Green Salad

Maybe it's because I'm sick of "winter" foods, but recently, what you see here has made up 50-100% of our dinners for the past two weeks. Those winter dishes--often meaty, always filling and warm--are comforting and welcome at the first hint of cold air. However, when spring rolls around I start dreaming of crisp veggies, a bountiful variety of produce, grilled food, and yogurt and fresh cheeses like feta and mozzarella.

The particular green salad shown here consists of a bed of mixed greens and arugula, topped with sliced red onion, julienned carrot, tomatoes, cucumber slices, avocado chunks and of course, salt and fresh-ground pepper. I use a simple balsamic vinaigrette, just balsamic vinegar whisked with a little bit of olive oil.

I love that such salads are fast, flavorful and healthy--you easily get 2-3 vegetable servings at one sitting!

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.

Kotletiy

These are Russian hamburger patties/meatballs. They are simple, fast and extremely delicious, especially with mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:
1 small onion
50 g bread, stale is ok
Milk enough to soak the bread (~1/3 c)
About 400 g ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying onions (just a little) and patties (a lot, enough for shallow frying)
Flour for dredging

Method:
Let the bread soak up all the milk. It should be soft enough to just be mush, like oatmeal consistency. While it's soaking, fry the onion, diced. I let the onion get a little brown. Mix the bread, onion and beef very well. You should be able to form balls, but they will be a little sticky. Dredge the balls in flour, shaking off excess. Fry in the oil a few minutes each side, till just almost cooked all the way through. Let them drain on a paper towel on a plate, they will finish cooking with carry-over heat.

Notes: I love these! The salting is tricky, I'd rather undersalt than oversalt. We've had a batch both ways, and well, you can always add, but you can't take away.

Seriving Suggestion: The best with mashed potatoes, also good with bread. They are tasty cold but I prefer them warm and juicy. I even chopped up leftovers and put it on top of a plain frozen pizza; that was delicious.

Spicy "Korean" Carrots

This was an attempt to recreate a dish that is sold in markets across the former Soviet Union. I had it in Ukraine, and got a craving for it in a bad way a few nights ago. But Switzerland is not the FSU, so if you want spicy "Korean" carrots here, you have to make them yourself. That is a problem, because it is a closely guarded secret. It's not an actual Korean dish, but those of Korean descent in the FSU who know how to make it don't tell anyone the recipe. There are, however, a lot of recipes on the internet, and I figured that they were all similar enough that the basic approach must be right.

The carrots in the market are sold in looong strips. I think they use one of these. Since I don't have one of those, I had to settle for attempting to julienne my carrots. Since I'm not a chef, and carrots are hard, I had to settle for thicker carrot sticks.

Spicy "Korean" Carrots

Ingredients:
2 very large carrots, 1 small one
1 small white onion
1 big clove of garlic
1.5 T vegetable oil
1 T powdered coriander
1.5 T chili powder*
2 t sugar
Juice of half a lemon
Salt to taste

*Note: My chili powder is mixed with a few other spices (oregano?!) and is a bit weak. You can adjust this based on your ingredients and your taste.

Method:
Cut the carrots into as close to a julienne as you can, or use a vegetable slicer of some kind. They shouldn't be shredded though. Slice the onion into thin half rings, and chop the garlic. Warm the oil in a large skillet. Add the onion, fry until translucent, soft and fragrant. Push the onions to one side, make sure there's enough oil pooled on the other side so you don't have to add more (we want to keep the fat down to some extent). This may mean tilting the pan slightly to get some on that other side. Once you have some warm oil on the opposite side of the onions, add the spices to it. Make sure that all the chili powder and coriander is immersed in the oil, let it fry for some seconds, it should smell really spicy. Add the garlic to the pan, and mix every thing together. Turn the heat down as low as it goes, add the carrots, the sugar, the lemon and the salt. Toss the carrots really well in the spice mix. Let them cook for a few minutes, you may need to keep tossing them so the spices don't burn and so they cook evenly. They should be still a bit crunchy when you serve them.

Notes: In recipes I've seen online they use vinegar, not lemon. But I had half a lemon, so guess what went in, and guess what tasted good? Also, in the real recipe the carrots aren't cooked. They sit in the marinade for a long time. But I cooked them because I was really hungry and couldn't wait. I think it especially worked out because I had thicker carrots. The flavor was close enough to the real thing to satisfy a craving. I think it would be even closer if I didn't cook the carrots and had really nice and thinly cut ones.

