Best International Dishes I've Ever Made

Лобио

2015-01-29T15:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.djurenko.com/cooking/lobio.html

Real Italian Bolognese

2014-12-13T14:16:00.001-08:00

Bolognese: Onion, oil, carrots diced (1-2), celery, diced (1 stick), cook. Put into a mixer and mix with a glass of milk. Put the meat into the skillet and put butter. Cook for 4 minutes. Add 3 spoons of wine, make it evaporate. Then add mix with milk. Then add 1,5 off tomatoes sauce. Then add black pepper and parmejjano. Serve with any kind of pasta.

Stuffed Portobello mushrooms

2014-12-03T18:41:00.001-08:00

4 cups of mashed potatoes
Half a cup of green onions or chives.
Bacon bits
Cheddar cheese 1 1/2 cups
Parmejan 3tbsp
4 Portobello mushroom heads
Butter
Olive oil

Boil Potatoes, add salt, drain once ready. Add butter and mash potatoes. Add cheese (leave some for covering), cooked bacon bits and chives. Mix well, set aside.
Clean the mushroom tops. Remove the stems. Brush with Olive oil. Fill with potato mixture. Sprinkle with left over cheese. Place into heated oven 350 f for 30 minutes. Serve.

Lviv Cheesecake

2014-10-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

I just tried an amazing recipe for Lviv Cheesecake.

It's not New York style Cheesecake.

And not Philly style Cheesecake. Nope.

It's Lviv style Cheesecake or Syrnik. Lviv is in the Ukraine. Ukranian food is to die for already. I thought it would be a great opportunity to explore it more.

So I needed:

1,2 pounds of Farmers Cheese (500 g)
4 Eggs
1 Cup of sugar (200g)
Rasins (a handful)
1 tb spoon of semolina
1 stick of unsweetened butter (110 g)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grate Farmers cheese, add semolina, rasins, soft butter, mix. Beat 4 egg yolks with 3/4 of a cup of sugar. Add to Cheese mix. Beat whites to firm peaks. Add to the mix as well. Butter a baking pan (the one for meatload or brownies works best) and put flour to cover the bottom and the sides. Poor the cheese mix into the pan. Bake for 50 minutes. Once done, cool completely, put in the fridge for 5 hours.

Can be served with chocolate glaze.

Kale soup

2014-02-22T12:50:00.001-08:00

1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 Tb olive oil
3-4 cups kale
1 jalapeno or half green bell pepper
1-2 cups broccoli
10-15 spears of asparagus
Half a cup of grated parmesan
Jack Monterey cheese with jalapeno or regular for less spicy taste
Garlic croutons for garnish

Sautee chopped onions, minced garlic and pepper. Add the rest of the vegetables and let them warm up for a few minutes, cover them up with water or vegetable broth, bring to boil, add salt and lower the heat. Simmer for about 10 minutes or until kale and other vegetables are tender. Use blender and blend the soup adding grated cheeses. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with garlic croutons.

Fish soup a la Julia Child

2013-12-26T13:28:00.001-08:00

I first learned about Julia Child when watched the movie Julia and Julia which i only paid attention to since my mom in law compared Julia to me. For a passionate cook like I am it meant a lot: a whole new era in cooking opened up. Since then I've purchased the book, watched YouTube recipes, cooked quite a few of them myself. One of them made its way to my normal every day menu as fish soup. It's my version of Bouillabaisse.

Ingredients
1 cup of minced green onions
1/2 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic
2 cups chopped tomatoes
2pounds salmon
1Tsp fresh basil
2bay leaves
Dry orange peel
4Tsp parsley
5 potatoes
Black pepper cloves
Various sea food: mussels, clams, scallops

Sautee chopped onions in olive oil for a few minutes, add mashed garlic and chopped tomatoes. Cook for 5 minutes until tender. Add water and bring to boil. Peel and dice potatoes. Add to the soup. Let the soup simmer for 20-25 minutes. Reduce heat and add spices and 1 pound of salmon diced (along with other seafood if available). Add salt and pepper to taste. In the mean time you can prepare rouille (see below) but it's optional. One the potatoes are ready bring the soup to boil again and add the sea food of your choice.

Rouille:
Cooked potato
5 garlic cloves
1/5 bell pepper
Fish stock 3Tbsp
Pinch of cayenne or cayenne or chilli pepper
1/2 cups olive oil
Add everything but oil to the food processor, mix in until as smooth and paste like, add oil slowly. Serve with the soup and white bread.

