Food
Food
Beef Stew with Root Vegetables
The last few weeks have been exceptionally busy here; I feel like I hardly spend any time at home, and I love being home. But I did manage to make a really rustic, hearty, and healthy beef stew. It is tender and flavorful and just fantastic. This stew just hit the spot during those cold winter days we’ve had lately. Just complete satisfaction. Warm, like a blanket; bursting with flavor like summer. Feeds your belly and your soul. The potatoes and sweet potatoes are actually still from one of the winter shares of the CSA. I couldn’t believe it that they’re still good. But sure enough, if you store them properly (cool, dark place), they’re...
Read MoreStuffed Shells
I have always wanted to make a stuffed pasta dish but was always intimidated by it. Not quite sure why, because it’s so easy. Easier than lasagna, and I consider lasagna to be easy. And when I found a recipe in a magazine (Whole Living, March 2011 edition) and realized I had all the ingredients, I knew I had to try it. I was also surprised at how quick this came together. It is also healthy and very satisfying. The spinach, the low-fat farmer’s cheese (I noticed it’s lower fat than the ricotta the original recipe called for), the mushrooms in the sauce (another one of my tweaks) all contributed to the guilt-free satisfaction of this cheesy...
Read MoreLeek and Cabbage Soup
Take a look at this soup. It’s not photogenic. It’s not sexy. But it’s first and foremost delicious. Of course, it’s also healthy and incredibly easy to make. And on cold autumn or winter days, it really hits the spot. How could it not? The other fabulous feature of this soup is that it features veggies from the CSA (Highcross Farms), and home made chicken stock (chicken was from Grassway Organics). If you think that this combination is a little odd, I wouldn’t blame you. But then again, I think anything with peanut butter is strange. Just think about it, there is a leak and potato soup, and cabbage and potato soup. I just...
Read MoreRoasted Acorn Squash
It’s true, I’ve never had acorn squash before. “How can that happen?”, you ask. Simple. I thought I didn’t like it. It looked foreign (which it really is, to me), and hard to figure out, and since I’ve never had it before, I never knew what I’d ever do with it. But as I mentioned in some of my earlier posts, one of the benefits of joining a CSA is that you get veggies you might not have picked out on your own. Just check out the pumpkins/squash in the picture for an example of what I got in the last few CSA boxes. The folks at Highcross Farm do a great job with getting fantastic food to us and I take these...
Read MorePuff Pastry with Honey and Nuts – Pseudo Baklava
I love this dessert. It’s easy, quick, and most importantly, delicious. This dessert has enjoyed a successful introduction to my family, co-workers, and a CSA pot luck. There are several things that make this recipe extra easy. One, is that I use store-bought puff pastry. As you know, I have no room for working with dough (see my kitchen), so these shortcuts become more of a necessity. But I don’t mind, it makes my life easier, and that’s a much welcomed thing. (However, if you’d like to try your hand at home-made puff pastry, check out Sofya’s version.) I wish everything was as easily simplified as puff pastry dough. But...
Read MoreTea, Uzbek Style
All great tea cultures have their own traditions for brewing and serving tea. Uzbekistan has quite a long history of tea consumption, and as such, has specific ways of brewing and serving tea. Though Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union, don’t confuse Uzbek tea culture with that of Russia as they’re distinct enough. When I was growing up in Uzbekistan, I remember drinking tea just about every time we drank anything; I don’t remember drinking milk with dinner as is common here in America, and I don’t remember drinking a lot of water, though I’m sure I did. But the memories of tea, at each and every occasion, are what stick out in my...
Read MoreChickpea and Tomato Salad
I was completely struck by the simplicity and deliciousness of this salad when I saw it at an event about a month or so ago. Of course, it was also one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments. I mean, it’s tomatoes and chickpeas, both of which I love. But perhaps my experimenting with food stopped the moment it started when I decided to put salt in my tea when I in kindergarten. Quite traumatized by that still. LOL. Anyway, this salad is incredibly easy, especially if you use cherry tomatoes, which is how this salad was made when I first saw it. But I didn’t have cherry tomatoes and I didn’t see anything wrong with...
