BROWNIES

I have to make these. Just. Go. Look. At. Them.

Now, if only I was fond enough of my co-workers to bring them Kahlua infused brownies. Then I would have someone to share with, and could justify making them.

Well, maybe if I clear some room in the freezer...

Hmm....

Yes, I will eat the last of the frozen veggies necessary to sustain us through winter. Then there will be room for brownies. :-)

Prunes Topped with Cream

I'm a bad, bad blogger. I have so many cool things to post about, but I don't ever seem to have enough time. But tonight I made this easy dessert that was so fast, I figured that writing a blog post about it would be fast, too. So basically, there was no excuse not to!

This is a Russian dessert that I first had at one of the several New Year's parties I attended in Ukraine. However, I find it remarkable that this could just as easily be French, as it features two French favorites: prunes and crème fraîche. That's basically like sour cream, but a little bit more mild.

I think this dessert is also fairly healthy, but beware that I find it really hard to stop at just one piece!

Ingredients:
12 prunes
12 walnut halves
~1/4 c crème fraîche (substitute full-fat sour cream)
1 T of sugar (can add more or less to taste)

Method:
Mix the cream with the sugar really well. If it's too sour, add a little more sugar. It shouldn't be super sweet though, it's going to balance the sweetness of the prunes. If your prunes are already pitted (stoned? Sounds weird.) then you're more than halfway finished. If they're not, take the stones out. Make a slice down the prune and just wiggle it out until it gives up. Tuck a walnut half inside each prune, and arrange them on a plate. Top them evenly with the cream and sugar mixture. Done!

Notes and Serving Suggestions: This recipe is so fast, especially if your prunes are ready. It is easily expanded as well, for a party or something. If you do this for a party, maybe poke a toothpick in them. They're really great with tea! I think of this as a dessert, but I think it would also be a cool hors d'oeuvre or tapas style food item.

Insane Lemon Saffron Cake

I found this recipe here, while looking for a recipe for a cake using fromage blanc. (That will come later, I hope.) The horoshaya kukhniya (good cook) site is one of my favorites, and the recipe sounded cool, so I thought I'd give it a try. The site is in Russian.

Oh, and I'm calling it "insane" because 1) the lemon flavor is really strong, 2) it is very sweet. You'll need a cup of tea with this. It's not bad, but for my personal taste it was too sweet. My BF must have liked it though, because he ate a bunch of it. So nice to have someone other than myself to test these things on!

Insane Lemon Cake
Adapted from the "Simple Lemon Cake" at horoshaya kukhniya

Ingredients:
For cake:
3 eggs (the ones I have are small)
1/2 glass of sugar
2/3 glass of flour
1.5 tea spoons baking powder
lemon zest to taste
a generous pinch of saffron

For syrup:
3/4 cup of sugar
juice of 4 lemons
1 t honey

*A note about measurements: in Russian recipes it's quite common to see units of a "glass", a "tea spoon" and a "soup spoon" or "big spoon". The glass corresponds roughly to 1 cup. The tea spoon and soup/big spoon correspond roughly to a standard teaspoon and tablespoon, respectively. Perhaps the Russian spoon measurements are slightly bigger, in my opinion. I'm not sure if it's true, but I think that this comes from a time when there was considerably less variety amongst people's belongings--like silverware and glassware. Under those circumstances, saying "a glass of sugar" works just fine.

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (roughly 350 Fahrenheit). In a bowl, beat the eggs with the 1/2 glass (cup) of sugar. When well combined, stir in (carefully) the zest, saffron, flour and baking powder. When everything is incorporated, pour the batter (which will be thick) into a cake pan. It's better to use a deep pan if you have one. When the cake is firm and golden brown on the top, take it out. This will probably be about 40 minutes. Let the cake cool, and meanwhile prepare the syrup. I cheated and stuck my cake in the freezer while I made the syrup, so I didn't have to wait for it to cool very long. For the syrup, combine the lemon juice, sugar and honey. Heat on low until sugar is dissolved and a syrup is formed. This syrup should be poured over the cake. I cut off a bit of the top of the cake (so it was flat) to expose a more porous surface before pouring the syrup on top. This was because I didn't have a deep pan, and if I had done otherwise the syrup would've gone everywhere. Once the syrup has soaked into the cake, serve.

Notes: The original recipe called for tumeric, but I thought that sounded strange, so I added saffron instead. This made it smell great. This cake is really sweet and rich with the syrup. Without it is a bit hard, dry and not very sweet. So, it needs to soak in something, but I think this syrup is too much. What sounds good to me, coming from an Indian background, is some sort of lightly sweetened milk. The original recipe's syrup calls just for lemon and sugar. I added a bit of honey because I thought it was too sour, but then I tasted it and realized that it was already on the verge of too sweet, so to mellow things out I added some water instead of more honey. Adding water is what the original recipe suggests.

