Kefir Crepes Recipe

Kefir based crepes have more tender than milk based ones, but they are also harder to do.

Amount of flour to use will depend on thickness of the kefir you have (an that will vary based on brand), somewhere between 2 cups and 2 and half that is what I usually use. If you have choice - use more runny kefir.

There are couple of things you can do if crepes tear when you try to flip them: one of them is to add more flour - but that will not work good if kefir you are using is too thick, then you can put more eggs, and the last resort it to use smaller skillet - then flipping will be easier.

Chicken Roast with Pineapples, Bananas and White Wine Sauce

Hens cooked by this recipe turn out juicy, seriously juicy. If you don’t have cornish hens - you can cook pieces of chicken like this with similar result.

About 3 hours of marinating is enough, but if you want it can be done overnight, just make sure that chicken is fully covered with marinade.

Leftovers can be stored and warmed up in the same pot with sauce, the meat will not lose its juiciness.

Zucchini Pancakes with Sheep Cheese

These are zucchini based vegetable pancakes with a bit of fresh sheep cheese, which can be optional if you don’t like sheep cheese, but to my opinion it benefits a lot to the taste.

You can use zucchini or other kind of summer squash; remove seeds they already formed before cooking.

Vegetable pancakes are good choice for breakfast, brunch or lunch. Serve them warm with sour cream or sour cream and garlic dip how I did.

Sour Cream and Garlic Dip

If you are bored with plain sour cream for dipping, try this improvement: add garlic, fresh greens and a dash of ground black pepper and you will get the same creamy but a bit spicy dip.

It goes great for any kind of savory vegetable pancakes (potato, zucchini, cauliflower), meat or vegetable dumplings, or even like a salad dressing for fresh vegetables - tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, etc.

Prepare dip can be stored in fridge for 2-3 days, just stir it from time to time.

Fried Battered Salmon

Salmon fried this way turns out juicy. All you need is salmon, eggs and flour to make batter. Amount of flour may vary - just add flour until batter gets desired thickness.

Fried battered salmon if good choice for lunch or dinner; tastes good with potato as a side dish: fried or boiled.

Serve fried salmon as soon as it is cooked - it tastes better straight from the frying pan.

Chicken Soup-Puree with Eggs

If you have hand blender this is a soup recipe to try for you: pureed chicken in vegetable broth thickened with flour and beaten eggs.

Hand blender works great to mince chicken meat as well as to break any knots in flour feeling (if needed).

Stand blender or meat mincer will work as well, just mince meat with a bit of broth before adding it to the pot.

Cabbage and Carrots Salad

As you probably guessed already, this simple salad consists of two main ingredients: cabbage and carrots, dressed with oil (I take sunflower oil for this one), ground black pepper and celery seeds (both of which are optional), and salt.

It takes about 15 mins to prepare this salad. It can be served as a side dish or an appetizer. It also works good for a snack when you need to make something tasty fast.

Leftovers can be stored in fridge for a few days, salad doesn’t lose taste with time.

Chicken Stew with Cauliflower and Tomatoes

This is another recipe from “Modern homemade cuisine” book which I mastered. This dish goes great for dinner and leftovers can be warmed up for lunch.

Chicken is served with cauliflower so there is no need to cook separate side dish unless you want to.

Important note: when cooking chicken with sauce make sure it simmers slow, because sauce has flour and it will burn on high heat.

Eclairs with Vanilla Custard

While preparing for this post I got some difficulties translating name as well as figuring origin of the recipe.

I guess the general decision was that the recipe is french, however I never ate eclairs prepared by french cook, so I can't prove that this is exactly the same recipe.

This is recipe as eclairs are cooked in Russia, russian name of that pastry is “zavarnye pirozhennye” and it relates to the way the dough is cooked by boiling.

The common name in english speaking worlds seems to be eclairs, however this only related to long shaped pastry. Round ones are often called cream puffs, even though they are only different in shape.

I do fill these with vanilla custard, but other fillings can be used as well: whipped cream (these would need to be served as soon as made or cream needs to be stabilized), butter and condensed milk filling, and so on.

Vanilla Custard

I use vanilla custard to fill eclairs and cream puffs. It is easy to do (just don’t forget to stir) and tastes delicious!

This custard can also be spread thin dry layers of multi-layer cakes such as “Napoleon”.

Vanilla custard calls for egg yolks, so you can find these recipes which call for egg whites somewhat useful.

Veal Roast with Pureed Vegetable Sauce

If you are looking for a dinner roast recipe, this one is for you: juicy homemade veal roast with pureed sauce prepared from carrots, onions and tomatoes stewed in dry red wine and meat juices.

Pureeing vegetables makes sauce more homogeneous (and looking and tasting more like a sauce), however you can also pour cooked meat with cooked vegetable mix without pureeing it, that may save you some time if needed.

Meat roasted this way tastes great served straight from the oven as well as cooled down.

Omelette Stuffed with Mushrooms and Onions Recipe

This is a nice breakfast or lunch recipe for two: tender omelette stuffed with mushrooms and onions braised with a spoon of sour cream and seasoned with shredded cheese.

Amount of ingredients listed here is yields exactly 2 omelettes, if you want to cook more - just increase amounts of ingredients accordingly.

And if you fry omelettes one after another, use warm plates to make sure first one is still warm when the last one is cooked.

Ground Beef and Potato Casserole Recipe

Taste of this dish reminds me of lasagna, with the difference of that it doesn’t include neither noodles nor cheese. It also requires much less time to cook than classic lasagna.

Meat sauce prepared of ground beef or veal (or mix of these) with onions, tomatoes and fresh parsley is juicy and very tasty. Bechamel souffle gives it nice hint in both taste and presentation.

Did I mention that this recipe is great for some special occasion?..

Mussels Steamed with Vegetables in White Wine Recipe

This not complicated recipe is my first attempt to cook mussels. They turned out juicy and light. Thanks to Hans-Peter and his cooking lessons :)

Vegetables cooked this way, with wine and mussels juices, taste great as well as mussels themselves, serve them all together!

By the way, 1lb-1.5lb of mussels per serving sounds about right, this way amount of ingredients listed in this recipe is enough to feed 2-3 people.

Chicken Lasagna with Spinach and Fresh Cheese Recipe

Don’t get scared by amount of ingredients: it isn’t that complicated to cook chicken lasagna with spinach and fresh cheese at home, especially if you have noodles which doesn’t require boiling.