Read MoreDamlyama-inspired chicken and vegetable stew
I mentioned in some of my previous post that I joined a CSA this year and all the benefits associated with it. The “downside” is having a ton of veggies and finding creative ways to use them up. This time, I turned to one of my recipes and totally re-did it. Well, as much as one can re-make a meat and veggie dish. The original, Damlyama, is a traditional Uzbek dish, using lamb and a pretty specific set of veggies and a specific method. For this dish, I took the basic elements of Damlyama, meat and veggies, and built a new recipe based on that. I sorta think of this as a deconstructed chicken damlyama. But don’t think of this as a...
Read MoreTomatoes: Canned Sauce
I’ve been just about knee deep in tomatoes last few weeks and made a ton of “easy sauce“. I’ve also made quite a few jars of diced tomatoes, but more on that later. Because this is my first year canning anything ever, I thought I’d take it a little easy (though my dad would disagree) and try only a few things. But as great as my family food tradition is, we don’t really have a good recipe for tomato sauce. Lamb, oh yeah, you’ve come to the right place, but I don’t even tomato sauce on the menu as I was growing up…. So google to the rescue. I found this recipe for DiAgostino’s Red Gravy. It met all my...
Read MoreTomatoes: Freezing Sauce
As you have probably gathered from reading this blog and statements like “tomatoes are my favorite food” that tomatoes are my favorite food. It seems like everything I cook in winter has some sort of a tomato presence, be it stew, chilli, soup, or something roasted. So I decided to make my own tomato bases this year, something I can pull out and use in multiple ways. Having ten tons of tomatoes on hand and absolutely no time to do anything “exciting”, I was looking for something very easy, very quick, and requiring little cleanup. And as luck would have it, Sofya had a great way of processing these tomatoes. Seeing her beautiful...
Read MoreTomatoes: Pickled
Ahh… Pickled tomatoes… There’s nothing else like them. When I think about them, I always remember winter-time family dinners, snow outside, grandpa grabbing a ladder and going into the cellar to get a bowl of pickled tomatoes. You see, when I was little, my grandparents had a cellar, a place little girls were not allowed to go to, which of course, worked to capture the imagination nurtured on rich Russian fairy tales even more. But the treasure in that cellar was a barrel of pickled tomatoes. Of course, there was also a barrel of pickles. At the rate I ate them, there were probably several dozen barrels of each. Of course, you can’t...
Read MorePickled Patty Pan Squash
As I mentioned in my other post, I have only ever had these beauties pickled. Oh sure, I tried to roast them last year, and it was a complete disaster, they were disgusting. So, I’m not repeating that. Instead, I decided to pickle them, since I seem to be pickling everything in sight. Yes, pickled food is my favorite, and pickled tomatoes are God’s gift to me. There’s just nothing better. Except maybe shashlik. But I digress… So the other day, I saw that one of my local farms (Witte’s Vegetable Farm) had a whole bunch of these little sunshines at their stand. And I couldn’t resist their cheerful happiness...
Read MorePatty Pan (Zucchini) Soup
Being so busy with all the food processing, I haven’t really had a chance to post anything new in a while. But today, I finally decided I need a new post. Hope you like the soup as much as I do. A few weeks ago, actually, about a month ago, I signed up for a CSA. It’s a relatively local farm (HighCross Farm) that sends me a “small” box of organic produce every week. Several weeks in a row, I got some some absolutely gorgeous patty pan (or sunburst) squash. They are in the zucchini family. But I never know what to do with zucchini, and especially these round zucchini, and I’ve only ever had them pickled (recipe coming...
Read MoreRoasted Bell Pepper and Green Bean Salad
I got a few too many peppers at the store the other day and needed a way to use them up. They looked too good to pass up! Ingredients: 2 red bell peppers 1 yellow bell pepper 1 orange bell pepper 1/2 red onion sliced into half moons a couple handfuls of green beans, blanched Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, equal parts Salt, pepper to taste Steps: 1. Roast the peppers and clean the skin off once they’re cool enough to handle. Slice into 1/4 inch long slices. 2. Slice the onion into half moons. 3. Blanche green beans (dunk them into boiling salted water for about a minute and then dunk them into ice-cold water to stop the cooking). 4. Combine all ingredients in a...