Next time I make this I'm going to try to soak it in something else, and maybe leave the lemon flavor out entirely. My idea is to basically make the saffron cake, but add some pistachios. Then, instead of syrup, I will mix some cold milk with Rooh Afza and pour that over the cake instead. Hmm, why didn't I think of that an hour ago?

Serving Suggestion: You must have tea with this. Otherwise it's impossible.

Really fast/easy dinner for 4

So tonight we had 2 friends over (another couple) for dinner ... I had like 30 minutes notice to make something, with no help (my bf had to go get them from the airport). But it turned out pretty well, thank god for pasta. :-)

And this tasty herb butter I had made in advance also helped. A few weeks ago when I was chopping a bunch of herbs to season some fish, I chopped way too much. So I mixed them with softened butter and diced garlic, then spread the butter into a thin stick on some parchment paper and froze it.

Today I was able to make a tasty main course by thawing some chicken legs, seasoning with salt and pepper, then putting a generous piece of the butter under the skin of each leg. I put the legs in a glass baking dish, dumped some frozen wild mushrooms on them, added a little white wine and just baked them for an hour.

We also had spaghetti noodles, a simple tomato-feta-red onion salad, krakowska sausage (from Poland, traded for some Ukrainian kvass), Gruyere cheese, and pickles. Dessert was chasselas and muscat grapes, store bought butter cookies, and store bought Gateau St. Amour. With tea, of course.

I really adore the grapes in this area. The chasselas are commonly used for making wine. They're small, perfectly round, and range in color from bright, pale green to golden brown. They're transparent, which is so cool! The muscat grapes are heavenly. They remind me of Concord grapes, but they're better. I'm not even sure how to describe them, they have a strong, distinct taste that I love. This variety is dark purple. They both have seeds, which I don't mind. Crunchy!

Rhubarb-Apple Compote

We got some nice rhubarb in the store, and we still have a bunch of apples that aren't the best for eating (a little mealy/soft) but are good for cooking. I threw this together and surprisingly it was delicious.

Rhubarb-Apple Compote

Ingredients:

4-5 stalks of rhubarb
3 small apples
1/4 c dried sour cherries
30 roasted peanuts (unsalted)
A squeeze of lemon
Cinnamon stick (1"-2")
A piece of ginger root (1/2")
3/4 c of sugar

Method:

Wash and peel rhubarb stalks, also removing any leaves (they are poisonous). Chop. Core and chop the apples. Peel the ginger and slice into matchsticks. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil slowly, and then let simmer until fruits are soft and the mixture is not liquid.

Notes and Serving Suggestion:

We at this with crepes (blini). I use Yulinka's recipe, but with sour milk (is it the same as buttermilk?) and a bit more sugar. I especially liked the peanuts! It's kind of a breakfast dish (especially for week end) or dessert, but we had it for dinner.

Weekend Cooking Project: Healthy Pirozhki

I'm going to make pirozhki again, mostly because I'm crazy in love with that beautiful, yeasty dough, and also because I just plain like bread pockets with stuff inside.

In that vein, my mission is going to be to "duplicate" a certain Amy's product that I've loved for years, but that I think has now been discontinued (not that I get Amy's products here, anyway). That would be the pocket sandwich stuffed with the topping from the Roasted Vegetable Pizza. I don't have shitakes, which are on the ingredient list, and I'm not especially inclined to go out and find them. But I'll work something out.

Mainly, I plan on making the dough itself healthier by using 50% whole wheat flour, 50% white flour and slightly less vegetable oil. I also plan on not relenting to the sad face my BF will put on when he finds out I intend to bake these ones.

So, I'm going to have some that have the "Amy's" filling, some with the carrot and onion stuffing I loved so much last week, and lastly, some dessert ones. The chief reason for making dessert ones is to clean out the jam jars and some of the frozen fruit in my refrigerator. I kind of plan on mixing them all together, and possibly adding some ricotta cheese to the filling, too. We'll see how it turns out. If I'm successful with the "Amy's" one, it'll be a major victory, since those products are so good but very expensive.

I may also try to make paneer, but I'm a bit lazy to do so, since ricotta serves as a fine replacement for the unpressed version.

