Recent Posts: Page 36 of 59
Oven-Roasted Herbed Redskin Potatoes
January 21st, 2012 in Main Dishes, No-meat, Sides by Julia Volhina
I think any kind of potatoes can be cooked this way, however red skin ones are the best here. You can take big potatoes and slice them in smaller wedges or smaller ones and cook them whole or sliced in halves.
Vary amount of herbs as well as herbs themselves to your taste, in additional to rosemary, thyme, oregano you can use parsley, dill, black pepper, etc; I would just advise to keep rosemary in – it goes great with potatoes.
Over-roasted herbed redskin potatoes can be a no-meat dish on itself or you can accompany a meat entry with it as a side dish.
Celery Root Salad with Apples and Eggs
January 14th, 2012 in Salads by Julia Volhina
Knowing me you can probably guess that this tender slaw-like salad made of grated fresh celery root, apples and chopped egg is dressed with mayo.
By the way, celery root here is hardly recognizable: it has nutty taste and (if you are not used to it) tastes nothing like celery stalks, maybe because of apples.
I would define this taste as unusual; if you stumble upon fresh celery root in a store – give it a try, after all celery is known as low-calorie source of dietary fiber.
“Firewood on Snow” Cake
January 7th, 2012 in Desserts by Julia Volhina
This cake looked unusual even for me when I saw it first time: doesn’t it resemble a bunch of firewood covered with a snow to you?
This recipe is Yuriy’s mom speciality dessert and it often appears on the table during family celebrations. Yuriy’s mom preserves pitted sour cherries in their own juices under sugar each season, so there are always plenty of them ready for use.
If you don’t have sour cherries preserved in such way – you can always go with pitted cherry kompot like I did, but in this case add a bit of sugar to the dough, or cake will not be sweet enough.
I would want to tell you that this cake is easy and fast to do, but I can’t. It took me quite some time to make dough, prepare “firewood” sticks and then assemble the cake; but that is probably because I cooked it first time in my life.
After cake is assembled allow some time for layers to soak in sour cream frosting to get soft: leave it in cool place (but not fridge) at least over night (depending on how liquid sour cream is it may take longer). It is good idea to prepare cake at least a day before you are planning to serve it.
Vegetable Soup-Puree with Mushrooms
December 31st, 2011 in Hot Soups, Soups by Julia Volhina
If you are looking for easy to cook recipe for soft pureed soup with vegetables, mushrooms and cream this is it.
Boil vegetables, add fried onions and mushrooms and blend it all together with heavy cream. By the way, using hand blender makes cooking of this soup much easier.
If you want soup-puree to be more liquid, keep water left from boiling vegetables and add it to the soup at the end to receive desired thickness.
Cabbage Rolls in Sour Cream Sauce
December 23rd, 2011 in Beef, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Another variation for ukrainian cabbage rolls: meat staffed cabbage rolls with gentle sour cream and onion sauce.
Making these from scratch will take some time as any recipe for cabbage rolls even if you use ground beef and don’t need to prepare it yourself, you still need to separate cabbage, assemble rolls and then cook them.
But don’t let this to stop you – even though it is time consuming to cook cabbage rolls you will get enough rolls for later – just store left overs in fridge or freezer.
Semolina Porridge (Mannaya Kasha)
December 17th, 2011 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
Mannaya Kasha is one of foods associated for russian people with their childhood. When I was little I was always told it is rich on nutrients and required for healthy kid growth – every kid knew that to grow strong and healthy they need to finish up their plate with semolina porridge.
Just as a note: while researching for proper translation for this recipe, I stumbled on information that semolina porridge isn’t recommended for kids younger than 3 years (which was new to me) as it contains high amount of gluten and also phytin. But because it also has a lot of proteins and high content of vitamins E and B1 it is very good for kids after 3 year old who have no gluten intolerance.
While cooking it is important to stir mannaya kasha all the time (I use whisk for this and it helps a lot), or you will get clots and no kid likes them in their mannaya kasha.
Veal Stew with Chanterelles and Peas
December 10th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Chanterelles are mushrooms which I simply can’t pass in the shop, even though they are seasonal or maybe because of that.
It is my shame, but I don’t know any way to prepare them other than this stew with veal and peas, but it sure tastes great!
You can substitute beef for veal, just increase cooking time to ensure meat is soft enough. You can also substitute white dry wine for water, if you feel like this.