“A box without hinges, key, or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Ingredients:
– 4 eggs
– 3 large garlic clothes
– 1/2 bunch dill
– 3 tsp mayonnaise
– 1/3 tsp salt
Method:
1 Boil eggs, peel them, cut in halves and carefully remove yolks
2 Combine eggs yolk, mayonnaise, finely chopped dill and salt and put the mixture in the eggs halves
3 Serve cold
“Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.”
― Gustave Flaubert, November
Ingredients (3-4 servings):
– 3-4 red bell peppers;
– 500g minced chicken;
– 80g rice;
– 200g tomato passata;
– 1/3 bunch dill;
– 1 tsp salt;
– 1/2 tsp black pepper.
Directions:
1 Mix minced chicken with rice, salt and black pepper.
2 De-seed red bell peppers.
3 Stuff well red bell peppers with the meat mixture.
4 Transfer the stuffed peppers to the large pot with the tops from bell peppers. Add tomato passata and water to cover the bell peppers.
5 Cook at medium heat for 40 minutes.
6 Serve with a half a soup ladle of broth
Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.
Lao Tzu
Batter ingredients (10-12 Syrniki):
– 500g cottage cheese
– 2 tbsp sugar
– 2 tsp Vanilla sugar
– 1 egg
– 4 tbsp flour
Additional ingredients:
– 3-4 tbsp flour for dipping Syrniki
– sunflower oil for frying
– honey for serving
Method:
1 Mix batter ingredients until smooth.
2 For each Syrnik, dip 1 tbsp batter in flour, form a round with fingers and put it on the wooden board.
3 Pre-heat sunflower oil in the skillet: fry Syrniki 2-4 min each side until golden: transfer them on paper towels to absorb extra oil.
4 Serve warm with honey.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Viktor E. Frankl
My mom once made very tasty éclairs when I was a child. For some time I am searching for a recipe to reproduce that taste, but in vain… Yet hope is not lost 🙂
Dough ingredients:
– 80g all-purpose flour
– 2 eggs
– 70g butter
– 140g water
– 10g sugar
– pinch of salt
Filling ingredients:
– 240g milk
– 2 eggs
– 70g sugar
– 20g corn starch
– 20g butter
Directions:
1 Filling
1.1 Combine milk, eggs, sugar, corn starch: mix well until smooth
1.2 Pour the mixture in a non-sticking pan, medium heat: cook until thickened constantly stirring
1.3 Add butter and mix until butter is melted, set the filling aside and let it cool down
1.4 Move the filling in the fridge while making dough
2 Dough
2.1 Combine butter, sugar, water and salt in a pan, put on medium heat: keep until butter is melted constantly stirring
2.2 Add flour: continue mixing until smooth, then remove from the heat
2.3 Add whisked eggs, mix well
3 Eclairs
3.1 Preheat the oven to 180C
3.2 Form 1.5cm width x 5cm length stripes out of the dough (I used decorating tube for that) and make stripes with a fork on the surface
3.3 Bake 40 minutes at 180C and let them cool down
3.4 Fill the eclairs making a small hole on the side and using a decorating tube
3.5 Enjoy with a cup of coffee !
…nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book…
Nikolai Gogol
Ingredients (for 12 cabbage rolls):
– 1 pointed head cabbage (it is more tender for this recipe than white cabbage)
– 4oog minced beef
– 120g rice
– 1 red onion
– 250g mashed tomatoes (tomato passata) 🍅
– 1.5 tsp salt
– 0.5 tsp black pepper
– 200g sour cream for serving
Directions:
1 Boil rice until ready
2 Carefully separate cabbage leaves and boil them for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a plate to cool down
3 Chop onion
4 Mix minced beef with boiled rice, chopped onion, salt and black pepper
5 Put 1-2 tbsp beef mixture on one cabbage leave and pack into a roll 🙂
6 Put cabbage rolls side to side in the saucepan and cover with water 1-2 cm above, then add mashed tomatoes: I cooked in 2 saucepans with 125g mashed tomatoes in each