Apricot Sharlotka

Lately I've been crazy about canned peach and apricot halves. I'm not sure why, but I'm nuts about 'em. They're so juicy, and they remind me of summer. So yesterday, I got the idea to make a sharlotka using apricot halves instead of apples. This is what I did:

Apricot Sharlotka

Ingredients:

1 860 g can apricot halves
3 eggs
1 c sugar
1 c flour
1/4 t ground clove
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 c whole almonds
Oil + flour to grease and flour a cake pan

Method:

Preheat the oven to 325 Fahrenheit. Grease and flour a cake pan. Drain the fruit halves from their syrup or juice; discard or save for other use. Beat eggs with sugar until well combined (I just use a wooden spoon for this). Stir in flour and spices carefully (or you'll make a mess). Resulting batter will be quite thick. Arrange apricot halves along the bottom and sides of the cake pan. Sprinkle almonds over the halves. Spread batter onto the halves that are on the bottom of the pan. Bake at 325 for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Notes: This sharlotka is much wetter than the apple one, so I decided to bake it for a longer time at a lower temperature. It came out done nicely, the very bottom was a tiny bit gooey. It wasn't gross though; reminded me of peach cobbler. I had to place a piece of aluminum foil under the cake mid way through baking, because syrup from the halves was leaking over the sides, spilling onto the oven and making a mess (and smelling like burning stuff). Next time I will drain the fruit better. I think that will make the bottom more cakey and will prevent mess. Some other things I'll try will be to put a small layer of batter before the fruit goes in, or to just grease the pan instead of grease + flour. Like I said, the slight gooey-ness wasn't gross, but I would have preferred it be more like a cake texture than a cobbler one. That's what I had had in mind, really. My boyfriend and I both liked it, though. It would be good with a nice hot cup of tea! Another idea I have is to grease the pan and then coat it with roughly ground nuts instead of flour. I think I'm not finished experimenting with this recipe.

Serving Suggestion: I waited for the cake to cool, slid a butter knife around the edges, and then carefully tipped it onto a plate so that the fruit side was facing up. It was very easy to cut this way and keep the cake more intact. Then when I put an individual slice on a plate, I turned it so you could see the crunchy top side and the fruity bottom.

Amsterdam Trip

Happy New Year to everyone! S Novum Godum!

We just got back from Holland, visiting mostly Amsterdam, but also trips to Haarlem and Utrecht.

It was a lot of fun meeting the New Year in Dam Square, with a bottle of "champagne" (really sparkling wine) and two plastic cups amongst thousands of others.

Let me tell you, Amsterdam is a veritable junk food paradise!

They have tons of small storefronts selling thick slices of pizza, hot dog carts are everywhere and the ubiquitous FEBO is found in every district. The latter is an ingenious junk food store, which has a service counter where you can order things like a burger or piping hot fries, but also has an entire wall that is basically a vending machine. It's the old-fashioned kind, where you put in money and open a little glass door to get your food. So cute! There are also many kiosks/small storefronts selling vlaamse frites. I don't know what vlaamse is, but I do know that I like frites. Most people seem to eat them with mayonnaise. Waffle and sandwich stands are dominant in the museum area, along with some hot dog carts. (I tried a waffle with cherry sauce, it was great).

My favorite find though, was "oliebollen", Dutch donuts. I had previously thought the donuts I tried in the Hamburg central train station were the best ever; I was wrong. These donuts are similar to those--round, approximately tennis ball sized, no hole, covered in sugar--but these were crispier on the outside and had an inner texture more reminiscent of an American yeast donut. The Hamburg ones were a little more cakey. Also, the oliebollen are rolled in powdered sugar right after you order, whereas the Hamburg ones came pre-coated in granulated sugar (they also tasted a little vanilla-y).

That is, they're served this way if you order just one to eat then and there. IF you order 5, which I'm a little ashamed to say I actually did once (but it was to share!), they put them all in the bag, toss in a BIG scoop of powdered sugar, and hand the bag to you. Very fun to shake the bag around and then eat the tasty donuts. (And if you're feeling the effects of a certain other Amsterdam sweet, this can be a surprisingly interesting activity as well.)


(Image from http://www.ad.nl/oliebollentest/article934666.ece)

I preferred the plain donuts, although they also had a version that contained raisins, both golden and regular. My boyfriend preferred whichever were hot. The first day we chanced upon hot donuts, and since then at every donut stand he prefaced his order with, "Do you have any HOT donuts?" This confused and slightly irritated most of the vendors. But hey, if the man only wants hot donuts, he's gotta ask.

On one hand, I feel like I've got to learn how to make these things, they were so good. I ate at least one almost every day we were there. On the other hand, I think it's probably better if I remain uneducated on the matter. Not just for my health, but knowing me, I'll make and eat them all the time, but then grow completely sick of them and never want one again. And wouldn't that be sad?

No, better to just save the experience for the next time I'm in Amsterdam. Some things are just better eaten from a street corner stand, anyway, and I think this may be one of them.

