Tag: fruits (Page 3 of 4)
Ukrainian Sour Cherry Dumplings
August 27th, 2011 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
I didn’t believe my eyes when I saw sour cherries (pitted!) in the Andersons grocery store. It doesn’t happen that often to me here, in US. So I couldn’t simply leave that store without my portion of sour cherries…
Of course, we enjoyed them plain with a bit of sugar, and also made some cherries with whipped cream dessert, however most of sour cherries went to ukrainian sour cherry dumplings – “varenyky (vareniky) z vyshniamy”, and for this one we made plenty of pictures.
With mentioned amount of ingredients you will get about 50-60 dumplings. Most probably you will not need to cook all of them right away – so just freeze remaining potion of dumplings for later use (first put wooden board with dumplings to the fridge until dumplings are frozen, then move them to a ziploc bag and store frozen). Frozen dumplings can be boiled right before serving, just like you usually do it.
Whole Chicken Roast with Oranges
April 23rd, 2011 in Chicken, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
This roast chicken was a first real food we cooked in our new home since the move (yep, we got a house!). So it was kind of the “celebration of new home” meal :).
If you are looking for some easy recipe for some special event – search no more: whole chicken roast stuffed with oranges is very-very juicy and has a bit unusual sweet taste.
It goes good with mashed potatoes or plain boiled rice as a side dish.
If you don’t like taste of orange zest – peel oranges before stuffing, that will smooth taste a bit.
Spicy Guacamole Dip
February 26th, 2011 in Sauces & Dips & Spreads by Julia Volhina
First time I tried this green dip, it was served as a side dish to something very spicy in mexican restaurant, and it didn’t impress me. Probably, that was about color: I never seen avocados before and their bright green color seem almost artificial.
Nevertheless, I tried it and since then these unusual and very nutritious fruits are very important part of my diet: amusingly they have more potassium than bananas, have high fiber content and rich on vitamins E, B and K.
This variant of guacamole is a bit spicy. If you want to make it mild: either increase amount of avocados or reduce amount of serrano peppers and onion; adding sour cream can help reduce hotness as well.
Oladi (Russian Pancakes) with Apple
January 15th, 2011 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
This recipe is a step up for russian kefir based pancakes – oladi. My mom used to add slices of apple to oladi batter and that is the way how I prefer them – oladi with apple served warm with sour cream topping.
So the recipe is quite easy: prepare oladi batter, add slices of apple and fry pancakes.
This dish is a perfect choice for breakfast or brunch, or even fast prepared snack. I bet kids would love those pancakes as well. They taste good accompanied with a glass of kefir.
Strawberry Cream Dessert
July 24th, 2010 in Desserts by Julia Volhina
Even though here I can buy strawberries almost any time of year, they are especially tasteful at summer. So yes, it is a strawberry time!
So if you looking for a nice recipe for strawberries – here it is: sweet whipped cream with puree of fresh sweet tasty strawberries and a bit of jelly. Easy to prepare, and even easier to eat 🙂
Of course, whipped cream is a bit heavy for the figure especially if it is mixed with sugar, but it is also totally delicious – so I allow myself to enjoy it every once in a while. But if you are trying to follow low calories / low fat diet this recipe is probably not for you.
Dried Fruit Kompot (Uzvar)
January 2nd, 2010 in Beverages, Non-alcoholic by Julia Volhina
Uzvar is a kompot made from dried fruits: mainly apples, pears and prunes, however various recipes include raisins, dried sour cherries and even dried apricots.
Even though this drink is traditionally served to Christmas Eve dinner in some countries of West Europe (e.g. Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Lithuania), I really can’t find a reason why it can’t be a great better choice to drink before all those sugary-artificially prepared sodas people consume so much those days.
Uzvar, or as it also called in ex-USSR countries – Kompot made from Dried Fruits, is very refreshing, tasty and easy to do. I highly recommend this drink to everybody, prepare it for your kids – they will love it!
Apple & Cranberry Kompot
November 14th, 2009 in Beverages, Non-alcoholic by Julia Volhina
Most of you probably wonders what the “kompot” is, as that is not very usual word in english speaking world. Some of you may also assume there is a grammatical error in the title of this post and I probably mean the apple & cranberries compote (stewed fruits, the dessert), however there is no error: kompot is a drink made of stewed fruits and/or berries, fresh or dried, or a combination of those, and it is traditional drink in many countries of Eastern Europe.
Making kompot is almost effortless, it takes not more then 20 mins (if you don’t count cooling down time in) to get great fruit and healthy drink for you and especially your kids and I believe they will like it much more than those powder-produced drinks from bottles and cans people drinking so much nowadays.
Autumn is a time when fresh apples and cranberries are in every grocery shop and supermarket, Apple & Cranberry Kompot is one of easy way to prepare those two together and it goes good with Apple Cake.