Last Summer Dish - Okroshka

2011-09-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

Well, the fall is upon us. It's incredible to be back to four seasons, change of weather and not going to the outside pools year around. Back in San Antonio I couldn't really tell if it was fall or winter or spring outside my windows. It all looked like it's eternal summer. Except that summer itself was like hell, hot and unbearable. But back then I didn't really have to change my routine, dress up warmly, switch from roller blades to ice skating and definitely change my cooking habits. If I felt like making chilli, it would not necessarily be in winter and if I felt like eating ice cream, I didn't have to wait until July. Well, back in the north it's a whole different story. Now as the weather is slowly cooling down, I am starting to plan on heartier and warmer meals rather something light and refreshing. So today I felt like it was one of the last chances to make my favorite summer soup that is served cold and definitely a winner in hot weather. I remember the times when my great-grandmother was the one who would make this soup on every occasion she'd visit us in summer. The recipes for this dish vary greatly. Authentic Russian recipe calls for kefir as base for the soup. It's really good, but it's such a hassle to find kefir here in the states that I don't even encourage you to try. Instead, I suggest that you make it the way my grandma did: using chicken broth and sour cream.

So let's begin with the recipe!

For the soup you will need:

4-5 Large potatoes
5 Large Eggs
1 bunch of green onions
Dill weed (Look for it in "Spices" Section"
Ham of your choice, or cooked chicken meat (cubes)
1 large cucumber
Wine vinegar about 1/2 of a cup
Chicken broth - enough to fill up a medium pot
Sour cream
Mayo

Step 1: First you need to prepare chicken broth. If you do it yourself, boil it with 1 large onion, 1 large carrot and 3-4 bay leaves. You put chicken breasts into the pot with cold water, bring it to boil, add salt and all the rest of ingredients, lower the heat and let it simmer of at least 2 hours. When it boils, you would have to remove the foam that dulls the broth and doesn't look very appetizing. The broth is ready when is chicken meat is soft and easily flakes. It's easier if you buy ready to use chicken broth but home made is tastier and healthier. So it's up to you.

Step 2: While you have your broth preaparing, grab potatoes and eggs and boil them until well done (eggs for about 5 minutes, we need hard boiled eggs).

Step 3: Dice all the hard ingredients: potatoes (when they cool down), ham (or chicken), peeled cucumber, eggs, chop the green onions (you definitely want the green part, so look for the freshest green onions at the store)

Step 4: Mix all the hard ingredients in a large bowl, add salt, pepper, dill weed (be generous with dill weed, the more the better) and sour cream. Here you can vary, you can only add sour cream as the dressing, or a mix of mayo and sour cream, or just mayo, depends on what tastes better for you.

Step 5: Add chicken broth and mix well. Taste. Add salt if needed, more sour cream or dill weed. And last but not least, Okroshka needs to be sour. So get some wine vinegar, about 1/2 of a cup and add to Okroshka a little bit at a time. Mix, try. If it tastes good to you, don't add anymore, if not, add more.

Step 6: Put it to the fridge to chill (better overnight). Try it again in the morning and add more condiments if needed.

Here we go, cold soup is ready and I personally can't get enough of it! :D

I'll post the recipe for okroshka with kefir too, just in case you want to go real!

Hurricane Irene

2011-08-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

We survived hurricane Irene with least impact on our house, our life and our mood. We were invited over to our neighbors to play games and eat good food when the rain and wind are going crazy outside. I thought something warm and very unusual would make our evening even more fun so I made Dolma or Stuffed Grape Leaves.

It took me forever to find grape leaves, but I got it at a gourmet aisle, where ethnic foods were displayed.

Here's what I needed for the dish:

Grape Leaves 1 can
Ground Pork 1 pound
Ground Beef 1 pound
Onion 1
Rice 1 cup
Tomato 1
Herbs - dill weed, parsley, cilantro
Salt, Pepper, Garlic (optional)

Mix the filling together, stuff the leaves, put in a pot, cover with chicken broth or tomato sauce, bring to boil, lower the heat and let it simmer for 40-50 minutes.
Serve with sour cream :)

Green Tea Mint Lemonade

2011-05-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

Green Tea Mint Lemonade

Best Easter Pie Ever

2011-04-30T23:25:00.000-07:00

Easter. The most important celebration in the Christian World. That day means so much to me too. First, makes my heart go fonder thinking about the message our Lord sent us, the hope He has given us; second, I was born on Easter, so in my family it was taken as a sign that I was sent from above, so the celebration of Easter was always a very important thing in our family. It's bee almost 5 years, since I moved out from my parent's house, but one thing never changed: I love Easter more than any other holiday and have to get ready very seriously. Back home we used to go to the church at 4 am in the morning to see the service and get blessings from the priests. This was the prettiest thing I've ever seen: at the dawn of the day when the lights are dim and the choir with the priests walking around the church and giving blessings: just divine! Well, besides the service, the big part of our Easter celebration was Easter pie that my grandmother would make in extraordinarily amounts and of incredible taste. You can find housewives making pies in almost every house the day before Easter in our country, and if by some reason some didn't make one, they can easily buy it at local bakeries. So many years of Easter cooking, so many different kinds of pies and I am still a firm believer that my grandma's Easter pie is the BEST PIE IN THE WORLD!!!!

So here is the recipe*!

Ingredients:

500 ml of Milk (2 cups)

11g of dry yeast (2 tsp)

1-1.3 kg of flour (2-3 pounds)

6 eggs

200g of butter (2 cups)

250-300g of sugar (1,5 cups)

300g of raisins (1,5 cups)

1 tsp of vanilla extract

Zest of two lemons

Topping:

2 egg whites

100 of sugar (1/2 cups)

Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk.