Read MoreEggplant Spread
I absolutely love eggplant and the grocery store had really pretty ones the other day. Yes, I like my food to be good-looking. Don’t you? So these gorgeous eggplant were just calling to me and I ended up taking one of them home. I keep wanting to make Sofya’s eggplant spread but somehow I just never get to frying it. This time was no different. I had peppers roasting in the oven, so I just added the eggplant to the roasting peppers. Once the eggplant cooled enough to handle, I removed the seeds and chopped it really finely, till it was almost a paste. Add garlic and tomato, and you’re set. Ingredients: 1 large eggplant, roasted 2 large...
Read MorePotato and Green Bean Salad
This is a really delicious and healthy side dish. It’s also really easy and really quick to make. The hardest part of this recipe is waiting for it! LOL. I actually made it twice today. This recipe calls for a really good olive oil because you’ll add the dressing to the potatoes while they’re hot and the flavor of the oil will really stand out. One person who ate this tasted a hint of garlic though there’s no garlic in this recipe; it was the flavor of the olive oil. Ingredients: 1.5 – 2 LBs new potatoes (I used red and Yukon Gold) 3-4 handfuls of green beans 1/2 red onion, sliced in half moons 3/4 cup of olive oil 1/4 cup...
Read MoreFather’s Day
I love that there is such a holiday as Father’s Day. I think the good men in our lives don’t get enough recognition and a day dedicated just for them is a great way to reflect on all the good things they do and to tell them how much we love and treasure them. Today, we celebrate the fathers in our lives, and I’m celebrating mine. And so, for this special occasion, we’re getting together at my place for some feasting. (Is it selfish to relish the idea of cooking for people who enjoy your food, especially if you’ve been away from your kitchen for a while?) Nibbles/Appetizers/Salads: Egg Salad — This time, I added one...
Read MoreRoasted Veggies and Fish – Easiest Dinner
I’m always on the look out for an easy, quick, and nutritious meal. After work and after grocery shopping, I’m usually too tired to actually make something with the groceries I bought. So, this particular day, I thought I should just roast some veggies for the next day. Then, I thought “why not just add the fish and make a meal of it today?” And that’s exactly what I did. Ingredients: 1 lb package of asparagus 1 lb fish (I used cod) 1 large carrot, sliced into bite sized pieces Olive oil, salt, pepper Dill/parsley/cilantro (optional, to taste) Steps: 1. Drizzle olive oil on asparagus, carrots, and fish. 2. Sprinkle salt and...
Read MorePepper Soup
I haven’t made any soups recently and since one of my New Year’s resolutions is to make more soups (and eat them), I figured today would be a good day for that. As I was reviewing the produce I had, I noticed that some of the bell peppers were starting to look like a Shar Pei and a few random roasted peppers in a jar could be used up too. So, Pepper Soup to the rescue! I remembered seeing a fairly easy recipe by Bal Arneson on the Cooking Channel, but there were a few ingredients I didn’t have (I’m not driving across town for 1 tsp of asafotida, especially when I don’t even know what it is). Thus, I decided to use the recipe as...
Read MoreFish in Fresh Tomato Sauce
Tomatoes… My love for them knows no bounds. Even in this winter, when we have several feet of snow, I seek out tomatoes and try to make something where they’re palatable. You know what winter tomatoes taste like, right? The taste like… paper… or cotton…. completely flavorless and watery. BUT… if you cook them, they make delicious magic with garlic. This dish is also very quick, easy, and healthy. If you want to cut down on additional calories from olive oil, you can use a cooking spray or use olive oil spray can (I have a Misto Sprayer). Ingredients: 2 pints of tomatoes (I used yellow and red and you can see that I have...