Of course it will take some time too cook stuffing as well white sauce, but at the end you will get whole baking pan of tasty creamy lasagna.

I used fresh spinach, but frozen will work good too, just thaw it before cooking and drain liquid before mixing with cooked chicken. Tvorog (fresh cow cheese) can be replaced with ricotta of the same weight as well.

Serve lasagna 10-15 mins after you take it from the oven; leftovers can be stored in fridge and re-heated in microwave.

Layered Liver Cake

Layered liver cake, dish of traditional Ukrainian cuisine, is often served as appetizer on various celebrations, in fact I tried it first time on a wedding.

For this recipe I used chicken liver, but beef liver will work good as well.

Carrots and onions stuffing can be skipped all together - it will decrease cooking time and reduce amount of mayo to be used (since layers will not need that much mayo to stick together). However carrots go great with liver.

How many layers you get from this amount of ingredients depends on the size of the frying pan you use. I think 11” frying pan is the best - not too big not too small. The ideal amount of layers for this recipe is about 12; if you get more split them in half and assemble 2 cakes.

Oven-Roasted Herbed Redskin Potatoes

I think any kind of potatoes can be cooked this way, however red skin ones are the best here. You can take big potatoes and slice them in smaller wedges or smaller ones and cook them whole or sliced in halves.

Vary amount of herbs as well as herbs themselves to your taste, in additional to rosemary, thyme, oregano you can use parsley, dill, black pepper, etc; I would just advise to keep rosemary in - it goes great with potatoes.

Over-roasted herbed redskin potatoes can be a no-meat dish on itself or you can accompany a meat entry with it as a side dish.

Celery Root Salad with Apples and Eggs

Knowing me you can probably guess that this tender slaw-like salad made of grated fresh celery root, apples and chopped egg is dressed with mayo.

By the way, celery root here is hardly recognizable: it has nutty taste and (if you are not used to it) tastes nothing like celery stalks, maybe because of apples.

I would define this taste as unusual; if you stumble upon fresh celery root in a store - give it a try, after all celery is known as low-calorie source of dietary fiber.

“Firewood on Snow” Cake

This cake looked unusual even for me when I saw it first time: doesn't it resemble a bunch of firewood covered with a snow to you?

This recipe is Yuriy’s mom speciality dessert and it often appears on the table during family celebrations. Yuriy's mom preserves pitted sour cherries in their own juices under sugar each season, so there are always plenty of them ready for use.

If you don’t have sour cherries preserved in such way - you can always go with pitted cherry kompot like I did, but in this case add a bit of sugar to the dough, or cake will not be sweet enough.

I would want to tell you that this cake is easy and fast to do, but I can’t. It took me quite some time to make dough, prepare “firewood” sticks and then assemble the cake; but that is probably because I cooked it first time in my life.

After cake is assembled allow some time for layers to soak in sour cream frosting to get soft: leave it in cool place (but not fridge) at least over night (depending on how liquid sour cream is it may take longer). It is good idea to prepare cake at least a day before you are planning to serve it.

Vegetable Soup-Puree with Mushrooms

If you are looking for easy to cook recipe for soft pureed soup with vegetables, mushrooms and cream this is it.

Boil vegetables, add fried onions and mushrooms and blend it all together with heavy cream. By the way, using hand blender makes cooking of this soup much easier.

If you want soup-puree to be more liquid, keep water left from boiling vegetables and add it to the soup at the end to receive desired thickness.

Cabbage Rolls in Sour Cream Sauce

Another variation for ukrainian cabbage rolls: meat staffed cabbage rolls with gentle sour cream and onion sauce.

Making these from scratch will take some time as any recipe for cabbage rolls even if you use ground beef and don’t need to prepare it yourself, you still need to separate cabbage, assemble rolls and then cook them.

But don’t let this to stop you - even though it is time consuming to cook cabbage rolls you will get enough rolls for later - just store left overs in fridge or freezer.

Semolina Porridge (Mannaya Kasha)

Mannaya Kasha is one of foods associated for russian people with their childhood. When I was little I was always told it is rich on nutrients and required for healthy kid growth - every kid knew that to grow strong and healthy they need to finish up their plate with semolina porridge.

Just as a note: while researching for proper translation for this recipe, I stumbled on information that semolina porridge isn’t recommended for kids younger than 3 years (which was new to me) as it contains high amount of gluten and also phytin. But because it also has a lot of proteins and high content of vitamins E and B1 it is very good for kids after 3 year old who have no gluten intolerance.

While cooking it is important to stir mannaya kasha all the time (I use whisk for this and it helps a lot), or you will get clots and no kid likes them in their mannaya kasha.

Veal Stew with Chanterelles and Peas

Chanterelles are mushrooms which I simply can’t pass in the shop, even though they are seasonal or maybe because of that.

It is my shame, but I don’t know any way to prepare them other than this stew with veal and peas, but it sure tastes great!

You can substitute beef for veal, just increase cooking time to ensure meat is soft enough. You can also substitute white dry wine for water, if you feel like this.

Kvass (Russian Fermented Rye Bread Drink)

Kvass (kvas, quass) is probably a bit of unusual drink to this part of the globe.

Indeed, if you read ingredients list: dried rye bread, water, sugar and yeast - it probably will not strike you as something delicious. However this is one of soft drinks which is, according to Wikipedia, popular in Eastern Europe countries, especially Russia, since ancient times.

It is not hard to prepare kvass at home: you just need 2 big cooking pots, a funnel, cheese cloth, rye bread (which can be a bit of challenge to find) and about 3 days. Any type of rye bread will work.

I recently discovered good borodinsky bread in nearby european store, we liked it a lot and now buying pretty often. I dice the bread leftovers and heels and dry them for 10-15 mins in oven; that way I always have dried rye bread for the next patch of kvass ready to go when I need it (and I also don’t need to throw bread out).

Prepared kvass can be stored bottled in fridge; serve it as soft drink or use to prepare okroshka soup.

Stuffed Spaghetti Squash Recipe

My mom usually cooked big zucchini like this: stiffing it with ground beef and rice mince.

However I wasn’t able to find an “adult” zucchini in any shop here in US to cook it. It seems that they don’t survive long enough to grow big here (maybe green piece should look into that, I don’t know).

Anyway, I believe spaghetti squash is a good substitute for this recipe: it serves the purpose by being squash and providing a cavity to cook stuffing, and it also brings nice unique texture to the dish with its “spaghettiness”.

The taste here is similar to cabbage rolls (as if they were made of squash :) ), however the amount of work you need to put into this one is considerably smaller.