Serving suggestion: This was part of a dinner that included frozen and microwaved spinach souffle and perfectly boiled eggs (thank you, boyfriend!). I think they'd make a really good side dish to poultry or pork. Or even hamburgers, come to think of it.

Red Cabbage Sauté

In case you couldn't tell from last post, kasha + fried eggs + veggie saute = fast, tasty and nutritious dinner. Reasonably cheap, too.

Ingredients:
200 g red cabbage sauerkraut
2 t oil (any kind)
1 small onion
1 small apple
Salt to taste
A splash of apple cider vinegar if you want extra tart flavor

Method:
Warm the oil in a pan. Peel the onion and slice into demi-rings. Saute them until golden with hints of brown caramelization. Turn heat to low, add the apple, cut into matchsticks (peeled if you prefer), the cabbage, salt to taste and the optional vinegar. If your sauerkraut is not very wet, add a tablespoon or two of water to keep things from burning. Saute till apples and cabbage are warm.

Notes: Satisfying and tasty on a fall evening. Also, light and healthy.

Serving Suggestion: We had this with kasha (roasted buckwheat groats) and fried eggs. I think a dollop of sour cream or thick Greek style yogurt would have been good on the cabbage.

Extremely Fast Dinner

This was made (and I'm sorry to say) eaten in less than 45 minutes. Yeah, I eat too fast.

This fast and yummy dinner consists of kasha with fried eggs and cress saute.

Ingredients:
1 package cress (I think mine was garden cress, 75 g package)
1 small onion
1 T olive oil
1 big clove garlic
1.5 cups kasha, rinsed well
Eggs (however many you want)

Method:
Kasha: rinse well, put in a pot with 1.5 cups of water. Add some salt (as you would for rice), bring to a boil. You should also add some butter, but I don't have any right now, so I added a little bit of olive oil and a gruyere cheese rind for flavor. Allow to boil (not vigorously) till all water is evaporated, then remove from heat, cover and let steam for at least 5 minutes. You can cook it longer for softer kasha, this will need a bit more water.

Saute: Warm oil in a pan. Add chopped onion and saute until golden-brown. Add garlic, saute a couple of minutes. Just before serving, add cress and cook till wilted down.

Eggs: Fry them how you like them. (For me, over medium or sunny side up).

Serving Suggestion: Good eaten kind of all mixed up. Also good with bufala mozzarella cheese on the side.

Vegetable Pancakes

Just made these, but we'll have dinner later tonight. I ate one though. It was tasty, but for dinner I'm going to serve them with sour cream mixed with garlic and dill (that'll be really good)!

Ingredients:
1 small potato
1 small-medium zucchini
2 medium carrots
1 small onion
1/4 c flat leaf parsley
2 eggs
1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
Salt and lots of ground black pepper to taste
Oil for frying

Method:
Grate all the vegetables except the onion. I only peeled the carrots. The onion slice very thinly, and the parsley chop. Add all to a mixing bowl. Crack in the eggs, well, add the rest of the ingredients (except oil) and mix very well. Warm oil to fry. Place dollops of the vegetable mix in the pan, smush them a little to make them more pancake shaped. I did 3 at a time in my pan. When done on one side (golden brown, a couple of minutes) flip and finish on the other side. Remove from pan and let drain on towels/paper towels.

Notes: I think a good step to do, which I was going to do and forgot, is to salt the vegetables, let them sit a few minutes, and then remove the liquid that comes out of them before you add the eggs and flour etc.

Serving Suggestion: Well, I intend to top them with sour cream or yogurt mixed with chopped dill and minced garlic. I'll probably either have them with leftover schi from yesterday, or some arugula. These could be a light meal or appetizer. Probably good for breakfast too.

Turkish Style Eggplant with Rice-Pasta Pilaf

Eggplant recipe just sort of made up with what I had around, especially some stuff from the freezer (one chopped eggplant, 2 whole tomatoes). Before we go on a trip, if there's any produce that we didn't finish I just pop it in the freezer. The eggplants I chopped, but tomatoes I freeze whole. When I want to use them, I run a tomato under hot water for a few seconds. The skin is really easy to peel off after doing that. The tomato is still rock-hard, it's really easy to chop up.