Add 500 g of flour and mix well. Put the mixture in a warm place and let rise under a towel. Let it stay for about 30 minutes. Separate yolks and whites. Yolks mix with sugar and vanilla extract. Whites should be beaten into hard foam. Add yolks, soft butter and whites into the rising dough. Add the rest of the flour until the dough stops to stick to your fingers but still is really soft to touch. Let it rise for another hour. Meanwhile soak raisins in water for 15 minutes. Dry it out. Add raisins (preferably covered with a little flour so they don't sink to the bottom of the dough), lemon zest, maybe even some rum or cognac (optional), mix together and let the dough rise again. Cover the tall cake form with butter and fill 1/3 of the form with dough.

Let it rise again and bake in a warm oven 10 minutes at 250 F and 25 minutes at 350F. Check the pie with a toothpick, if it comes out dry the pie is ready. Make the topping, beating the whites with sugar to hard foam. Cover hot pies with topping and sprinkle with sugar or confetti.

*The approximate measurements are taken from the site http://www.say7.info/cook/print/292-Kulich-paskhalnyiy.html

Lobio

2011-04-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

I've been quite lazy recently and started exploring simple recipes and simple foods. Beans. Red kidney beans, what can be simpler? I used a crock pot to cook beans overnight.

Once they were ready I added some spicy sauce called Adjika, 1 onion chopped and fried, 3-5 cloves of garlic mashed, 3 Tbsp of Wine Vingar, a whole lot of fresh chopped cilantro, 2 Tbsp tomato paste. Just mix it all together and enjoy. The dish is georgian (caucasian) but reminded me a lot of mexican chilles. My husband decided to eat it with mexican nachos and cheese and I must admit it worked out really well.

This is heavenly !

2011-03-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

That was the comment I got from a coworker of mine when I brought this cake to work today in the morning. I agree. This IS heavenly! Whoever came up with this recipe was genius. The chocolate cake that would make your heart melt just like the chocolate topping on it. Over the weekend I was really lazy, relaxed and in need of a chocolate fix. So after half an hour of internet browsing I got it. Perfect, easy to make, melting in your mouth goodness with all the chocolate to satisfy anyone's craving.

Here's what you need:

250 g or 2 Cups of Flour
120 g or 2/3 Cup of Granulated Sugar
1 Tbsp. Baking powder
1 Orange and 125 ml or 1/2 cup of Orange juice
100 ml or a little less than 1/2 cup of Milk
1 Egg
100 g or 7ounces of baker's Chocolate for the dough and 40 g or 3 Oz for the topping
25g or 1/8 Cup of Butter

Mix flour, sugar and baking powder together.
In a different bowl peel zest off of one orange. You can squeeze the juice out of the same orange or use the bottled juice and mix it in with the zest. Add milk. Stir. Add one egg and mix it well in. Pour the milky mix into the flower and stir. Melt 7 oz of semi-sweet or bitter chocolate and mix into the dough. Bake on 400 F for 40-45 minutes. For the topping melt the rest of the chocolate, mix with the butter and cover the cooled cake.

Picture taken from the site I found the recipe at: www.povarenok.ru

Pork cutlets with potato salad a la Marina and delicious asparagus.

2011-02-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

The dinner I made yesterday beat all the records. I felt like I was served in a upscale restaurant! Well, except that I was serving it myself. :) Easy-that was my motto yesterday. So I had some pork chops and I decided to beat them with garlic and spices. Dipped it in beaten egg and fried at high for few minutes on each side. Then I had pretty sprouts of asparagus that I roasted in butter (I dipped asparagus in salted boiled water just for 30 seconds and then warmed it up in butter with black pepper-how simple is that?). And of course potato salad A la Marina. I totally made it up, but it seems to be favorite in my family.

We need:

3 boiled potatoes
1 can of Albacore Tuna in Water
1/2 of a Yellow Onion
1/2 of a pack Feta Cheese
1 Green Bell Pepper diced Or 2 Polish Pickles diced
4 boiled eggs
Green Onions chopped (optional)

Dressing:
1/2 cup of Bulgarian plain yogurt
2 Tbsp of Mayo and 1 Tbsp sour Cream
By kalynskitchen

Or for lighter version:
3 Tbsp of Olive oil
Few squirts of Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper to taste

Dice all the ingredients except Tuna and Feta cheese. Crumble feta cheese and tuna and mix well. Enjoy. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!! SO good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Indian curry!!!!