Crab Sticks Salad with Pickled Mushrooms and Apple

I didn’t post salad recipes for a while now, so wanted to come up with something special this time.

I chose salad made of surimi crab sticks mixed with tender pickled mushrooms, grated apple, fresh dill and parsley and dressed with ground black pepper and a bit of mayo.

This mix may seem unusual (especially here in US), however it is very popular in post-USSR countries. You can find it under name “Salad Anshlag” in menus.

Some people use boiled mushrooms for this recipe, however I prefer mushrooms pickled following this recipe: they are very easy to do and are less plain than just boiled; but this is a matter of preference.

Homemade Pickled Mushrooms

Taste of homemade pickled mushrooms can’t be beaten by any brand from the store. If you pickle mushrooms yourself you can control spiciness and acidity to make sure they taste exactly as you want them to.

Champignon mushrooms are most commonly available that is why I used them, but this marinate will work for wild mushrooms: boletuses, honey mushrooms and other edible mushrooms as well. However for wild mushrooms you will need to increase boiling time and maybe change water trough boiling at least once.

Mushrooms pickled this way can be stored in the fridge for long time, if you want to preserve them outside of the fridge - use sealing jars and follow the instructions for proper sealing; however I don’t see a reason to do so: champignons are commonly available in every store and you can pickle them as much as you want without actually sealing into jars.

Duck Meat Stewed with Apples

Duck meat does go great with apples; usually stuffing a whole duck with apples and then roasting it in the oven is a way to go. But first - it can take quite some time, and then - it bears hassle of dealing with bones when serving and eating.

All of that is gone if boneless duck breasts are sliced and stewed with apples in a deep skillet like in this recipe. It also makes it easier to serve exact amount of meat for each portion.

Any apples will do good for this recipe, however sour ones are better.

Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing

Fried pies (piroshki/pyrizhky), resembling individual size fried buns of yeast dough with stuffing, are very popular in all countries of ex-USSR. There are many stuffing variations for these: fruity and sweet or savory.

This is recipe for piroshki with boiled meat and rice stuffing - meat left over after preparing broth or soup is usually used to prepare these. And later fried pies can be served together with that soup or broth.

Piroshki are good choice if you need to take food to-go: they don’t require refrigeration to keep them fresh (for 1-2 days).

How to Make Unsweetened Yeast Dough

Yeast dough is commonly used for baked pies and fried pies/dumplings (pirozhki/pyrizhky).

Slavic cuisine features pies with various sweet and savory stuffing, and they all are usually prepared with dough as simple as this one.

Dough for small pies doesn’t usually require time for rising, you can start assembling them as soon as dough is kneaded: when you are finished with last one - first is ready to to fry/bake.

For whole piece pies you may need to set dough aside for 20-30 mins before cooking to rise.

Crepes with Boiled Meat and Rice Stuffing

A cup of beef broth with a couple of meat and rice stuffed crepes will always remind me of my childhood: mom used to cook these all the time.

There is always boiled meat left over from cooking broth, and stuffing crepes with it is easy way to prepare a nice meal to go with it.

Assembled meat and rice stuffed crepes can be stored in fridge for couple of days - you just need to warm them up by frying right before serving.

And if you cook a way too much (as I usually do) just seal some portion of stuffed crepes in a bag and freeze them up, this way you will always have some fresh stuffed crepes when you need to prepare some food fast.

Clear Beef Broth with Vegetables

Beef broth with vegetables is easiest liquid food to make, easiest to consume, good for your digestive system. Why not to cook it yourself instead of pouring it out from a can or a box?

All you need is beef with bones (I find shank cut very suitable for soups and broths), roots (carrots, parsley, celery), onion, fresh greens and this recipe.

Clear beef broth is nice to accompany any food prepared from that boiled meat cooked in the broth (since you don't need it after broth is cooked), such as crepes with boiled meat stuffing, savory pies or fried dumplings.

Baked Peaches with Chocolate and Ginger Stuffing

We bought a big box of peaches on our way back home from vacation in South Carolina ocean side. They were very ripe and sweet and most important they were a lot, much more than we can eat in 2, even for longer time.

Even after eating big portion of them fresh and handing some out, there were still some left. It was a time to cook peaches before they spoil.

I found this recipe for stuffed baked peaches, and must say that baked peaches become one of my favorite desserts - cooked peaches are very tender and flavorful.

I will definitely improvise more in this direction once my hands get ahold of more peaches to try various stuffings.

Russian Zucchini Paste

This is recipe of zucchini paste from my mom: easy to cook, contains only vegetables (zucchini, tomatoes and onions) and is very-very tasty.

I usually eat this paste on bread toast, for breakfast or as a snack; however it is also a nice side dish to help increase vegetable servings in your daily diet.

Zucchini paste can be served warm or cooled down.

Beef Stroganoff with Mushrooms and Cream

This recipe features a small modification to the beef stroganoff recipe I posted earlier, but a good one: a cup of cream and cremini mushrooms give this dish a very rich taste.

Field mushrooms will also work good in this recipe, but cremini are the best.

As usual, I suggest serving beef stroganoff with a side of boiled buckwheat, it tastes great with mushrooms and cream and, of course, beef.

Salmon Roast in Foil

For me the best tasting salmon - is boiled salmon, and with this recipe I get taste of boiled salmon without actually boiling it. The same as boiled salmon this one tastes great garnished with mayo; a glass of white wine is good accompaniment as well.

This salmon roast can be cooked on the grill as well, just pack each fish piece into separate piece of foil and then cook without pan until ready.

Onions here are optional, they give a bit of taste to the dish but they also make sure that fish doesn’t touch the foil.

Pork Loin Roll with Prunes and Carrots

Ingredients in this recipe for most part are the same as in meat stew with prunes and carrots, however for this one I suggest using pork loin - it is tender and much easier to slit flat to be able to roll it with stuffing.

Prunes are go great with pork meat. If you have dry prunes with pits - soak them in boiled water for 15-20 mins to soften and then remove pits before continue with recipe.

Boiled potatoes are great side dish for this entree, whatever you decide to go with mashed potatoes, baked potatoes or simple boiled potatoes, it will work good.

Ukrainian Sour Cherry Dumplings (Varenyky z Vyshniamy) Recipe

I didn’t believe my eyes when I saw sour cherries (pitted!) in the Andersons grocery store. It doesn’t happen that often to me here, in US. So I couldn’t simply leave that store without my portion of sour cherries...

