Tag: lunch (Page 9 of 17)
Ground Beef and Potato Casserole
February 18th, 2012 in Beef, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Taste of this dish reminds me of lasagna, with the difference of that it doesn’t include neither noodles nor cheese. It also requires much less time to cook than classic lasagna.
Meat sauce prepared of ground beef or veal (or mix of these) with onions, tomatoes and fresh parsley is juicy and very tasty. Bechamel souffle gives it nice hint in both taste and presentation.
Did I mention that this recipe is great for some special occasion?..
Mussels Steamed with Vegetables in White Wine
February 11th, 2012 in Fish, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
This not complicated recipe is my first attempt to cook mussels. They turned out juicy and light. Thanks to Hans-Peter and his cooking lessons 🙂
Vegetables cooked this way, with wine and mussels juices, taste great as well as mussels themselves, serve them all together!
By the way, 1lb-1.5lb of mussels per serving sounds about right, this way amount of ingredients listed in this recipe is enough to feed 2-3 people.
Chicken Lasagna with Spinach and Fresh Cheese
February 4th, 2012 in Chicken, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Don’t get scared by amount of ingredients: it isn’t that complicated to cook chicken lasagna with spinach and fresh cheese at home, especially if you have noodles which doesn’t require boiling.
Of course it will take some time too cook stuffing as well white sauce, but at the end you will get whole baking pan of tasty creamy lasagna.
I used fresh spinach, but frozen will work good too, just thaw it before cooking and drain liquid before mixing with cooked chicken. Tvorog (fresh cow cheese) can be replaced with ricotta of the same weight as well.
Serve lasagna 10-15 mins after you take it from the oven; leftovers can be stored in fridge and re-heated in microwave.
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.
Stuffed Spaghetti Squash
November 26th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
My mom usually cooked big zucchini like this: stiffing it with ground beef and rice mince.
However I wasn’t able to find an “adult” zucchini in any shop here in US to cook it. It seems that they don’t survive long enough to grow big here (maybe green piece should look into that, I don’t know).
Anyway, I believe spaghetti squash is a good substitute for this recipe: it serves the purpose by being squash and providing a cavity to cook stuffing, and it also brings nice unique texture to the dish with its “spaghettiness”.
The taste here is similar to cabbage rolls (as if they were made of squash 🙂 ), however the amount of work you need to put into this one is considerably smaller.