2011-02-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

OMG!!!! I tried making my own curry last night! I am a big fan of Indian food. Not all of it, but a good spicy curry with veggies, rice or naan and tandoori chicken are always welcome in my belly. I was introduced to Indian food living in Tokyo, Japan. A very good friend of mine Maria took me and my mom to a small family run Indian buffet restaurant for lunch. I had no idea what to expect. But they won my heart instantly. I prefer little places like this to popular franchises, you can see how very proud the owners are of their work, how much welcome you are in their place and how much they want you to enjoy your new experience. I'd come back there fairly often and when we finally moved to the states I was desperate to find a good Indian restaurant again. Unfortunately, it wasn't the same. Yes, they had my favorite tandoori chicken, of course they had all kinds of curries imaginable, but the atmosphere... different. So my husband didn't hurry to go out to the next Indian restaurant on the list. And I, craving some ethnic food, decided to bring Indian restaurant home. Here in San Antonio we have a terrific International Bazaar called ALI BABA, full of ethnic food: Arabic, Indian, Turkish, even Russian (which is the top priority for me) with fresh produce all the time and great variety. Needless to say, I've been a frequent guest there. However, I would only shop for familiar brands and produce. Until last Saturday. Me and my friend made a route around ethnic shops in the town: Russian, Japanese, Arabic. Crazy mix of foods and recipe ideas. That's when I got a little more adventurous and decided to invent my own Indian dishes. Of course I had no idea how to cook them, but started with the spices that had a label "Indian" and "Curry" and English description of what to do with them. Once I had the spices (one for vegetable curry and the other for tandoori chicken) I couldn't wait to experiment. What I finally came up with probably isn't authentic Indian by no means, but it was sooooooo goood!
So here is what I did.

I had a vegetable curry spice blend. Something like this: Curry Powder

For the curry I took

4 potatoes,
1/2 of an eggplant
2 carrots
1 onion
1 cup chicken broth
2Tbsp Olive Oil
The Spice Blend
Dry Chilli pepper

Warm up Olive Oil, cut onion in stripes and let them fry for a minute on medium heat. Meanwhile, dice peeled potatoes, cut peeled carrots in thick rounds and dice eggplant as well. Add potatoes and carrots to onions first, let them fry, add chicken stock and get it boiling, add eggplant and keep the whole thing simmering on medium for a half an hour. When the potatoes are almost done, put two Tbsp of the curry spice blend in the pot and let it simmer a little more. You can also cover up the veggies in spice before cooking them (that's probably how it's done right) but I did it this way and was very satisfied with the result nevertheless. Anyhow, when the potatoes are soft and the veggies are fully cooked, add one or two dry chilly peppers to the mix, turn off the heat and let it stand for 10 minutes. Serve with rice, naan and tandoori chicken.

Olivie (Russian Potato Salad)

2011-01-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

No Russian Celebration can go without Olivie, Russian Potato Salad. Especially New Year's Celebration. It was developed by a french chef Lucien Olivier holding a high-end french restaurant "Hermitage" in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1860s. The recipe was kept a secret and after the chef's death was considered lost. But his followers knew the ingredients and revived the recipe in 1904. Since then it's the most famous salad you might find in Russia and post-soviet countries.

It's a bit time consuming to make this salad, so I don't make it very often. But every time I serve it, it gets rave reviews from people of different nationalities: from Japanese, to American, to Italian and so on and so forth. One of the funniest comments I ever received about that salad was from my father-in-law, who was so excited to eat that salad that asked me where I bought it! Well, we don't buy salads, we cook everything from scratch. That's just part of our culture that wasn't lost yet in the busy lifestyle. And I am proud of it. So I definitely don't hesitate to spend a couple extra hours in the kitchen if I can make something you can't buy anywhere else. That's why you should give it a try too! It's really worth every single minute and all the effort.

You will need:

Boiled potatoes (in skins) - consider boiling as many potatoes as many guests you expect. Let's pretend we have a party of 6, then we'll need 6 potatoes. The rest of the ingredients are for that amount of potatoes, so if you need to lessen the amount of potatoes, adjust the amount of the rest of the ingredients respectively.
2 boiled carrots
4-5 hard boiled eggs
Boiled Chicken breast strips (or beef strips, ham or pieces of bologna)
1 red onion (for softer taste) or 1 white onion ( for spicier taste)
4 pickles
1 can of young sweet peas
2-3 Tbsp of Mayo
2-3 Tbsp of Sour Cream

Peel the cooled potatoes, carrots and eggs. Dice them finely. Dice meat, pickles and onion. Add peas. Mix well the ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix in the Mayo and Sour Cream before serving.

Ruins of the Duke's Castle

2011-01-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

We had a very nice family dinner with home made New Year Olivie (potato salad), baked chicken with apples, cheese balls, garlic eggplants and , of course, nice desert that I am going to tell you about.