The pilaf is my attempt to recreate something I had at a Turkish co-worker's home.

Turkish Style Eggplant with Rice-Pasta Pilaf

Ingredients:
For the eggplant:
1 eggplant
2 tomatoes
1 small onion
4 cloves garlic
1 large or 2-3 small carrots
1 T olive oil
2 T chopped fresh parsley
2 lemon wedges
1/3 c of a tomato sauce (any kind you like)
1/3 c water
2 bay leaves
Salt to taste

For the pilaf:
1 small onion
1 T olive oil
1.5 c raw rice
.5 c small pasta (orzo, vermicilli, stars)
3.5 c water
Salt

Method:
Eggplant: Mine was frozen, so to remove the excess water I just had to thaw in the microwave and drain. If yours is fresh, chop it and put it in a bowl. Salt it a little and let it sit about 10 minutes, the salt will draw the liquid out. Drain. Warm the oil in a pan. Saute one onion, chopped. When soft, add the carrot(s), shredded and the minced garlic. When the carrot is soft, add the remaining ingredients: eggplant, chopped tomatoes, juice from the lemon wedges, tomato sauce, bay leaves, parsley, water, salt to taste. Let it simmer while you prepare the pilaf. You can let it cook just until the eggplant is soft, or keep it simmering as long as you want (may need to replenish liquid in that case).

Pilaf: rinse the rice. In a pot, warm the oil. Saute the chopped onion till soft. Add the rice, and saute it for a few minutes. Don't let it brown, but the grains will become more translucent, and shiny. Add the water, pasta and salt. Cook as normal. I let it boil gently till the water is all gone, then I remove it from the heat and cover it, letting it steam for about 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.

Notes: My friend made her pilaf with orzo, which was really good. Mine was with vermicelli, which is what I had around. It was fine, but it was kind of like normal rice. Next time I will use orzo. The tomato sauce I used had peppers (not spicy ones) in it. You could use plain, or even just tomato paste. I think a spicy tomato sauce, like arrabiata, would be tasty in it. This meal was fast and easy to prepare.

Serving Suggestion: Very good served with yogurt. You could add the parsley at the end instead, if you want, sprinkling it over the dish just before serving

Creamy Mushroom Sauce

Whipped this up tonight. It was really good, fast and super simple.

Ingredients:
10 small button mushrooms
1 T olive oil
1 T butter
4 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 T boursin cheese
2 t creme fraiche
2 T chopped fresh parsley

Method:
Melt butter and oil together in a saucepan. Saute chopped onion till soft and slightly golden. Add chopped garlic, saute a minute or so more. Add sliced mushrooms, and saute until soft. Remove from heat. Stir in boursin cheese, creme and parsley until boursin is melted and everything is well mixed. Salt to taste.

Notes: It was really good. My BF liked it too. He ate it on top of noodles. I had it on top of a bed of spinach with a fried egg on top. I think his way sounds tastier, but I'm trying to watch the calories. Can't argue with spinach when it comes to calories.

Serving Suggestion: On top of a bed of spinach (maybe slightly wilted and salted), noodles, rice or (sounds really good) boiled potatoes.

Orecchiette a la Funghi

Very simple and tasty meal. Again, made at a time we didn't have a lot of different ingredients around. I basically looked in the fridge and used what was there.

Ingredients:

Orecchiette--I had about 6-7 cups cooked
Quite a bit of butter (maybe 2 T?)
1 T olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, diced
Splash of white wine
1 cup frozen mushrooms*
1/4 c shredded Gruyere cheese
Small bunch of fresh basil** chopped

*Ours is a mix of chopped wild mushrooms--of course if you have fresh mushrooms, go for it!
**Actually mine was frozen, as this was again done right after a trip. I always freeze whatever fresh before I go away on a trip.

Method:
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, you'll add the pasta. While the water is coming to a boil, start the sauce: in a saucepan, melt the butter with the oil. When heated, add the onion and saute until soft and translucent. Add the garlic, saute a minute or two more. Add the mushrooms and the wine, and about 1/2 c of the pasta cooking water. Allow to simmer on the lowest heat while waiting for the pasta to finish. Season with salt to taste. As soon as the pasta is finished, drain it, add to the saucepan. Add the basil and the Gruyere at this point as well. Toss everything together well, and serve!