Pumpkin Pie and Thanksgiving Report

Saturday Thanksgiving was a great success. The turkey legs came out awesome! Actually, everything came out really good. Here's the basic report:

Turkey legs: Rubbed the outside with butter, put butter and homemade poultry seasoning under the skin, cut slits into the flesh and stuffed chunks of celery in there. When 1/2 an hour of baking time was left, made a huge mound of stuffing between the legs and baked some more. Link to recipe
Stuffing: Sauteed 1 white onion, 1 red onion, 2 ribs of celery in a ton of butter. Added a melange of mushrooms, a mix called forestiere that is popular in France. They were frozen and the juice from them smelled great. Added cubes of bread from a baguette, some poultry seasoning and one beaten egg.
Apple Cake: Link to recipe
Mashed potatoes: Boyfriend took care of this. They were GOOOOD. He mashes them with onions sauteed in oil and lots of cream, salt and pepper.
Glazed sweet potatoes: Used a recipe that comes out of the Betty Crocker cookbook. My mom's been making it for years. Sweet potatoes in an orange juice glaze. REALLY good. Found a really similar recipe online. Link to recipe
Cranberry sauce: It's crazy expensive here, so we used lingonberry jam from IKEA. Just as good!
Gravy: Skipped it because we couldn't wait to eat! Spooned the juices over turkey and potatoes instead. Didn't miss it.***UPDATE:*** Made gravy the next day using leftover pan drippings, flour and milk. BF was sorry he wasn't patient the day before!
Pumpkin Pie: recipe follows.

My family came to visit me here in August, and my mom brought two 15 oz cans of pumpkin specifically for the Holidays. :-) She's a cool mom. People here do eat pumpkin, but I've only seen it as a savory side dish, and I prefer my pumpkin with at least some sweetness. My mom always buys the Libby brand canned pumpkin, or the canned pumpkin pie mix (already is sweetened and has some spices in it). She also always uses the Libby recipe on the back. The pumpkin she brought with here was a different brand (not that it matters), and I didn't look up a recipe before cooking because I figured it would be on the can as it always is. When I started cooking today, I made the pie and cake first (pie before cake). When I read the recipe I realized that it was different than the one I was used to, but decided to give it a try. I'm glad there happened to be a can of sweetened condensed milk around! I hadn't been planning on using it.

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree
1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 t cinnamon ground
1/2 t nutmeg ground
1/4 t ground clove
1/4 t ground ginger
1/2 t salt
2 slightly beaten eggs
1 9" deep dish pie crust

Method:

Mix pumpkin with the spices. Add all other ingredients. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 425 Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Lower heat to 350 Fahrenheit and bake for 30-40 more minutes.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: I made mine without the pie crust. I'm weird, but I hate pie crust, so I didn't feel like making it. I cooked this in a nonstick pan, and the sugar in the pie made the bottom just slightly caramelized, so it was kind of like a crust anyway. I had to add about double the spices though, except for salt; I really like to taste them! (The recipe presented is what was on the can). The recipe mom has always used takes sugar and evaporated milk. I thought this was so much simpler, faster and tasted great! The pie will be puffy when you take it out, but then it will fall. It's really a more typically custardy pie than the usual recipe, not only does it have a "crust" on the bottom from caramelized sugar, there is one on the top, too. I loved this pie and was really happy with it. The only thing I was missing was whipped cream! Then it would have been perfect.

Sharlotka

Sharlotka is a delicious Russian apple cake. I made it last night because we ended up buying 6 kilos of apples yesterday. I love apples, and it's apple season ... there are several varieties in the stores here. We went to the grocery store today (along with everyone else in the village, it seems) and I saw a 3 kilogram box of a type I know I like. I bought them, despite my boyfriend was whining at me not to. He's been saying he knows of a guy right by our apartment, who sells apples, onions and potatoes in bulk. But, he's been saying it for weeks, and we haven't actually gone there, so I bought my apples. After the grocery store, we walked by this place he knew about, just to see, we didn't think it was open because it was Sunday. But it was! So we got some gorgeous onions, a mix of white and red, and 3 kilos of different tasty apples. The guy let us try a bunch, too. We already had about a pound of apples at home, so now I've got to think of what to do with nearly 15 lbs of the things. Step one: Sharlotka. I love it because it's so simple and good. There are very few ingredients, and the numbers are easy to remember.

Apple Sharlotka

Ingredients:

3 apples, tart kind best
3 large eggs
1 c sugar
1 c flour + a bit for dusting
oil to grease pan

Method:

Core and slice the apples thinly. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 C), on my oven this is gas mark 6. Crack the eggs into a bowl, beat with the sugar. Add the flour, stir until flour is incorporated, then beat a bit until the mix is nice and smooth. Grease a cake pan with a bit of oil, then dust flour all over to prevent sticking. Arrange apple slices in a thin layer on the bottom of the pan, and pour the batter over (it'll be kind of thick). You can do more than one layer if you like. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool, and then remove from pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serving Suggestion: This is a really yummy cake. I like it for breakfast sometimes, or with tea.