7 Boil cabbage rolls for 30-35 minutes covered with a lid
8 Serve cabbage rolls with cooking broth, sour cream and chopped parsley!
One kind word can warm three winter months
Japanese proverb
Ingredients (4 servings):
– 250g rice
– 400g chicken breast
– 5 (~390g unpeeled) medium carrots
– 2 small red onions
– 3 tbsp sunflower oil
– 1.5 tsp salt
– 0.5 tsp black pepper
– a few parsley sprigs for serving
Method:
1 Wash rice and soak in water for 30 minutes
2 Grate carrots and chop onions
3 Wash chicken breasts and absorb extra water with paper towels
4 Cut chicken breast into 0.5-1 cm pieces and fry
5 Fry chicken pieces with sunflower oil for 10 minutes at medium heat
6 Add carrots, onion, salt, pepper to the chicken: stew for another 15 minutes
7 Preheat the oven to 200C
8 Drain water from the rice
9 Boil 1.5l water in the teapot
10 Put in the four ceramic pots (I have 0.5l pots):
10.1 Chicken with vegetables
10.2 Rice ~2-3 tbsp per pot
10.3 Pour boiled water in each ceramic pot to cover the rice ~1cm
11 Cook the Pilaf in the oven for 40 minutes with covered lids
12 Serve with chopped parsley and enjoy ! 🙂
Patsuk opened his mouth, stared at the vareniki, and opened his mouth wider still. At that moment, a varenik jumped out of the bowl, splashed into the cream, flipped over and leapt straight up into his mouth. Patsuk opened his mouth again, and another varenik went through the same performance. The only trouble he took was to munch it up and swallow it.
Nikolai Gogol, Christmas Eve
Dough ingredients (~70 Pelmeni = 4-6 portions):
– 3 cups (1 cup = 250ml) wheat flour
– 170ml warm water
– 1 tablespoon 9% vinegar
– 2 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
Filling ingredients (~70 Pelmeni = 4-6 portions):
– 250g minced beef
– 250g minced pork
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
– 1 onion or 1 bunch of chopped chives
Serving ingredients (for 2 portions):
– 200g sour cream
– 2 teaspoons butter
– 1/2 bunch dill or 1/2 bunch parsley
Method:
1 Knead a dough from dough ingredients and transfer it to the fridge in a covered bowl for 30 minutes
2 Combine minced meat (no extra water!) + salt + black pepper + finely chopped onion or chives: mix everything well with a fork
3 Separate dough into 6 equal pieces: form a 1.5cm diameter sausage from each piece
4 Cut each sausage into 1cm width pieces and roll out each piece into a 5cm diameter round 🙂
5 Put 1 teaspoon filling into each round, fold the round into a half-moon and pinch all the edges together strongly with fingers, do it two times. Then pull together two corners and pinch strongly with fingers again. 🙂
6 Boil Pelmeni for 5 minutes in boiling water (at least 3 minutes after Pelmeni are floating on the top) and serve with sour cream, butter and fresh chopped parsley or dill
7 Enjoy !
Numai daca vremea ar sta locului am putea vedea lamurit ce este etern
Mihai Eminescu
Ingredients (for 4 stuffed peppers):
– 4 red bell peppers
– 450g minced beef
– 90g pearl barley
– 7 small tomatoes 🍅
– 1/3 bunch dill
– 1 small onion (to adda flavour to the broth!)
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
– 100g sour cream for serving
Directions:
1 Pre-cook pearl barley: boil for 12 minutes, then drain extra water
2 Mix minced beef with chopped dill & pre-cooked pearl barley & salt and black pepper
3 Wash red bell peppers, carefully remove the top part and de-seed
4 Stuff well red bell peppers with the meat mixture 🙂
5 Wash and cut tomatoes into 1cm cubes, peel small onion: put cut tomatoes and an onion into a large pot
6 Carefully put the stuffed peppers to the same large pot with the tops from bell peppers One can put them either horizontally or vertically, the main point is to be able to cover them with the water afterwards.