Notes: I thought maybe some cream would be good, but we didn't have any. It was very nice with just the butter and the cheese, though, still tasted creamy. I think the key was A LOT of butter.

Serving Suggestion: White wine?

Orecchiette a la Vodka

Vodka really brings out the taste of tomato sauces. I especially like tomato-vodka sauces with peas. Traditionally, cream and bacon are also added. (Disclaimer: When I say "traditionally", I mean I've seen it done this way in many restaurants.) We just got back from a week-long conference and had almost no food around, especially no fresh food. This is what I made in that situation.

Ingredients:
Orecchiette pasta--I think I had about 6 or 7 cups cooked
2 small onions, diced
3-4 cloves of garlic, diced
3 canned roma tomatoes + a bit of the juice from the can
1 T tomato paste
A splash of vodka
1 t of sugar
1 c of frozen peas
About 2 T olive oil
A generous pat of butter*

*The butter is optional. Leave it out for a vegan meal. Maybe add a little more olive oil in that case.

Method:
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, you'll add the pasta. While the water is coming to a boil, start the sauce: in a saucepan, melt the butter with the oil. When heated, add the onion and saute until soft and translucent. Add the garlic, saute a minute or two more. Add the tomatoes and juice, chopped, the tomato paste, the sugar and the vodka. Allow to simmer for a couple of minutes. The pasta's probably almost done (you don't want to over cook it). Add about 1/2 c of the pasta water to the sauce, and the peas. Let it simmer on the lowest heat while you wait for the pasta to finish. Season with salt to taste. As soon as the pasta is finished, drain it, add to the saucepan and toss well with the sauce. Serve!

Notes: The pasta water part really is important. It makes the sauce stick to the pasta. I saw it on an old-school Italian cooking show on PBS when I was about 16, and have always remembered it since then. Orecchiette is probably my favorite pasta. I've heard it's traditionally served with broccoli, but I like it with anything. My BF thought it wasn't the best for this dish, he thinks that orecchiette needs a creamier sauce. I think it would go nicely with many different types of pasta, for some reason I think that short ones would be better than long ones (linguine, spaghetti...).

Serving Suggestion: Maybe garnish with a little parsley? I thought it was a very tasty dinner. Since we visited Italy I've been inspired to try and do more interesting things with pasta lately.

Tasty (and very Swiss-French) White Pizza

This is my attempt at imitating a pizza I've seen on to go menus here. It's not anything like pizzas I've seen on American menus, but it's really good! The real Swiss-French version of course includes lardons, i.e. bacon. But I don't eat a lot of meat, and I especially try to avoid pork (paranoid about tapeworms).

Ingredients:
Ready made pizza dough or pizza shell
Creme fraiche or sour cream (about 1/4 c)
2 medium mushrooms, washed and sliced
1 medium potato, baked
3 cloves of garlic, diced
1 small onion, sliced thinly
1/2 c shredded Gruyere cheese

Method:
Preheat oven according to instructions for your dough/shell. You can certainly use home-made dough if you want. Place the dough on whatever you'll cook it on. Cover with the creme fraiche, leaving the amount of crust you prefer along the border. Sprinkle with the garlic. Sprinkle about 1/3 of the cheese on top. Arrange on the pizza: onion slices, mushroom slices and slices of the baked potato. Now sprinkle with the remaining Gruyere. Bake until crust is done, it will be enough time for the cheese to get melty and parts of the pizza to be golden brown.

Notes: I can't tell you how tasty this was! Of course you can add more garlic or mushrooms. That's never a bad thing. I also think it would be tasty with wild mushrooms, but I just used champignons de paris (standard button type).

Serving Suggestion: This was eaten for dinner, but I want to try it for a dinner party as an appetizer, cut into small squares.

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!

Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Vinegar

I've been so, so busy. My cousin came to visit us, I've been swamped with work and we moved to Switzerland. All those were/are good things (even about the work), but the result has been that I have had NO spare time.

Also, I have not felt like cooking at all. I don't understand why, but for some reason I'm just loathing the thought of making anything more complicated than a salad.

So, here is the salad that I made today, with the lovely strawberries that are just starting to arrive.

Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Vinegar

Ingredients:

3 c mâche or baby spinach
6-10 strawberries, washed, tops removed, hulled and halved
1.5 oz fresh soft goat's cheese (chevre)
1 scallion
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 t olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

Wash the mâche/spinach and dry well. I like to use a salad spinner. They're cheap and fun (mine was $2 from Target), and effective. Arrange the strawberries and goat cheese on top. Season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with the chopped scallion. Top with oil and vinegar.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: I know it is extremely basic, but that's pretty much how I've been cooking recently. I'm really looking forward to summer ingredients, and lots of simple but flavorful salads like this one. After winter, I am officially sick of soups (didn't think it could even happen)!

Root Vegetable Soup

This soup was light but tasty, with flavors of spring and late winter.

Root Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

Water (I probably used about 6 cups)
1.5 cups lamb's lettuce or baby spinach
1/2 large turnip, cleaned, chopped into 1" cubes
1 small rutabaga, cleaned, chopped into 1" cubes
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup chopped oyster mushrooms (can use any kind)
2 medium-large onions, sliced into pieces 1/4"-1/2" thick
2 T oil
1 T butter
1 Bay leaf
Salt and Pepper to taste
Soy sauce to taste (about 1 T)
1 small bunch dill, chopped
1 T dried parsley

Method:

Warm the oil and the butter together in a large pot. I use my 3 Qt. pot for all soups. Add the onions, sauteeing them. It helps if you sprinkle some salt over them. I let mine get just slightly caramelized. Add the mushrooms, celery and garlic. Sautee until the celery is really bright green, a couple of minutes. Add the water, rutabaga and turnip. Season to taste with salt, pepper, herbs and soy sauce. Bring to a boil and allow to cook till turnip and rutabaga are soft to your liking (I prefer them not absolutely soft). Just before serving, stir in lamb's lettuce or baby spinach.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: I think the soup may also benefit from a little acidity, like some balsamic vinegar or lemon juice. It's tasty as is, but it's a subtle sort of tasty. The soup doesn't really take long to cook, either. Rutabagas and turnips take less time than potatoes, but if you want this to be more substantial you could add those too. I'm putting this in the "French" section because this just sort of came about from all the great French produce in (one of) my grocery store(s) yesterday. Everything in the soup was from France! It's not that common, we get a lot of produce from Africa and Spain. I try to buy as local as I can, though. *Edit* I just remembered that I put in parsley and dill as well. The dill was from Morocco, so I guess it wasn't a 100% French soup.

Celery and Apple Salad

We had this tonight with boiled potatoes and baked trout. (I'm trying to eat less meat, but it's mostly for health reasons, and fish are pretty good for you.) It's an attempt of mine to make a salad similar to one from the CERN cafeteria. The food there can be highly questionable, but some of it is surprisingly tasty.

Celery and Apple Salad

Ingredients:

Dressing:
2 T nice mayonnaise
2 t nice mustard (I used a mild Dijon)
1 T apple cider vinegar
Squeeze of lemon juice
1 small bunch mint, chopped
1 T dried parsley

1 small apple, cored, quartered and sliced thinly
1/4 c cashew halves & wholes, crumbled
2 ribs of celery, chopped
4-5 cups lettuce, chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

In a salad bowl, mix the ingredients for dressing together well. Add the celery, apples and cashews. Mix well, season with salt and pepper. Add lettuce, and toss before serving.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: It had nice, understated flavors. Really springtime-like. I think the kind of mayo you use is important, and mustard too. We get insanely wonderful ones here, nothing like the mayo I remember in the States. Actually, I never ate mayo when I lived in the States, because I didn't like it. This recipe makes enough for about 5 side salad portions, or 3 large meal-type portions.

Stuffed Tomatoes and Mushrooms

I made these last night for dinner. We needed to eat, and so I just sort of made this up on the spot. It turned out well, though I undersalted the filling (I always end up undersalting things).

