layers you get from this amount of ingredients depends on the size of the frying pan you use. I think 11” frying pan is the best – not too big not too small. The ideal amount of layers for this recipe is about 12; if you get more split them in half and assemble 2 cakes.
Homemade Pickled Mushrooms
November 12th, 2011 in Appetizers & Snacks by Julia Volhina
Taste of homemade pickled mushrooms can’t be beaten by any brand from the store. If you pickle mushrooms yourself you can control spiciness and acidity to make sure they taste exactly as you want them to.
Champignon mushrooms are most commonly available that is why I used them, but this marinate will work for edible wild mushrooms: boletuses, honey mushrooms and other edible mushrooms as well. However for wild mushrooms you will need to increase boiling time and maybe change water trough boiling at least once.
Mushrooms pickled this way can be stored in the fridge for long time, if you want to preserve them outside of the fridge – use sealing jars and follow the instructions for proper sealing; however I don’t see a reason to do so: champignons are commonly available in every store and you can pickle them as much as you want without actually sealing into jars.
Russian Zucchini Paste
September 24th, 2011 in Appetizers & Snacks, Main Dishes, No-meat, Sides by Julia Volhina
This is recipe of zucchini paste from my mom: easy to cook, contains only vegetables (zucchini, tomatoes and onions) and is very-very tasty.
I usually eat this paste on bread toast, for breakfast or as a snack; however it is also a nice side dish to help increase vegetable servings in your daily diet.
Zucchini paste can be served warm or cooled down.