Of course, we enjoyed them plain with a bit of sugar, and also made some cherries with whipped cream dessert (didn’t make any pictures of this one to post a recipe, shame on me), however most of sour cherries went to ukrainian sour cherry dumplings - “varenyky (vareniky) z vyshniamy”, and for this one we made plenty of pictures.

With mentioned amount of ingredients you will get about 50-60 dumplings. Most probably you will not need to cook all of them right away - so just freeze remaining potion of dumplings for later use (first put wooden board with dumplings to the fridge until dumplings are frozen, then move them to a ziploc bag and store frozen). Frozen dumplings can be boiled right before serving, just like you usually do it.

Roast Brussels Sprouts

Roast brussels sprouts are great as a side dish or a snack. They don’t require much of attention while cooking: just clean sprouts, put them to a baking pan, toss with oil, salt and pepper and roast until ready.

You can cook them to your liking: increase temperature a bit and you get crunchy outside and soft inside, decrease temperature and increase cooking time - get softer sprouts.

Hope you like them!

West Ukrainian Cheese Cake (Syrnyk)

This cake is similar to the cheese cakes so popular in west part of the globe. However this one is made from quark cheese (fresh farmers cheese), not from the cream cheese.

It is very popular dessert treat in West Ukraine. It is often being made with raisins, however I don’t like raisins, so I am doing it without any filling. Just add them if you like.

During the baking this cake will rise in the oven, and then it will fall down a bit while colling down. That i s ok, just important not to open oven while baking or cooling.

To make up for a bit uneven shape, you can cut uneven sides off before serving it.

Minced Cutlets Stuffed with Mushrooms

This is a tasty tweak to original minced beef cutlets recipe. The mince is prepared exactly the same way and mushrooms and onions stuffing gives ground meat juiciness and extraordinary taste.

A bit of agility is required to put stuffing inside of minced meat cutlets, but once you get it - it seems easy: meat is sticky, so if you get some holes, they can be easily patched by adding a layer of mince on top of the hole.

To prevent meat from sticking to hands - rinse hands with cold water from time to time while assembling minced cutlets.

Tomatoes Stuffed with Fresh Cheese Recipe

These campari tomatoes stuffed with fresh quark cheese, chopped greens and garlic can be nice addition to any celebration table or a cookout: they look festive, taste good and can be easily eaten with fingers.

If you can’t find quark cheese (sometimes called farmers cheese, or fresh white cheese, or tvorog in russian) it may work with feta cheese, but I like it more with quark.

Seeds and pulp from tomatoes as well as top parts - once removed - are not needed for this recipe. You can discard them, or use in some other dish.

Many kind of stews and soups would only benefit from fresh tomatoes. I used seeds and juice from this batch to marinate a nice ribeye steak.

Fried Pork Chops

This is probably the easiest way to cook pork chops - simply beat them up, dust with flour and fry until ready. Actually you can fry any kind of pork meat like this: pork loin slices, pork chops, cutlets, shoulder parts, etc.

For thicker meat cut increase cooking time: it is important to cook pork thoroughly, when cut with a knife it should produce clear juices, especially near the bone.

Lemon juice gives pork meat a nice sour kick in taste; garnishing with chopped greens looks pretty, but is absolutely optional.

Clearly Fresh Bags Review

“How to keep products fresh longer after purchase?” is a question right answer to which can save you significant amount of money: if you don’t need to throw spoiled food – then you don’t need to restock.

Looking for more income, grocery stores are trying to make you buy bigger amounts giving smaller prices per item. However, what do you do when you buy these, but don’t have immediate use for all of it?

I tried "Clearly Fresh Bags", read my review.

Green Salad with Tomato, Avocado and Shrimp

This is one of the salads which uses avocado dressing from the last week recipe. It is green, fresh summer salad topped with boiled shrimps with a hint of spiciness provided by the dressing.

My advise is to assemble this salad right before you are planning to serve it: it calls for avocados, tomatoes and lettuce (all of which react to oxidation by loosing taste and pretty look).

However avocado dressing can be prepared in advance and stored in airtight container in fridge.

Avocado Salad Dressing

This creamy avocado salad dressing somewhat resembles guacamole dip, after all it consists of almost the same ingredients, just in different proportion.

However it is much more spicy and more liquid which obviously makes it easier to dress salads with it: lettuce salad with tomatoes, avocados and shrimps is my personal choice for this dressing.

Ready spicy avocado dressing can be stored in the airtight container in fridge for several days.

How to Skin Avocados

Ripe avocado pulp is very soft and their skin is dense and resembles a shell. And it is very easy to scoop pulp from the skin with a spoon if you are going to prepare avocado guacamole-like dip, salad dressing or milk shakes (yep, I was surprised too!), where avocados are mashed and it doesn’t really matter how you extracted pulp.

However if you need avocado in whole pieces for salad or sandwich, you will need remove pulp from the skin without damaging it.

So here are instructions how to do this easily.

Pork Roast with Garlic, Mayo and Spices

Yet another pork roast - and it is spicy one. Slow cooking turns meat in this roast tender and juicy and it makes great dinner.

To save some time on preparation you can marinate meat in advance and then just put it to the oven 3 hours before it needs to hit the table.

Juices produced while meat was cooking make great addition when poured over the meat or its side dish of potatoes served with it.

Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht)

Sorrel and pork soup, or as it is called also green borscht (obviously because of the color), is one of these dishes you can rarely eat in US, unless you are ukrainian, poland, russian family or visiting one of those :).

I was a bit unlucky in buying sorrel this time. Sorrel is very seasonal (meaning available only on spring), and for some reason WholeFoods (the only place where I was able to find it) carries it in herbs section - read this as 2-3 branches per a pack.

I ended up getting last 3 packs they had in their stock, but even that was less then needed for this soup (I am actually still wondering, who buys sorrel in WholeFoods in such packs and for what?).

Anyway, if you are more lucky than me and either know where to buy enough of sorrel or growing it by yourself, you can safely use more, and by more I mean much more: 3-4 cups is good. If you want to make it’s sour taste a bit less intense - fry it before adding to the cooking pot or/and use more water when cooking broth.

Sweet Braided Bread

I am used to call this kind of braid sweet bread Hala (Хала in russian), however when I was preparing to write this recipe and did a bit of research to make sure I get name right in english, I discovered that real Challah (Hala) doesn’t contain dairy.

Considering this recipe have butter and milk and eggs in it, I didn’t risk to call in challah. After all it is a sweet braid yeast based sourdough bread.