Stuffed Tomatoes and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

3 medium round tomatoes
3 large mushrooms
325 g ground beef
1/2 small onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1 T dried parsley
1 T dried basil
1 T dried oregano
salt
pepper
1 egg
1 c tomato juice (something tasty enough you'd drink it)
60 g fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced/shredded

Method:

Wash the mushrooms and the tomatoes. Slice their tops off and remove the insides of the tomatoes (a grapefruit spoon is awesome for this) and reserve for some other application (soup, salads, whatever). Remove the mushroom stems, chop them (just the stems) and place the pieces in a bowl. Arrange the tomatoes and mushrooms in a shallow baking pan or dish. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper. In the bowl with the mushroom pieces, prepare the filling. Add to the mushrooms the ground beef, garlic, onion, egg (beaten), herbs and generous amounts of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. Stuff an equal amount of the mixture into each tomato and mushroom cap. You can stuff them with less and make more mushrooms/tomatoes if you want. Pour the tomato juice over everything. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cover each tomato/mushroom with cheese (you can use a different kind if you like) and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: I cooked mine for 10 minutes more than is listed here, and they were just the tiniest bit dry. I think that the times I've written here are better. We ate this with a big green salad (romaine, olives stuffed with garlic, onion, apple cider vinegar dressing) and spaghetti. You could use bell peppers, too, or some other vegetable. If you want to use less meat, add some rice to the mixture. For a vegetarian stuffing, I'd use rice, mushrooms, onion and maybe some kidney beans.

I know that tomatoes with spaghetti sounds very Italian, but I've never seen Italian stuffed tomatoes. I have seen them in Russian and Balkan cuisine, and in French, too. However, I have seen Italian stuffed mushrooms. I dunno. I'm putting them in the "Russian", "Italian", and "French" categories.

Oven Dies at Inopportune Moment, or Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs

Actually, "Gas runs out at inopportune moment" is more correct. So no oven or stove. And we don't have a microwave. All we have is an electric teapot and a toaster. AND it happens as we have two things in the oven: My Boyfriend's Roasted Chicken, and a new recipe I'm trying, Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs (Russian site). We noticed just shortly after putting them in, so no food-safety issues, simply disappointing. We put the things in the fridge to prepare tomorrow. We were going to ask our colleague/friend/neighbor upstairs if we could use her oven, but she was out rock climbing. She lives a more exciting life than we do. :-D

I'll post the recipe for the tomatoes here, for any who don't speak Russian. I made a couple of small additions, but unfortunately I can't yet tell you how this recipe tastes! I'll update it tomorrow, after we buy a new gas bottle from the store. Of course, as of 7:45, every place selling these things was closed. That's France for you.

Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs
original recipe at: http://gotovim-doma.ru/view.php?r=571-recept-IAichnitsa-v-pomidorakh

Ingredients:
X medium-large tomatoes (where X is the number of tomatoes you want to make)
X smallish eggs (I buy large eggs, so I just picked the smallest ones from the carton)
X tablespoons ricotta cheese
X tablespoons chopped onion
X raw eggs in their shells
Salt and pepper

It's the first ingredient list that looks like a high-school algebra lesson! Yay! As for the tomatoes, you don't need like beefsteak tomato large ones, just a normal round tomato will do quite nicely.

Method:
Wash tomatoes and slice a thin slice off the top. Take out the seeds and inner flesh of each tomato. Using a grapefruit spoon works great. Don't discard the insides, use them in soup, a salad, eat them, whatever. Place tomatoes in a shallow baking dish, sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Place the chopped onion and ricotta cheese at the bottom of each tomato, then crack a whole egg into each tomato. You can salt and pepper again, and then pop into the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). From the picture on the site, the yolks will be runny and the whites set.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: To serve, plate and sprinkle over with chopped green herbs of your choice. I'm going to do dill and parsley, but basil, green onion, maybe coriander and mint, would all work beautifully. About egg size: assuming you use normally sized tomatoes, if you make a lot of these it may be worth it to buy a carton of small/medium eggs. I used large, and there was a little spillage over the edge, but since I only made 4 and since it was the first time trying it, I didn't buy any special eggs. I think this would be a good addition to a dinner (main course, with pasta, rice, or a big salad in the summer) or a nice little appetizer. Or even a breakfast.

The Original Recipe: What a great site! I look forward to trying many more from there. I spent a good hour and a half today just reading recipes on that site. I counted it as "practicing Russian" and not "shamelessly ogling tasty food." The recipe is for two tomatoes, but I don't think cooking time will change much. It also notes that you can add the greens before baking, to make them softer, and that you can add things other than eggs (as I did). It suggests ham, sausage or fried mushrooms (yummy!).

