About Me and My Cooking Blog
Published on December 24th, 2008 by Julia Volhina
Hello there,
My name is Julia and I am very glad you’ve stopped by to read my cooking blog.
It looks like nowadays not many people have time and/or mood to cook food at home.
And I think, even less of them are actually enjoying the process of making home food, they probably think: making food is hard or boring.
So I really hope you will find recipes posted here useful, tasty and fun to prepare, and you will actually enjoy cooking them.
About me
I was born in USSR, the country which doesn’t exist anymore, nevertheless it is still hard for me to differentiate the dishes I prepare (and my mom prepares, and my grand mom does till now) by various countries cuisines they are supposed to be belong to. Just because all of them are the dishes I am used to eat since I was little, and I never bothered to think whatever it is Russian, or Ukrainian, or polish, or Hungarian, or Romanian, or Georgian, or god knows which else: if it tasted good – so I liked it. And I like it till now! That is why you can find dishes from various eastern European cuisines on my website.
I was living in Russia behind the polar circle for a while almost since I was born, then it was a time to study in university and that was in Ukraine, then I had an opportunity to live and work for few years in Austria. During my times of living in the heart of Europe, I’ve visited Italy, Romania, Poland, Germany, France, Czech Republic and I really love all those countries for their common and different sides, and I hope you will find a hints of each of them in my recipes.
Finally on the beginning of 2008 my foot was set on another continent: today I live and work in US, and I hope to discover interesting recipes of this part of the world. Looking back today I really think the possibility to travel like was one of greatest outcomes which the braking of USSR gave me, however I really miss my family in Ukraine and I really wish I can visit them more often.
Join me
I hope you like my site, and If you can’t find here a recipe you are looking for feel free to ask me about it: if I know how to make it – it will be added to the site as soon as I can.
I also will be happy to answer any questions about recipes I’ve already posted: all of those recipes are done by me, photographed by my better half and eaten by both of us (and some times by our friends), so all those dishes are real homemade food we eat on daily basis.
As you probably noticed, I am posting new recipes regularly, feel free to follow me on Twitter, add EnjoyYourCooking to your Google Plus circles or become a fan of EnjoyYourCooking on facebook so you don’t miss updates. I also will be happy if you join me in comments to discuss recipes, homemade cooking or even just for fun.
I really think what by cooking food by your hands you are not only giving yourself and your family a chance to stay healthy, but you are also showing relatives you do care about them. I think it is important to know what is on your plate. Indeed, we are what we eat… So make your food yourself! And yes, Enjoy Your Cooking!
Julia
enjoyyourcooking.com
PS. Please read copyright info before using any content (including text or images) from this website in your work.
Hi Julia,
Happen to read your blog when my wife needed my help while she was starting her blog to design it.
It was so nice reading about your blog. I just imagined all the things as I kept reading it. I say, you are very lucky that you got chances to visit many countries and got to taste different types of food and later try it out. Keep up the passion to cook. I wish you all the best. Keep posting.
Regards,
Ram
-wishes from India
Thank you, Ram! The time is a bit tight at the moment, as well as I am having hard time coming up with new recipes to try. But I will try!
Hi Julia,
I came across your blog upon searching info on “shuba” or seledka pod shuboj as you call it. Shuba was mentioned in an episode of ‘Flesh and Bones’ (tv series) but there is mention of using red caviar (in place of the herring). Have you ever heard of this variation?
You have a very interesting recipe site!
I didn’t hear about this variation, but I suppose it might work, but will be much less budgety since caviar is much more expensive than salter herring. My recipe with herring is here in case you want to see it: https://www.enjoyyourcooking.com/salads/herring-under-fur-coat-herring-salad.html
I saw some us smoked / salted salmon instead of herring, again less budgety but tasty variation 🙂
Great blog.
Congrats
Olga
Thanks!
toje jivu v US i kakoy pozor – zabyla recept oliv’e! a tak zahotelos domashnen’kogo!=) zashla na vash sait, a tut stolko vsego horoshego i znakomogo! snachala oliv’e, potom vinegret, potom k pirojkam perejdu!) tolko jal’ ne mogu naiti tut kefir dlya oladushek, reshila zakazat tibetskij milk grib i samoj poprobovat doma delat!
U nas prodaut kefir ot “Lifeway”, on obychno v healthy section v magazinah stoit, est’ prakticheski v lubom magazine. No esli ne najdete – kisloe moloko tozhe podojdet, dazhe mozhet luchshe budet.
V Trader Joes prodayut Kefir,tak i nazivetsa-Kefir, vkusom ochen napominaet nash. Luchshe chem Lifeway, mne bolshe nravitsa vo vsyakom sluchae.
Hi Julia, I came across your blog because I wanted to look up what “Mannaya kasha” was in English, and google pointed me to your recipe. I was also born in Ukraine, and it was so nice for me to see all these recipes that remind me of childhood on your website – khrustiki, sirniki, etc (by the way, don’t Russian food names look so strange when written in English?).