It tastes good by itself and even better with a cup of yogurt or cultured milk (kefir or buttermilk).

String Beans Fried with Eggs

Yet another recipe for fried green string beans, now accompanied by scrambled eggs.

Any kind of string beans will work good for this one: green or yellow, thin or thick, whole or cut - just adjust boiling time so they are cooked enough but not too soft when done.

I don’t think there can be too much eggs used when cooking string beans. Even though there are only 2 on the picture and I ended up using 3, but actually think 4 would be even better, so just cook to your taste!

Crab Sticks Salad with Napa and Cucumber

It is time for summer cookouts yet? I bet it is! Who said cookouts should be all meat and bread - add a bit of vegetables and crab sticks :)

Napa gives this salad tender filling; however you can substitute white cabbage for napa - it will work fine, just remember to tenderize shredded cabbage with your hands.

If you use frozen crab sticks, make sure they unfreeze completely and all extra liquid is removed before adding them to the salad.

Georgian Fried Lamb Dumplings (Chebureki)

This is traditional Georgian recipe (and I mean Georgia as a country, not the state). It takes a bit of time and inspiration to cook, but it totally worth it.

Even though it is time consuming, with a bit of organization it can be a fun activity to do for whole family together.

I never been a big fan of lamb meat, but these dumplings taste the best made of it. However you can always substitute equal amount of beef and pork mix for lamb meat.

How to Prepare Dough for Dumplings with Milk and Egg

This recipe for dumpling dough uses milk, egg and a bit of oil. It suites good for fried dumplings, such as chebureki, for example (this recipe is coming up next saturday).

Another difference in this recipe is that milk is warmed up till boiling temperature when it is mixed with first batch of flour. This makes dough more elastic.

If you have a stand mixer with dough hook feel free to use it, otherwise you can also knead this dough by hands.

Eggplants with Tomato Basil Sauce and Parmesan

Eggplants fried in flour and egg coating are good on their own as a no-meat main course, appetizer or snack. But they can also be served as a side dish.

Tomato sauce with basil and garlic is a good addition to fried eggplants; it adds a bit of spiciness to plain taste of eggplants.

And parmesan goes great with that combination too.

Tomato and Basil Sauce

This light tomato based sauce will add a hint of mediterranean cuisine to any dish.

It goes great with fried or grilled vegetables (e.g. zucchini and eggplants); seafood (mussels and shrimps) and meats; it also can be served as pasta sauce.

Sweet tomatoes are the best fit this recipe. If you prefer to remove seeds, choose pulpy tomatoes, it will be easier.

Whole Chicken Roast with Oranges

This roast chicken was a first real food we cooked in our new home since the move (yep, we got a house!). So it was kind of the "celebration of new home" meal :).

If you are looking for some easy recipe for some special event - search no more: whole chicken roast stuffed with oranges is very-very juicy and has a bit unusual sweet taste.

It goes good with mashed potatoes or plain boiled rice as a side dish.

If you don’t like taste of orange zest - peel oranges before stuffing, that will smooth taste a bit.

Tomato and Rice Soup

Gentle tomato soup with rice filling garnished with freshly chopped basil is a russian variant of tomato-basil soup.

It is beef broth based and if you want to make it more tomaty and thick, reduce amount of water you use for broth and increase amount of tomatoes.

I've garnished soup with basil even though it isn't very widespread in Russia, but it gives a nice kick to flavor of this soup. After all basil and tomatoes are the combination which can never taste wrong.

Boiled Cauliflower with White Sauce

Adding a sauce will make almost any food more interesting, that is why sauces were invented after all, and they are good not only with meats. Vegetables may use some sauce help as well.

So here it goes: cook boiled (yes simply like this!) cauliflower and pour white sauce over it – you will get delicious dish, not a boring vegetables.

I came by this simple recipe while looking though old cook book released probably even before I was born (ironical enough its title translated from russian is “Modern homemade cuisine”) and I liked it. I think, you will find some more recipes adopted from this book later in this blog.

Eggs Fried with Tomato in Bell Pepper Ring

Looking for bright colors for fresh and energetic start of the day? This is your recipe: easy nutritious breakfast eggs and very fun looking also, when prepared accurately. I bet your kids will love them as much as I do.

I usually pick green peppers, they look good in combination with yellow-white eggs and red tomatoes. But any color will work here, just make sure you select big and nice shaped pepper.

Don't worry if egg white spills around the bell pepper ring, you can easily remove it later on with spatula.

Khrustyky Pastry (Hvorost)

This pastry is very popular in countries of ex-USSR. The shape is what gave them their russian name – "hvorost" – which means “dry wood used to make a fire”. Ukrainian name - “khrustyky” - describes texture – which it very crisp.

I had troubles trying to figure out what english name to use for this dish. Even if there is an equivalent of it in cuisine of some english speaking country, I don't know about it.

So, feel free to let me know if you have some ideas in this regard :)

Lazy Cabbage Rolls

Lazy cabbage rolls, or “lenyvi golubtsi” how this dish is called in ukrainian, is an easier version of ukrainian cabbage rolls.

Since it doesn't require assembling of rolls it is much easier to prepare, and taste is very similar to cabbage rolls.

Lazy cabbage rolls taste great when seasoned with a bit of chopped garlic and a bit of mayo.

Ukrainian Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream Dressing

This simple salad with tomatoes and cucumbers is very popular in Ukraine, and I don't see any reasons why it wouldn't be liked in any other country which grows tomatoes, cucumbers, dill and sour cream with onions and garlic.

As opposite to summer salad with tomato and cucumbers with vegetable oil based dressing, this one uses sour cream and mayonnaise.

If you are trying to cut on calories – use mix of sour cream and low calorie yoghurt, or just yoghurt as a base for dressing, but, believe me, this salad tastes the best with real sour cream.

Duck Stewed with Potato and Eggplants

I love duck meat. And other day we were lucky to find a couple of duck breasts in Market District opened recently near by (nice store by the way).

So, I got them, also eggplant and some potatoes, and cooked this nice dinner.

Any duck meat will work just fine for this stew, I was just lazy to remove bones.

Spicy Guacamole Dip

First time I tried this green dip, it was served as a side dish to something very spicy in mexican restaurant, and it didn't impress me. Probably, that was about color: I never seen avocados before and their bright green color seem almost artificial.

Nevertheless, I tried it and since then these unusual and very nutritious fruits are very important part of my diet: amusingly they have more potassium than bananas, have high fiber content and rich on vitamins E, B and K.