7 Add to the pot water to cover all the peppers: cook at medium heat for 40 minutes, but evacuate the onion from the pot after 10 minutes of cooking 🙂
8 Serve with sour cream and half a soup ladle of broth !
‘There you are! It only needed a little more energy,’ said Karlson. ‘Now just put on the coffee, and set a nice little tray and get out a few little buns…’
Astrid Lindgren, Karlson flies again
Buns dough ingredients (for 9 large or 18 small buns):
– 250ml milk
– 450-500g wheat flour
– 21g fresh yeast
– 100g sugar
– 1 egg
– 80g butter
– 1 pinch salt
Buns poppy seeds filling ingredients:
– 150g poppy seeds
– 60g sugar
– 50-100ml milk for boiling poppy seeds
– 1 egg yolk for beautifying
Directions:
1 Prepare the dough:
1.1 Add crushed fresh yeast & 2 tablespoons sugar to warmed up milk to 30-35C: mix well until sugar and yeast are dissolved. Leave the mixture for 15 minutes
1.2 Melt butter, cool it down till 25-30C. Mix in the butter to the milk with yeast, then add 1 egg + 100g sugar + 1 pinch salt: whisk everything until smooth
1.3 Mix in flour in small amounts continuously stirring. Leave the dough rest for 30 minutes covered with a cloth
1.4 Knead the dough with a stretch and fold technique for 7 minutes. Add some more flour if the dough is too sticky. Put the dough under the cloth for another 30 minutes
2 Prepare poppy seeds filling:
2.1 Boil poppy seeds for 5 minutes in milk and let them cool down
2.2 Join poppy seeds with 60g sugar and crumble them with a blender
3 Prepare the buns
3.1 Roll out the dough to 35x30cm rectangular. The dough height should be ~0.5cm
3.2 Distribute the poppy seeds filling on the rectangular and … fold the rectangular to the half along the long side
3.3 Cut the halved rectangular into ~1-3cm strips (thin strips for thin rings). Convolve each strip 5-7 times and join the edges to make a ring or snail or whatever your imagination is saying to you. Repeat for all strips 🙂
3.4 Put the rings on the baking paper to rest for 15 minutes under the cloth (make sure there is at least 3cm distance between them) and pre-heat the oven to 180C meanwhile
3.5 Whisk an egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water and put a little bit on each bun avoiding poppy seeds parts
3.6 Bake the buns for 30 minutes at 180C
4 Serve with milk or Kefir 🙂
‘Tis dark by now. He gets into a sleigh.
Eugene Onegin, Nabokov’s translation
The cry “Way, way!” resounds.
With frostdust silvers
his beaver collar.
Okroshka Ingredients (2 servings):
– 400ml Kefir
– 200ml water
– 100g chicken breast meat
– 4 baby potatoes
– 2 small eggs
– 150-200g cucumbers
– 150-200g radish
– 1/2 bunch dill
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 1 tablespoon sugar
Directions:
1 Boil chicken breast meat; let it cool down; dice the meat into 1cm cubes
2 Peel baby potatoes; cut into 1cm cubes; boil until ready; drain well and let them cool down
3 Boil 2 eggs, let them cool down, peel and dice into 0.5cm cubes
3 Chop dill
4 Cut radish and cucumber into strips
5 Mix in a large bowl cold (from the fridge) Kefir with water, salt, sugar, chopped dill
6 Add to the bowl eggs, radish, cucumbers, potatoes, chicken and carefully mix
7 Serve immediately !
Notes: traditionally Okroshka is served with Kvass, but it is tasty with Kefir as well
The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.
Haruki Murakami
Hmm… Why is it called “Napoleon”? Because it is complex, multilevel and exceptionally tasty !
Method:
1 to be served with coffee
2 details are to be added soon, besides
A picture is worth a thousand words.
– Napoléon Bonaparte
Love... to cooking ! 