Tag: appetizer
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Health Nut's Raw Vegetable Relish
Consuming sinful Parisian pastries on my latest trip drew my mind to healthier things – fresh vegetables, spring herbs, vitamins, the stuff of life. Today’s recipe is for an ultra healthy relish of carrots, tomatoes, peppers and rhubarb marinated cold in the juice of one whole lemon and a few other flavors. This spicy, zesty…
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Carrot Relish
There are people who don’t like cooked carrots, my beloved husband included. But even he absolutely loves this carrot relish. He loves it so much that he always offers his muscle power to grate carrots which I hate to do myself, just to convince me to cook it. After his generous labor input the kitchen…
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Buttermilk Blini
Loved by many as a common weekend breakfast, blini are also a ritual food in Russia. They symbolize sun and are the main food during Pancake Week (Maslenitsa), a celebration of upcoming spring. They are also served during mercy meals and memorial dinners, where they also carry a symbolism: the connection between lower and upper worlds and…
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Zesty Fried Shrimp
Shrimp are a delight of a lazy cook, and this recipe is no exception. Spicy, zesty and quick, these shrimp call for second helpings. The recipe was born on our last night on Kauai, when we decided to be frugal and use up everything left over in the fridge. Faced with a lack of ingredients,…
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Open Fish Pie
Baking fish pies in winter was a tradition in our family. Fish was abundant and readily available, thanks to my father’s rewarding occupation. He was a pilot of a small meteorological crew, and brought sacks of frozen fish and many other goodies from his flights to the north. The Soviet food industry was near to…
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Stuffed Tarragon Mushrooms
Summer calls for salads, frosty drinks and fruit, but sometimes the body craves grilled cheese and protein, no matter the heat outside. These are easy-to-make, delicious stuffed mushrooms, with a couple of unique touches and the intense flavor of tarragon. Craving melted cheese? Here is your chance… What you need: 15 medium baby bella mushrooms…
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Czech Cucumbers Stuffed with Meat
This is the final, and probably the most peculiar dish in our Czech series: thoroughly cooked stuffed cucumbers. I found this in several cookbooks on Czech cuisine, so it most likely is traditionally Czech. As usual, I make a few additions to the recipe, but nothing drastic to detract much from its classic taste. Attempt this…
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Cloaked Herring
This Holiday Season was marred for me by a nasty flu that has been keeping me disabled in terms of elaborate cooking. Alas. I will see better days… Only Masha’s presence and inspiration made it possible to create something worth mentioning. The herring dish I am sharing with you today is one of the favorite…
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Fresh Stuffed Peppers
This recipe was inspired by my trip to then Checkoslovakia long time ago when yours truly was pregnant with the other chef of this blog. 🙂 I felt not well (to say the least), but was able to notice blooming cherries, the beauty of Prague, and gastronomic things we were offered in restaurants – koláče…
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Kholodets – Meat Jelly
Meat jelly is no other than boiled meat pieces in aspic. This is one of the dishes I love and remember from my mom’s holiday menu. Kholodets that derives in Russian from the word kholod (cold) is a traditional winter treat, loved by many. It takes one day and half a night to prepare, but the result is…
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Beef Liver Patties
As much as I liked pea soup, I hated liver in my early years. Oh God, I remember so vividly how I was sitting over my plate in desperation, unable to get this hateful piece of fried liver down. I was a rather sickly child, and mama fed me with half-done liver for anemia. That’s…
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Pickled Mushrooms
Pickled mushrooms are traditional to Russian cuisine, especially as a winter treat. They could be used in salads, pies, as a side dish, as is, and as a perfect zakuska (snack) for vodka. There are several methods to prepare pickled mushrooms, but two main ways are marinated and salted. Marinated mushrooms are prepared with salt and vinegar(and sometimes…
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Quick Pickled Cucumbers
Sometimes a normal person has cravings for sweet, sour or salty, and many other things. Don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s very healthy to follow your cravings, otherwise you will get depressed and plain unhappy, and there is nothing good about it. Am I not right? Quick pickled cucumbers are one of my summer cravings.…
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Jilo
I live in the area where due to some mysterious immigration tendencies there are many Portuguese speaking people, some are from Brazil, some from Portugal. Those from Europe are a little scornful of those from South America, but both are very friendly and hard working people. They keep bakeries, restaurants, and little shops with Brazilian specialty foods. A…
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Chicken Livers Pate
When I was little I hated liver. Maybe because in my kindergarten they made us little kids eat it no matter what, to keep us well-nourished and fattened. I was as thin as a twig at that time, but strongly resisted getting the hated liver down. I sat over my plate much longer than it…
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Poor Man's Caprese
Most people who’ve paid a few visits to Italian restaurants know caprese, a traditional Italian salad composed of just 5 ingredients: tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It is lovely, satisfying, complete, but as a history of restaurant-going has proved, caprese is not the surest item on the menu. It leaves nothing…
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Squash Pancakes
Now when vegetables are growing in excess in nearby farms, I cannot help but create various dishes (and their variations) with them. Squash pancakes being one of our favourites evokes the time when Alex and I were dating. I cooked squash pancakes at our friend’s dacha (a small country hut) where we had a very romantic weekend. Since then Alex ate squash only…
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Zucchini with Wasabi Cream
Among squashes like pumpkin or butternut squash zucchini has a rather bland taste when used alone. So very often it is mixed with other vegetables in stir fries or used as a side dish. Zucchini of a bigger size has better more distinctive taste, but for some reason growers do not allow this vegetable to mature…
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Japanese Eggplant
Those who know me also know that eggplant is one of my favourite vegetables. Unlike many people, including my other half, I absolutely adore this nature’s creation. Eggplant (also aubergine) comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors, and today I experimented with different types of this fruit. I found my inspiration in the past, as…
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Gigantic Potato Pancake
Simply put, this is a big (the size of a frying pan) Jewish latke(s), also Belarusian dranik(i), Ukranian derun(i), German Kartoffelpuffer, and Swiss Roesti. I looked this recipe up on one of cooking shows and decided to give it a try. Alex was wandering around kitchen and whining that it would not work out. Boy, was he wrong. It…
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