This variant of guacamole is a bit spicy. If you want to make it mild: either increase amount of avocados or reduce amount of serrano peppers and onion; adding sour cream can help reduce hotness as well.

Russian Lenten Mushroom Soup

This soup doesn't include any meat, it is based on mushrooms and have vegetables (carrot, parsley and celery roots, potato) as well as pearl barley.

Such kind of mushroom soup is very popular in Russia. Various kind of mushrooms can be used in this recipe, but I must say fresh or frozen porcini are the best tasting ones, if you can find them, of course.

If you are not trying to follow Great Lent rules - my advise is don't skip on sour cream, 1 tablespoon of sour cream to the bowl of mushroom soup not only adds nutrients, but also gives the soup its unique rich taste.

Cheese Balls Appetizer

Cheese, clove of garlic, a bit of mayo, shredded coconut and about 20 mins of time it is all you need to prepare cheese balls appetizer.

Cheese goes great with wine. So cheese balls are great for wine tasting or wine party.

Cheese balls are finger food and can be served as is or on crackers.

Homemade Egg Noodles

Homemade egg yolk noodles are not so hard to do as it may seem. Lapsha (in russian cuisine) or klusky (in ukrainian cuisine) are as easy to do as simple egg and flour dough.

It is also a good way to use leftover yolks if you needed egg whites for some other dish.

Boiled homemade egg noodles can be served as a side dish or added to meat or chicken broth or soup.

Braised White Cabbage

Braised cabbage can be a nice meat-free dish on its own, however it also makes a good side dish for various meats, especially pork and sausages.

You can braise fresh white cabbage alone or mix of white cabbage with sauerkraut (1:1 proportion) to your taste. If you choose to use sauerkraut, rinse it with water before adding to the skillet.

Fresh tomatoes in this recipe can be replaced with tomato paste, if you don't want to spend time blanching and de-seeding tomatoes.

Chicken Pilaf

An easy tweak to classic pilaf recipe – chicken instead of lamb – will make this dish to shine all different colors. Chicken require less time to cook, it is more lean so, let's say it is more healthy and also faster to prepare :)

Using whole chicken is an option, but in this case you probably need to bone it first (unless you like to chew on bones).

Take boneless thighs, if you don't like to spend time removing bones. Chicken breasts can be used as well, but may end up being too dry – mix them up with some other parts such us thighs or so.

Another trick to this recipe is using cast-iron pan, ideally round one. It makes rice to cook more evenly which is more important part – get soft not overcooked rice.

Russian Pancakes (Oladi) with Apple

This recipe is a step up for russian kefir based pancakes – oladi. My mom used to add slices of apple to oladi batter and that is the way how I prefer them – oladi with apple served warm with sour cream topping.

So the recipe is quite easy: prepare oladi batter, add slices of apple and fry pancakes.

This dish is a perfect choice for breakfast or brunch, or even fast prepared snack. I bet kids would love those pancakes as well. They taste good accompanied with a glass of kefir.

Cabbage and Chicken Salad

I love cabbage. It is available in the stores whole year, and it somehow manages to preserve such important nutrient as vitamin C (and some others) till late winter. This makes cabbage a good choice of food when your body particularly needs more vitamins.

I consider this a winter salad: cabbage is available any time in the store, as well as chicken and cheese; but it will also taste great when prepared from fresh young cabbage, which is much softer and more juicier.

Additionally, I usually season this salad with dry bread cubes right before serving. I prepare them myself from leftover bread: just dice it and dry in the oven (can't call them croutons, as they don't have any seasoning or oil added in the process of preparation). But I guess you can use croutons from the shop instead or skip this part all together.

Veal Roast with Mustard and Garlic

This veal roast is a good choice for romantic or family dinner. Meat can be prepared for cooking in advance, like a night before, and then roast day after. That will make meat even better marinated.

I think veal is the best for this recipe, but since veal is hard to get and can be quite pricey - beef can be used as well. If you choose to cook beef – increase roasting time a bit.

Veal roast can be served warm straight from the oven, as one piece or spiced into portions. It also tastes good cooled down.

Omelette with Sour Cream and Cheese

Easy to do breakfast for two (or more, if needed) – omelette with sour cream seasoned with shredded cheese, chopped dill and green onions.

This omelette is good as it is, as well it can be used as a base for various stuffing.

This recipe doesn't require flour (is gluten free); amounts of sour cream, cheese and greens can be varied to taste.

Easier Borscht with Precooked Beets and Beans

One of the challenges when cooking classic beet root soup, borscht, is to get all vegetables (and there are quite few) cooked till perfect readiness at the same time.

Considering different vegetables require different cooking time it is sometimes hard to achieve. For borscht you need to make sure beens are soft, while potatoes are not over cooked and beets don't lose their color.

So, to make this happen: I cook beens in a separate cooking pot (just until they are soft and ready), cook beets skin on (like for salad) in separate pot in advance, and add these two to the main cooking pot at appropriate times.

By the way, using of canned beets and beens instead of cooking them yourself is an option (which I never did, but it may safe you some time).

How to Blanch and Deseed Tomatoes

Blanching and deseeding tomatoes may seem like a hassle considering big choice of canned already blanched and deseeded tomatoes in a nearby grocery shop.

However, I think no canned tomatoes or tomato paste can compare with the fresh tomatoes blanched and deseeded right before cooking.

Blanched and sometimes also deseeded tomatoes are used to cook soups and stews, as well as to prepare tomato juice, tomato paste, various dips and sauces.

Open Sandwich with Ham, Pineapple and Cheese

This is a kind of sandwich you would call hawaiian, and I guess that is mostly because of ham and pineapple.

I never been to Hawaii, so can't tell what's up with them and pineapple / ham combination. So I just roll with it :)

The whole trick here is to assemble sandwiches (by the way, you can do it in advance) and then put them to the oven for the time enough to melt cheese and warm the rest up, just before you are planing to bring sandwiches to the table, and when ready - serve warm.

Ingredients in this recipe is enough to prepare hot 6 sandwiches, if you need more or less just adjust amounts.

Boiled Potato with Sour Cream and Garlic

There is no easiest way to cook potato than boiling. You get tasty and nutritious dish fast and with literally no hassle: just clean it, put to the cooking pot, bring to boil and wait.

Young potato boiled skin on tastes especially good when dressed with several spoons of sour cream, seasoned with chopped dill and minced garlic.