The CbG idea + food rut + Diet (Carrot and Feta Salad)

So, I think that the Cheap but Good thing was a good idea, but I'm getting a little burned out on it. Maybe it's because for a while there, it was so essential to us to find the cheapest way to do things, but now that the euro isn't doing so well, we've relaxed a little. Anyway, my standard "bag of tricks" is getting exhausted. I'm going to continue the idea, but not hold myself to a once a week post; when I find something good, be it a recipe or an idea, I'll post. I'd rather post when I have an idea that I really want to share, than post just for the sake of posting.

We're kind of in a food rut here ... my boyfriend actually got sick of soups, and lately we're eating a lot of salads. Part of it is that I don't have the time at the moment for a lot of more complicated cooking. At least the salads are healthy, and easy to vary.

Bringing me to the last part, "me on a diet." Since I moved to France, about 7 kilograms (that's about 15 POUNDS) has mysteriously affixed itself to my body. Ok, so it's not so mysterious. I think it's mostly due to living with a man; he eats more and more often than I should, and I've fallen into the habit of eating when he does. (And eating what he does, not always a good thing). I've decided that I'd really like to get back to my old self again, if only for the reason that I'll once more be able to wear a good half of my wardrobe. So, food is probably going to get a lot more vegetable-y around here, for one thing. And that's not bad.

I made a salad last night that was really good. It was simple, but for some reason I found it really tasty. It was bright, slightly sweet, filling and satisfying.

Carrot and Feta Salad

Ingredients:

2 T apple cider vinegar
2 t honey
1 T olive oil
1 T dried parsley
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 large carrot, peeled and grated
1 small tart apple, cored and cut into matchsticks
50 g of feta cheese (I used full-fat sheeps milk feta)
4-5 c of lettuce, roughly chopped (I used Batavia lettuce, I think it's a butterhead variety)

Method:

In a large salad bowl, assemble the dressing: first the vinegar, then whisk in the honey, then whisk in the oil. Stir in the parsley (I crumble it slightly) and the garlic clove. Add the grated carrot and the apple, toss well in the dressing till it's all covered. Add the cheese, and mix. Now add the lettuce. You could toss it, or do what I did and just serve it at this point.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: I didn't toss the salad, it was nice to scoop it out and see the layers. I got a bunch of lettuce and the tasty apple-carrot-cheese mix on top. This makes enough for about 4 generous side/appetizer portions. I had 1/3 of it, with a boiled potato that had just a little sour cream on top. It was a pretty satisfying meal.

Calorie Count: In the entire salad, there are 461 calories.

Cheap but Good: Getting Experimental with Pasta Sauces

Even though it definitely falls under the category of "cheap but good," I don't cook a lot of pasta, and not a lot of pasta sauce either. Not because I can't whip up something tasty, but because it's my boyfriend's "job." We have this sort of unspoken understanding that there are certain things that he cooks. Here's the list: fried eggs, mashed potatoes, pasta and associated sauces, pork. There are things that are "mine", too: soups, anything else done with eggs, beef, Indian food. Often I branch out and try to cook things that aren't on my list, but he knows what he is good at and sticks to it. I can honestly say that he does everything on his list much, much better than I do, even though I have more cooking experience.

Part of why his pasta sauces end up better than mine comes from his willingness to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. I tend to take a more cautious approach, selecting a few ingredients that I know will go well together. My result is always good, but strangely enough his is too. I keep waiting for one of his random sauces to fail and it hasn't happened yet.

His approach to making pasta sauce leads to a highly economical and tasty dinner, because what he does is take various odds and ends from the fridge--that may not have otherwise been used--and incorporates them into our meal. A few artichoke hearts left in a jar, likewise for some lonely green olives, the last splash of wine from the bottle on the table, the last tablespoon of cream in the tub, mixed with parsley that's just starting to wilt and that bacon that'll go bad if we don't use it the next couple of days. He usually throws in a dash of a couple spices too; sometimes unusual things, like cumin or coriander.

All these odds and ends combined with a can of diced tomatoes (or when we have them, a chopped fresh one) make a huge panful of sauce that we eat with whatever dried pasta we have on hand. All it needs is a tiny sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese to be perfect.