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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
