We just call it a toast without any country affiliation. And it’s not sweet, it’s savory. You make it with the same egg and milk
Category: Easy
Cheese Gnocchi (lazy vareniki)
It was one of my favorite breakfasts, called lazy vareniki. Vareniki (similar to pirogi, but with thiner pastry) are Russian or Ukranian dumplings made with potato or ricotta cheese filling. So instead of making a dough, rolling it, cutting, preparing a filling, forming every dumpling you just put everything together in one bowl, mix it, divide into little pillows and boil. Lazy! And done within 5 minutes!
It should be done with tvorog, but if you don’t have it I found that farmers cheese is not a bad option for this dish (don’t use store bought ricotta, it’s too watery).
Ingredients (for 1 serving):
- Tvorog or farmer’s cheese – 1/4 lbs (100 gr)
- 1 egg
- Flour – 3 tbsp
- Pinch of salt
Directions:
- Place all the ingredients into a bowl and mix really well with spoon forming sticky dough
- Put the dough on well floured board, flour your hands too.
- It should be sticky, but workable, there is no need to kneed it, but you should be able to form about an inch wide log with your hands
- Cut the log into small pieces
- Put pot with water on medium to high heat, add 1 tsp of salt and bring to a boil. Do not reduce the heat!
- Place several dumplings into boiling water, don’t overcrowd the pot.
- Boil the dumplings for 2 minutes
- Remove from the pot with a skimmer spoon
- Garnish with melted butter or sour cream and sprinkle with sugar if you want to make it sweet
- Serve hot or warm
Creamy mushrooms
Ingredients:
- Works best with shiitake, you can combine it some other mushrooms – oysters, baby bella, but shiitake is a must.
- Small shallot or 1 leak
- Heavy cream – 1/2 cup
- White wine 1/4 cup
- Salt, pepper, nutmeg
- 2 tbsp of light olive oil + 2 tbsp butter
Directions
- Heat your pan with 2 tbsp of light olive oil. Start with frying some mild onions (shallot or leaks) till golden brown
- Add your dry clean mushrooms to the pan and let them get golden brown, only after they get that nice crust keep stirring them till they are almost fully cooked.
- Add butter, stir and fry mushrooms for another minute
- Season with salt and pepper
- Deglaze the pan with white wine, reduce the heat and cook for about 5-7 minutes
- Add the cream, bring to a boil, cook for about 2 minutes
- Check for seasoning, add some nutmeg
- Serve hot or warm
Home made Ricotta
The name is not very appetizing because store bought ricotta is awful, or inedible to say the least. What I make is called “tvorog” in
Sour Cherries Crepe Suzette
I am a huge lover of sour cherries. I wanted to recreate the classic Crepe Suzette with a cherry flavor, but couldn’t find a cherry
Cabbage is not only for coleslaw
Cabbage is one of very under appreciated vegetables. It can be absolutely anything – from salad to steak (yes – a cabbage steak), from condiment
Healthy snack
My favorite snack while cooking – kale chips. Just tear some kale leaves, sprinkle with olive oil, several drops of balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper. Add
Luxurious coffee
Coffee with embedded chocolate Start the weekend right – brew yourself a cup of coffee with a piece of semisweet chocolate, stirring constantly to not
Chopped Liver Alternative
Granted – not everybody likes liver, nor that it has an appetizing look. For some reason this organ does not get any respect in the
Sauerkraut Russian style
It is one of Russian specialties, a unique combination of tasty and healthy food, loaded with vitamins C and K, iron and fiber and contains probiotics. It is called sour cabbage, and with all due respect to all things German is much better than pale mushy sausage condiment. It makes a great side for anything – chicken, fish, steak or ribs. It can even be a salad of its own, or mixed with some sliced shallots and topped with olive oil. One of my favorite meals when I was a child was mashed potatoes mixed with sour cabbage.
The cabbage should be fermented in its own juice, therefore it has to be green cabbage usually harvested late in fall. Another traditional ingredient is carrots, it contributes more to the color, not so much to flavor. The only important proportion to remember – 30 grams of salt per kilogram of cabbage. The rest is optional
Ingredients:
- Cabbage 1 kg (2 lbs)
- 2 medium carrots
- Kosher salt 30 gr
- 2 garlic gloves (optional)
- Caraway seeds 1 tsp (optional)
Directions:
- Cut the cabbage into 4 big parts, remove the core
- Make sure you weight what will be chopped, the ratio of cabbage to salt is important
- Shred the carrots
- Chop the cabbage into thin strings, the way you do for the coleslaw
- Add salt, caraway seeds, thinly sliced garlic and several red pepper flakes
- Place everything into a big bowl
- Mix everything with your clean hands, don’t squeeze, just mix to evenly distribute salt, carrots and spices. It is actually tasty right away, somewhat like oversalted coleslaw
- You will see that the cabbage starts extracting the juice when salt touches it.
- Transfer the mix into a glass jar pressing it tight with a spoon, potato masher or just your fist.
- Cover the lid
- Let it sit on the counter top for 3 days, check daily, open the lid and let some extra gas to evaporate, but still pressing it is submerged into the juice.
- It should be ready in 3-4 days, just taste it – it won’t taste like a coleslaw anymore. It will taste like sour cabbage.
- Needs to be refregarated once ready
