My tomato recipes
April 2nd, 2011 in Eggs, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina 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.
Tags: bell pepper, breakfast, egg, kid food, no meat, tomato, vegetables
March 12th, 2011 in Salad Recipes by Julia Volhina 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.
Tags: cucumber, dill, garlic, mayo, no meat, salad, shallot, sour cream, tomato, ukrainian, vegetables
January 29th, 2011 in Main Dish Recipes, No-meat, Side Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina 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.
Tags: cabbage, no meat, onion, russian, side dish, tomato, vegetables
December 18th, 2010 in Hot Soups, Soup Recipes by Julia Volhina 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).
Tags: bean, beet, bell pepper, borscht, cabbage, carrot, celery root, dinner, onion, parsley root, potato, russian, soup, tomato, ukrainian, vegetables
December 11th, 2010 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina 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.
Tags: how-to, tomato, tomato paste, vegetables
September 4th, 2010 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina 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.
Tags: boiled rice, carrot, dill, dinner, ground beef, lunch, onion, romantic, russian, sauce, tomato
July 17th, 2010 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes, Pasta by Julia Volhina 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.
Tags: baked, bechamel, bell pepper, carrot, casserole, cheese, dinner, garlic, ground beef, italian, lunch, noodles, onion, pasta, tomato, vegetables