First of all, here is a little introduction as to how I decided to make this desert. Unfortunately enough I was very very sick for the New Years Eve. So sick that I couldn't think of anything but sleeping all day. However, I had responsibilities before my family. I still wanted it to be a very special day for them, especially for my little son who was as sick as I was and needed a break as much as I did. Also my family on the other side of the planet never skips on celebrating New Year's hence I really had to say hi to them and be a part of their celebration. So at about 4 pm we set up the skype video chat with Moldova, did the count down and had some champagne together with my family. Seeing the amount of food on their New Year's table, and the amount of fun they were having made me very motivated to do my best and make it to the midnight with a fun spirit and readiness to meet a new decade. Nevertheless, I had to take a nap before starting the whole ordeal with cooking and decorating. It took me a little longer than I thought, I woke up at 8pm!!! With only 4 hours before midnight I had to pull off the whole thing. I asked my husband to buy some fireworks, decorated the table and started with the meals. Most of them were simple and didn't take too much time to finish. At 11 I already had the table set. However, there was no desert. I made some sponge cake the other day and my plan was to complete a cake layering it with fruit and cream. To my surprise there was nothing left of it. My boys ate it all in the mean time! I was broken in pieces. 1 hour left! How can you possible pull of making a cake in one hour? Well, my french recipe book saved me. It gave me an idea for a great and simple desert called: "The Ruins of the Duke's Castle". The little cakes it's made of are called "Baiser" or "Kiss" in french. They are really simple to make with minimum ingredients and hassle. Cream, fruit and chocolate would finish up the light and festive cake. But most importantly I could finish the cake almost in no time.

Ruins of the Duke's Castle

All right, here we go :)

You will need:

3 egg whites
1 cup and 5-6 Tbsp of sugar
3-4 Tbsp of lemon juice

Cream:

2 sticks of butter
1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Chocolate, nuts, berries for decoration

Beat egg whites with sugar adding sugar by Tbsp very slowly until the egg whites triple in size and form hard peaks. Add lemon juice and beat some more. When the batter is ready warm the oven to 220F, place little "kisses" on the cookie sheet with help of Tbsp or cookie press, put it to the oven for at least 40 minutes (up to an hour and a half). Basically you don't bake them but dry them out. Once they are ready, turn the oven off and let them cool down. Meanwhile make the cream beating the melted butter with the condensed milk. Beat until smooth but don't overdo. Put cream on each kiss and layer them so they form a pyramid - it will be the ruins of the castle. To finish it up, sprinkle it with melted chocolate, nuts and berries (I had raspberries).

Serve.

That was it! Easy, isn't it? Well, I managed to serve a great dinner in almost no time, had a lot of fun and even forgot that I was sick. And that's what I wish you in the new year: to be healthy, to be wealthy, to love and to be loved and to have lots of sweet kisses on your lips, cheeks and even your table. Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

2010-12-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

Ah, such a lovely time - Christmas Eve: the family is all together, the Christmas tree and candles are lit up, Christmas movie is on, warm tea or even gluhwine is in your mug ....hmmm... something missing? Yes! Something sweet! Year after year I'd make Christmas cookies, this time I decided to follow German tradition and made Christ Stollen - "loaf-shaped cake containing dried fruit, and covered with sugar, powdered sugar or icing sugar"(Wikipedia).

It looks complicated, but really not too bad and every minute spent for making this bread is well worth it. The recipe I followed said stollen could be baked one day before Christmas, however the real stollen needs to be prepared way ahead of time, 3 or 4 weeks before Christmas to let it age. So my stollen is more or less of a variation of the real bread, but since I am neither German nor really celebrate Christmas on December, 25 (since I am an orthodox Christian and our Christmas is not until January, 6th) I didn't really worry much. The result was astonishing nevertheless and my family really appreciated it.
So here it is, the recipe:

5 1/2 oz of raisins
2 3/4 oz of zest mix
5 1/2 oz of walnuts
4 Tsp of rum
3 1/2 oz of milk
1 3/4 oz of sugar
1 pack of dry yeast
1lb of all-purpose flour
4 oz melted butter
5 egg yolks
2 drops of vanilla extract
1 lemon zest
1/2 Tsp salt

Topping:
3 1/2 oz butter, melted
3 1/2 oz powdered sugar

1. Mix nuts, raisins, zest and rum together, soak overnight

2. Mix milk, yeast, sugar and 5 Tbsp of flour, cover up and leave for 20 min a warm place

3. Add the rest of flour, butter and yolks, make dough, add fruit mix, vanilla extract, lemon zest and leave under a towel for another 2 hours.

4. Take the dough, roll it out to an oval shape, and fold the edge over the middle part of the oval. let the dough stand for another 30 minuts. Bake in preheated oven at 325 F for an hour covered by foil. When done cover up with 1/4th of melted butter for topping, then powdered sugar, repeat until all the butter and sugar are gone.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

2010-12-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh... Cheesecake... Guilty pleasure that I am always ready for. But even the best thing in the world gets old if there is no much variety. So I decided to try a non-conventional cheesecake I heard about for the first time on Paula Dean's show. I made it last year for Thanksgiving and it won over the regular pumpkin cake with both my family members and all the friends who were lucky enough to score a piece left after my son got his hands on it. This year our Thanksgiving was even merrier than last year since we got to grow our own pumpkin in our own backyard. It happened by chance. I am not a big fan of gardening, but when the seeds from last year's pumpkin we carved for Halloween and accidentally dropped on the ground gave little sprouts this spring I decided to give it a chance and really cared for it. So by the end of October we had just one, but very pretty, firm and real organic pumpkin. I picked it up and let it ripen for a couple of weeks. Then baked it and made the best pumpkin cheesecake possible!