If you don't have young small potatoes, use red skin ones, or any others. Clean potatoes before boiling, for young potatoes washing will be enough, old potato may need to be peeled.

Stuffed Pork Rolls with Mushrooms (Kruchenyky)

Kruchenyky or zavyvantsi – meat rolls prepared with pork (less often with beef) and stuffed with various mixes. This is very popular dish of traditional ukrainian cuisine.

Stuffings for kruchenyky, as well as sauces, vary from region to region and, actually, from cook to cook.

I like kruchenyky prepared from pork loin and stuffed with mushrooms or mushroom mix with some other ingredients, fried and then baked under cream sauce. Just like in this recipe.

It may seem like lot of hassle to cook these stuffed pork rolls, but it is really not as hard as it looks; and is really tasty :)

Beet Salad with Prunes and Walnuts

Beet salad with prunes, walnuts and onions dressed up with mayo or sour cream or both is one of the traditional salads of ukrainian cuisine.

Also, this dish is one of the not many dishes which uses beets as a main ingredient.

It is very important to use sweet and rich red color beets for this salad. So, when buying beets scratch their skin with a nail: dark red pulp under skin is a sign of good beet, not pink and not white.

It is also important to use good quality walnuts; taste before you buy them: old walnuts can be bitter and using such will make you salad taste bitter as well.

Cauliflower Pancakes

This is my recipe in support of Faina's with Cucee Sprouts cauliholic addiction. I hope you will like it :)

Yet another vegetable pancakes recipe. These are usually healthier choice: they contain much less flour (comparing to usually flour-based pancakes) - batter mostly consist of vegetable goodness and, of course, a bit of eggs :)

I love cauliflower in any of its appearance, and I consider cauliflower pancakes to be one of the easiest and fun ways to cook it.

Buckwheat Soup

This is good soup to cook at winter: time when fresh herbs are not full of flavor and most of vegetables are not as full of nutrients as fresh ones.

Root vegetables used in this recipe (potatoes, carrots, parsley and celery roots) are good on keeping their nutrient through whole winter and buckwheat grains add even more.

As for most of meat broth based soups, you can save some time cooking it by preparing meat broth in advance: night before or so, and then reheat before cooking buckwheat soup itself.

I really encourage you to cook beef broth yourself, whatever they say in those advertisements, but broth from can can't be the same good as broth prepared by yourself from ingredients you choose, it is not that hard after all.

Wine, Butter and Capers Sauce for Fish

Rich sauce prepared from shallots cooked with white wine, butter and capers and seasoned with fresh chopped dill. It suits for any kind of fish whatever it is boiled, fried or grilled. Goes good with salmon (see Salmon with Capers and Dill Sauce recipe), cod, tilapia and other fish which you would usually serve with butter sauce of some kind.

If you are trying to get more liquid sauce use more wine or add more shallots otherwise. If you don't like texture of cooked onions - increase shallots frying time and cook them with wine longer.

Ready sauce can be stored in the fridge, but it should be served warm, just make sure when you reheat it to remove sauce from burner before it starts boiling.

Chicken Schnitzels (Chicken Tenders)

This recipe for chicken tenders (or beaten chicken cutlets) is somewhat similar to pork schnitzels, except for the fact they are made from chicken, of course.

In additional to breading (for which, I must say, ground breadcrumbs work the best), cooking of those require some agility to cut chicken breasts into flat portion pieces: so if you are wondering how to do that – keep reading :)

Chicken tenders are perfect for dinner; you can store leftover tenders in the fridge and warm them up for lunch or eat cold and they are great for sandwiches.

Veal Shish Kebab with Onions

Cookout when we had these veal shish kebabs was rather extreme: we went to the lake (about 50 miles away), fired up grill, skewered meat, set it on the grill and then... rain started.

And it appeared to be not the light summer rain which we hoped for when we first saw clouds, but the cloudburst with thunders, lightnings and a hail in between, the cold one.

I don't know how we managed to keep that meat cooking, but it turned out good, maybe it even tasted better because we were guarding grill for half of hour with towel above it to keep it from getting wet.

By the way, to cook such shish kebab (“shashlik” or “shashlyk” how we call this dish in Russia) you will need skewers of some kind and of course grill (make it a charcoal one to get better taste) in additional to meat, onions, vinegar and spices. If you use wooden skewers, don't forget to soak them in the water at least for 1 hour before skewer meat on.

Russian Beze Cookies (Meringues)

Beze cookies or meringues (probably more familiar name for you) are one of those desserts you can put together literally from almost nothing.

2 egg whites and a bit of sugar – that is all you need prepare a nice finishing for the romantic dinner or something to sweeten your life with when you need it.

Using of pastry bag, when you operate with sugary and bubbly “batter”, can be hard at the beginning, but it goes easier once you get used to it.

If you have choice – pick bigger bag so you have more room for maneuver when loading it with “batter”.

Salad Dnister (Cabbage, Peas and Sausage)

Salad Dnister (just like a river) is a popular in West Ukraine dish originated in Carpathian mountains region, and made its way to other places as it is easy, not expensive and fast to do and very tasty.

Main ingredient of this salad is shredded cabbage, so you can consider it to be a coleslaw with a sausage and peas dressed with mayonnaise.

A bit of a challenge here would be to find suitable sausage. The closest translation to the kind of sausage you need I could come up with is “half-smoked summer sausage”, however I am pretty sure that sounds weird in english, and if you know how to call it better – please let me know. Krakowska or Ternopil'ska sausage will work here, if you can find any of those in Ukrainian or European shop.

Mulled Wine (Glühwein)

I was unfortunate to catch a cold another day, and somewhere in between sneezing and sweating I reminded myself of mulled wine - probably the best drink to warm you up and clear your sinuses.

Mulled wine, or gluehwein (how it is called in Austria and Germany) or glintvein (how it is called in Russia) is a drink prepared by heating red dry wine with various spices and citruses.

This popular in Europe drink is often sold during cold season around Christmas time on open air markets and fairs - it really helps to warm up.

Glühwein is very easy to prepare, if you prefer - use whole spices instead of ground ones, that will make straining part much easier, however ground spices work just fine. Enjoy responsible!

Chicken Liver Pate on Crackers

I find dishes from any kind of liver not very popular on this side of the globe. However I can't see anybody not liking this one: chicken liver pâté or “pashtet” like it is called in Russia.

Pate in russian cousine is prepared mostly from liver cooked, ground and mixed with butter and few additions to taste. For chicken liver pate I add onions, carrots, a dash of nutmeg and a spoon of cognac, see the instruction below.