Here it is (courtesy of "All recipes"):

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1/3 cup butter, melted
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup white sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
15 oz of baked pumpkin
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a medium bowl, mix together the crushed gingersnap cookies, pecans, and butter. Press into the bottom, and about 1 inch up the sides of a 9 inch springform pan. Bake crust 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Set aside to cool.
In a medium bowl, mix together the cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, and vanilla just until smooth. Mix in eggs one at a time, blending well after each.
Spread the pumpkin flavored batter into the crust.
Bake 55 minutes in the preheated oven, or until filling is set. Run a knife around the edge of the pan. Allow to cool before removing pan rim. Chill for at least 4 hours before serving.

This cheesecake is really really good, and even though Thanksgiving is long gone, any winter evening could be a good reason to pamper yourself with a great pumpkin cheesecake.

Bring me to heaven: Tira-mi-su.

2010-12-19T21:53:00.000-08:00

I
It's been a long time, now I'm getting back to describing my favorite recipes. Last six months were pretty hectic for me: I spent 3 months in Europe, came back to Texas and started a new job that leaves little or no free time for me that I could dedicate to my favorite hobby of experimenting, exploring and improvising in the kitchen.

Today's post will be about my favorite desert Tiramisu that I tried in different restaurants and different countries but never was a huge fan of the desert until I had it at Romano's Macaroni and Grill restaurant here in San Antonio, TX, the Italian restaurant that, as it's owners' philosophy states, "provides guests with a pleasurable dining experience featuring great tasting Italian Mediterranean food and outstanding service at an affordable price". I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of service, environment, live opera singing and the food, that was flavorful and authentic unlike the food in many other similar American restaurants. But my excitement exceeded any possible limits as I dug my teaspoon into the soft cocoa covered goodness, put it in my mouth and let it melt on my tongue with a burst of creamy coffee flavor. I fell in love and was seeking any opportunity to recreate that first impression I had after tasting my first real Tiramisu. Back in Moldova you'd find Tiramisu cake that represents almost dry pound cake covered with white jellyfied mousse (that's almost marshmallow like consistency and taste) and cocoa powder. Fairly edible combination that not only wouldn't take you up to heaven (and that's what the name of the desert happen to mean if translated from Italian: tira-mi-su, pull me up) but kind of really put you down. Don't think that all the cakes in our bakeries in Chisinau are so uninspiring, otherwise, the abundance of great deserts made me think that it was the original recipe that just wasn't that good and I could never understand all the fuss around it. And here I am joining the club of Tiramisu lovers
For over a year I lived with the thought that Tiramisu making is something so complicated and sophisticated that I'd never be able to even get close to cooking it. Up until a couple of days ago, when a friend of mine posted some pictures online with her homemade Tiramisu and happy friends with blissful smiles finishing it up. And something clicked: if they can, I can! And I made it! And it turned out to be incredibly simple and delicious!

As I found out, there are several different ways of making Tiramisu, which eggs cooked over boiling water and raw. I picked the variant with the raw eggs as seemed to be less hassle. Here is the recipe I followed:

Tiramisu

* 4 eggs
* 1/2 cups sugar
* 2 packs (8 oz) of Mascarpone
* 1 pack of cookies Ladyfingers (about 34 pieces)
* 350 ml of coffee (espresso)
* a powder of cocoa
* 2-3 Tbsp Fault "Marsala" (or any another), or rum, liquor, бренди, cognac. I used 3 Tbsp of Kvint Cognac.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. Add mascarpone cheese and gently fold into the egg yolks. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. In a small bowl, combine coffee and cognac. Split ladyfingers in half lengthwise and drizzle with coffee mixture. Arrange half of soaked ladyfingers in bottom of a 7x11 inch dish. Spread half of mascarpone mixture over ladyfingers. Repeat layers and sprinkle with cocoa. Cover and refrigerate 4 to 6 hours, until set.

Voila! It's the simplest way to get to cloud nine at least for me! Not to mention that I got the taste and consistency of the desert served at Romano's from the very first time I tried making it. Genius!

Vinegret

2010-04-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

Photo from PerfectFood.ru

I know a lot of people who like potato salad. I do to! Potatoes with Mayo and Eggs make a nice side, however a calorie bomb at the same time. I'd like to offer you a different potato salad, that's lighter in calories and as good as regular potato salad if not better. So the origins of the salad go from Scandinavian countries, it was adopted by Russians in 19th century and got quite popular since then. The name "Venegret" takes it roots from French "vinaigrette" which states for French dressing made with vinegar and olive oil. However the name itself doesn't have anything to do with the ingredients of modern Vinegret.