Chicken liver pate can be served as appetizer or snack, on bread, toasts, crackers or flat breads. You can also exercise a pastry chief inner self and arrange pate flowers using pastry bag.

Meatballs with Carrot-Tomato Sauce

Russian meatballs (or “tefteli” how they are called in Russia) are prepared from ground beef and rice mix and cooked under some kind of sauce. They usually have big size (1 or 2 meatballs is enough for a serving).

This is a recipe for “tefteli” my mom uses: big meatballs, dipped into flour, then fried over in some oil and cooked with vegetable sauce (carrots, tomatoes, onions and dill) until ready.

I've modified recipe a bit to use freshly pureed tomatoes instead of tomato paste. However, if you don't have fresh tomatoes under your hands, you can use canned tomatoes or tomato paste diluted with water.

Boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes are usually the first choice of side dish for tefteli for me, boiled buckwheat or pasta work good too.

Russian Kefir Pancakes (Oladi)

Oladi, or thick pancakes prepared from kefir based batter, is traditional russian breakfast food. Batter is easy to assemble and whole dish doesn't take much time to cook.

Kefir gives a distinguishing taste to oladi, but it probably can be replaced with buttermilk in case you are having troubles finding kefir.

Oladi can be served plain or with some kind of a topping: jam, syrop or honey, as well as fresh fruits. I love oladi with sour cream.

Fried Cauliflower Florets

According to Wikipedia, cauliflower is low in fat, high in dietary fiber, folate and vitamin C. And I think that positions cauliflower as a nutritional vegetable and important part of the daily diet.

My mom boils florets first and then fries with flour and eggs. I like taste of cauliflower fried this way more than just boiled, it is less watery, also eggs and flour bring up a nice addition to taste.

By the way, flour can be replaced with finely ground breadcrumbs, tastes good this way as well. I prefer using bread breading I prepare myself, rather than breading mixtures.

French Onion Soup

I absolutely love this tender onion and cheese soup with a light hint of spices and dry white wine. It is very good choice for home dinner party or romantic dinner just for you two.

You can prepare most of the steps in advance (from step 1 to step 9), then pour soup to the bowls, add bread and cheese and put them to the oven right before serving. That will save you a bit of time and ensure every meal comes fresh and warm at the right time.

My advice would be to use home prepared broth, cooked with good quality beef, carrots, onions, parsley and celery for this soup. If you need some hints on how to prepare beef broth, follow these instructions.

Chicken Salad with Celery and Grapes

I never tried fresh celery stems before we got to US. I was more familiar with celery root – it is largely used to prepare soups and stew or even salads of European cousines, but I can't say eating stem parts of it is as popular in Europe as in US.

According to wikipedia, celery is a source of good low-calorie dietary fibre, which makes it not only tasty (btw I found taste of it fascinating) and also healthy.

Saying all of that, here comes the nice salad recipe for fresh celery stems and boiled white chicken meat; grapes give it a little kick in flavor, as well as almonds. Hope you will like it.

French Toasts with Cheese

French toasts are easy to do and very tasty. They fit perfectly for breakfast or brunch, or as a quick to prepare snack.

It is good to use not so fresh, 2 or 3 days old bread for french toasts. However it you only have fresh bread – just dry slices of it in the toster for a bit, it will make preparation easier.

French toasts can be served plain or with various topping: honey, berry jams or syrups. I prefer them topped with shredded cheese or mix of cheeses.

Strawberry Cream Dessert

Even though here I can buy strawberries almost any time of year, they are especially tasteful at summer. So yes, it is a strawberry time!

So if you looking for a nice recipe for strawberries – here it is: sweet whipped cream with puree of fresh sweet tasty strawberries and a bit of jelly. Easy to prepare, and even easier to eat :)

Of course, whipped cream is a bit heavy for the figure especially if it is mixed with sugar, but it is also totally delicious - so I allow myself to enjoy it every once in a while. But if you are trying to follow low calories / low fat diet this recipe is probably not for you.

Lasagna with Beef and Vegetables

Several weekends ago, when I asked Yuriy what should we prepare for dinner, I got an answer – lasagna, and I was intimidated a bit - I never prepared lasagna before. So I spent some time in internet researching recipes and found several I liked. I've combined them, added some touch to my taste and prepared this lasagna.

This was my first attempt to make lasagna. And main challenge for me was to properly prepare noodles: according to the instructions on the pack they required boiling before using. I've added 2 tablespoons of oil to the boiling water and was boiling them layer by layer and it totally helped to prevent noodles from sticking while boiling.

This lasagna turned out perfectly: balanced combination of meat and vegetables (just how I like it), noodles were very tender, it was totally worth all the time I've spend boiling them, getting out of water and trying arrange them in the pan.

Potato Roast with Vegetables

Summer is here and summer is a perfect time to enjoy vegetables it brings along.

Bell peppers, eggplants, potatoes roast together with olive oil based dressing with garlic and herbs can be a perfect dish on their own as well as a side dish to meats or poultry.

Once veggies are all sliced and mixed with dressing (can be prepared in advance), it takes about an hour to roast them in the oven.

Roasting doesn't require much of attention, just stirring from time to time. So I consider this dish easy to prepare.

Macaroni with Ground Boiled Beef

Lots of recipes require using clear soup (meat broth, stock), however not all of them also require boiled meat which is often used to prepare meat broth. So the question is, are there any good recipes which actually require boiled meat and no broth?

This is one of them: russian pasta with ground boiled beef and fried onions (btw, it is called “makarony po-flotski” in Russia; I have no idea why, but we always called this dish so).

Any “al dente” kind of pasta will work here: I've used penne, just read instructions on the pack and cook them accordingly. You may also vary proportion of meat to pasta to taste.

Lithuanian Borscht (Cold Borscht)

Are you suffering from hot weather like me? When outside feels like in the oven there is no better food to eat than cold soup. Lithuanian borscht is a nice refreshing buttermilk based cold soup you can put together without any extra hassle and then enjoy it sitting on the patio.

The real trick to Lithuanian borscht is to find good kefir – it should be original kefir which hasn't been flavored with any tastes, not salted and not sweetened. I used plain unsweetened kefir (can be replaced with buttermilk) from Lifeway and it worked out perfectly.

The rest of ingredients: vegetables (beets, cucumber and greens) and hard boiled eggs, are easy to get and not pricey at all. And btw, even though this soup is called a “borscht”, the only thing it has in common to other borschts, I guess, is the color.