Ingredients:
2 large beet roots (or 3 medium), boiled, peeled and diced
2 large potatoes, boiled, peeled and diced
2 medium carrots, boiled, peeled and diced
1 small onion, peeled, finely chopped
1 cup of diced pickles
1/2 of a can of sweet peas or kidney beans
Sauerkraut (optional) 1/2 of a cup
Salt, pepper, vegetable oil

Prepare the vegetables the way described above, mix them together, add salt, pepper and a little bit of vegetable oil. Serve with a toast

Guacamole

2010-04-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

Well, to tell the truth, I like Mexican food more than American. It reminds me a little our Moldovan cuisine. So I've posted the recipe for Quesadilla I make at home for my boys, but somehow forgot about the most important thing: guacamole. I tried an Avocado for the first time living overseas already. I used it mostly for salads and didn't think of any other kind of things you can make with avocado until that magic day when I tried mexican food in Japan. I don't want to say it was the best guacamole (it's Japanese guacamole after all, I wouldn't be surprised if they mixed it with miso or added soy sauce in there, hehe), but it was my first. To say I loved it is to say nothing. I became obsessed. So any other time we had a lunch or dinner at places serving quesadillas and fajitas (ooooh, it's another love story!) I was eager to see what kind of guacamole are they going to offer. My favorite kind is this one:

2 avocados, ripe, pitted
1/4 of an onion
2tbs lemon or lime juice
Fresh or dry cilantro, chopped (to taste)
1 small tomato (diced)
Dry Jalapeno bits (well, I love spicy, it's absolutely optional)

Mash avocados with a fork, mix all the ingredients together and serve.

Since then I always have avocados at home, even if I don't plan on cooking anything mexican or Mediterranean. The only fact that "Avocados provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, Vitamin E, B-vitamins and folic acid and also act as a "nutrient booster" by enabling the body to absorb more fat-soluble nutrients, such as alpha and beta-carotene and lutein, in foods that are eaten with the fruit" * makes me want to live on it.

*http://www.avocado.org/nutrition/

Bean soup with smoked bacon

2010-04-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

The simplest recipe ever that I've had in my repertoire for a long time and have no idea where it came from and what origins it has. But it's simply delicious.

All you need is:

Kidney Beans (I use about a pound of dry kidney beans, soak them in cold water overnight and them boil theт for about an hour, you can use canned beans as well, I believe)
Onion-1
Carrot-1
Potatoes-5
Smoked bacon - as much as you'd like, I use about half a pound.

Dry Parsley
Bay leaves-3-4
3 Tbs of Olive Oil

All right, so I get my beans ready beforehand. I am pretty sure if you get the canned beans the taste isn't going to be any different. So put your beans in a soup pot, fill the pot with water and bring it to boil. Add salt to taste. Meanwhile peel the potatoes and dice them. As soon as the water in the pot boils, add potatoes and lower the heat. Dice the onion and grate the carrot. Grab a skillet, warm up some oil on medium heat, add onions first, wait until they soften for about 5 minutes, after that add grated carrot and mix it all together well. Wait until the carrot looks cooked too. Bring the bean soup to boil again, dump your onion/carrot mixture into the soup, lower the heat. Now it's the show time. Mmmmm, smoked bacon!!!! Slice it across in 1 inch strips, bring the soup to boil and add the bacon. More bacon you use, heartier your soup will be. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Add Bay leaves, Parsley, and other herbs of your taste. Add more salt and pepper to taste if you'd like. Once the soup is ready, let it stand covered for 10 minutes and serve.

Chocolate cookies from Heaven

2010-03-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

It was a busy day today. Lots and lots of cleaning, moving, vacuuming. I didn't even have time for my baby! Poor thing, he was begging me to take him out for a walk. So I called my friend and asked her to bring her kid over and let them play together. She thought it was a great idea, came over in the evening and the kids did have fun together while ladies (moms) had some tea and some chocolate cookies I made in the mean time. This is a recipe I found online years ago! I don't even remember what were the circumstances but I made them one time, and another, and another and since then I hardly ever make any other kind of cookies! These are sent to us from Heaven as a reminder that God is good :D The recipe is so simple that you only need 10 minutes to make a batch of dough good for up to 36 cookies. Another 20-30 minutes in the fridge, 9 minutes in the oven and voila! The whole new world is open for you! Forget Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies, Macadamia Nut and Sugar Cookies, or in fact anything you ever tried. There is no comparison. Especially if you serve them warm with some vanilla ice cream on the side. Pure delight!

So here's what you need:

1 cup of flour
1 cup of sugar
10 Tsp of softened butter
6 Tsp of dark cocoa powder (no sugar in it)
1/4 tsp of soda
1/5 tsp of salt
1 Egg

Leave the butter outside until it becomes soft to touch (don't microwave or melt it)
Beat it up with a mixer, add 1 cup of sugar and 1 egg and beat it all together until smooth and creamy.
Mix together the dry components, add to the butter mixture and mix with a spoon until it looks like soft dough. Refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 F, form 1 inch balls and put them on a cookie sheet 2 inches away from each other. Cook for 7-9 minutes. Less time will give you an overall softer cookie, more time will make the outside crunchy, the inside soft ( my favorite type!).

Warm up your heart. Mulled Wine. Glühwein. Glintwein. Izvar.

2010-03-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting new recipes for a while already. And there is a very serious reason for it. I've been sick and now I'm even sicker. Cold, fever, sneezing and coughing don't really help when you have a family to take care of. But they need to be fed no matter what. So we lived off of left overs and really easy stuff like pasta with marinara sauce. Now I'm out of leftovers and need to cook. But to get me through the process I need one special thing that warms up your heart as well as your vocal cords. It's Gluwein (Glintwein or Mulled Wine). Yes, it's wine. Yes it's alcohol, but I got to the point where nothing else matters. This old-fashioned drink that in my country is called Izvar is better used in cold weather, with piles of snow behind the door, warm cozy blanket covering you up to your nose and favorite romantic comedy on. Ideally it would be on the New Year's day or Christmas and you'd be sharing the moment with your loved ones. Or like in my case, it will work when you are sick and desperate and need a little treat for your falling apart body. Here's a great description of how to make classic Gluwein: German Mulled Wine Recipe
However there's a lot more variations to it and I'll add one more to the list since even being sick I really like to improvise. The ingredients I'll be using are the following:

Wine (oh yeah, that one is important! ) Caberne Sauvignon is good enough, I've heard using expensive wine for that matter is sort of bad manner - 1 bottle
Whole Cloves - 6 to 12 pieces (to taste)
Nuttmeg
Coriander
Honey - 1 to 3 Tsp (to taste)
Sugar - 1 to 3 Tsp (to taste)
Apples - 1/2 of 1
Lemon Juice 1-2 Tsp
Orange Juice 1/2 cup
Water - 1 cup
Cinnamon stick - 1 piece
1 glass stove top safe pan

Bring the water to boil, add spices, lower the heat to medium and let it simmer for 5 minutes. After that lower the heat even more and add the wine. Add sugar, orange juice and mix it well together. Increase the heat but don't let the wine boil. Add thinly sliced apple, a little bit of lemon juice and honey. Wait until the apple turn purple but don't get too soft yet (we only need the flavor of apples, not the mushiness once it's cooked). Adjust the taste adding more spices or orange juice, if you'd like (I really love strong tasting, spicy and sweet gluhwein, so I use maximum amount of spices and very generous amount of honey). Overall it takes about 10 to 15 minutes to make nice warm spicy wine. Serve immediately or store the gluhwine in a thermos. Best served in tall glass mugs to retain the warmth longer.

Warning: Don't plan to drive a vehicle or operate any machinery, you might not be drunk but so happy and relaxed that you could just forget you are still on Earth and not on Cloud Nine! :):):)

Борщ (Borscht)

2010-03-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

Well, no one of Russian/Ukrainian origins can live without Borscht. That's the most favorite dish of old and young people, mainstay in any Russian/Ukrainian restaurant and something that people around world recall when talking about Russian cuisine. Quite popular soup for sure. The fact that I could find borscht at fast food chains serving soups in Tokyo talks by itself. Of course, I tried it and wasn't disappointed. Yes, every housewife probably has her own recipe. It ranges from Vegetarian borscht to borscht that's made with old fermented fat (not my favorite though). Even in my own family every woman makes her version of borscht. My mom's borscht is more of a tomato soup, my grandma's on mom's side-a thick stew with pork meat and lots of beets, my grandma's on my dad's side-beet soup with greens, my grandma's sisters-the one with old fat that members of my family unlike the members of her family can't digest.

Here's Vegetarian Borscht I made today and was really proud of it:

2 onions
2 carrots
5-6 potatoes
1 large beet or 2 medium ones
Salt
3 liters of water
1 head of cabbage
2 Tbsp of tomato paste
Bay leaves
Sour Cream

Boil the water, add generous amount of salt and 1 onion and 1 carrot and 3-4 bay leaves. (If you like more of a flavorsome stock, add more vegetables, for thicker consistency add one peeled potato). When the stock is ready (usually after 30 minutes of low heat simmering), take the vegetables out or strain your stock (unless you had the potato in there, don't strain in that case, just leave it in there). Meanwhile cut cabbage in strips, peel potatoes and dice them. Bring the stock to boil again. Add the cabbage first and lower the heat. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Peel another carrot and grate it. Dice an onion. Bring the stock to boil one more time and add potatoes, lower the heat and let it simmer for another 5 minutes. Peel and grate a beet root. While the stock is simmering, grab a skillet, warm up some vegetable oil and add the diced onion. Let it get softer and almost translucent, add both grated beet and carrot, then add tomato paste and mix it all together. Wait until the vegetables soften up and the mixture becomes smaller in volume (about 5-10 minutes on low heat). Bring the stock to boil again and add the mixture to it. Lower the heat to the lowest setting and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add more salt if you'd like. Cover up with a lid and let it stand for about 20 minutes. Serve with generous amount of sour cream and a garlic toast. Aaaaah, yuuuummmmm!