Anyway, I followed your website on facebook and twitter, and I will be coming back often because I miss all the delicious food that I grew up and don’t eat that often nowadays 🙂
Welcome to my website, I am glad you like it 🙂
Hello Julia
I stumbled upon your blog while looking for recipes that use milk kefir. It is a great site and the photographs are awesome. I currently live in Edmonton Alberta ( which is bitterly cold in winter and has all four seasons) and am having to relearn food as the ingredients, weather and everything is so different from where I come from ( Kerala in India which is sunny, rainy, hot and near the ocean).
I think Ukranian food will help me to use more local ingredients and also cook food according to the seasons here. I plan to try out your recipes regularly as I think they are really authentic and that is so hard to find these days as most everyone is interested in making their own recipes. But sometimes I feel the old timers knew what they were doing in terms of food and they kept themselves healthy through their treatment of food. So I appreciate all the extra information you provide about the history or origins, health aspects, which season it is best consumed in etc. Keep them coming and good luck.
Thank you!
I adore your blog! I check it very frequently for recipes of my favorite childhood dishes. It’s so great to be able to recreate the meals you remember as a kid with step by step instructions, and terrific illustrations! I’m originally from Armenia, and we had many of these multi-cultural culinary creations, some from Georgia, others from Ukraine. Thanks for not only helping me cook, but for giving me that warm and familiar feeling. Your blog is a wonderful walk down the memory lane for me. I remember going wild for Chebureki, Piroshki, Xachapuri and salad olivier.
Waiting for you to throw in some more Armenian and Georgian dishes. 🙂
Please keep going, you’ve got a wonderful blog!
Thank you and welcome to our website community 🙂 I don’t have much of experience in Armenian dishes, it would be nice if somebody shared recipes. I always enjoy trying something new.
Hi
i was looking recipe for hvorost (brushwood) and found your blog. can you please redirect to recipe – i know it somewhere here but cannot find.
Thank you very much
Sorry for slow response, I didn’t look at comments earlier, and I believe you already found it :), but just in case here is hvorost recipe: https://www.enjoyyourcooking.com/desserts/khrustyky-pastry-hvorost.html
Hello Norma who sent me question about Kefir and Quark/Tvorog/Fresh Cheese via contact form.
If you read this, I just wanted to let you know that yahoo returns email sent to the address you left in the contact form with the following error: “This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account”.
So I will post my reply here, and hope you will be able to find it.
Sincerely,
Julia
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Hello Norma,
I am very happy that you found my site useful, and thank you for contacting me with your questions. I am glad there still people whose passion for cooking knows no borders 🙂
Regarding quark, if you do kefir at home you already on half way to making quark. I never did it myself – still have to try it some time, but in theory it isn’t that hard.
My mom used to do it this way:
– Pour kefir into smaller pot.
– Pour of water into bigger pot and put small pot in (I don’t know how to explain better, the small pot should be in the water but it shouldn’t touch bottom of the bigger one).
– Put this “construction” on the burner and bring water to boil, let is boil for about 5 mins.
– Then turn heat off and let it all cool down until water is warm (not hot anymore)
– Arrange several layers of cheese cloth in the colander, pour kefir in and strain all liquid off.
– After most of liquid if gone you can actually wrap quark in cheese cloth and squeeze remaining liquid off.
I actually didn’t know there exist such things as quark makers, my mom always used pots and cheese cloth, it didn’t seem like something that requires more than this equipments.
Hope that helps.
Julia
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If you are looking for instructions of how to make quark (tvorog), see the comment above.
Hi Julia,
my name is Yuliya and I like your site! Nice pictures, too! I also have a blog about Russian cooking ( http://www.yuliyas.com ), although right now most of the recipes I published there are not really traditionally Russian, just my own creations. It’s interesting to see how even the traditionally Russian recipes can be so different from person to person. I’d like to follow you on Twitter, please follow me too if you are interested (@YuliyasBlog)
Every cook adds something from himself to any recipe, that is why recipes differ from person to person, especially for such multi-cultural and big country as Russia.
Hello, I just found your site after visiting Ukraine for the first time and wanting to find out how to make some of the delicious food I ate there. I had a great marinated mushroom salad at someone’s house there, but I don’t know what it was called. It had small whole button mushrooms, I think julienned carrots, a dressing that involved garlic, vinegar, and sugar, and I don’t know what else. It did not have mayonnaise in it. Does this sound familiar to you?
That doesn’t sound familiar to me, but for sure sounds delicious… I would love to have this recipe…
I am very happy that found your blog. There are many great recipes – some of them alraedy have tried, others will be tired. And I was amazed that some of your recipes (Russian Salad (Olivier), Oladi (Russian Pancakes) with Apple, Russian Kefir Pancakes (Oladi), Fresh Cheese Pancakes, Borscht (Beetroot Soup), Cold Borscht, plov) we (lithuanians) also make on casual days like in russia 🙂
Yes, it is sometimes very hard to specify what country recipe belongs to, since most of them are very popular in many-many countries… 🙂
Julia – very glad came across your blog – please do not stop writing recepies. Found a few I will definitely try in the next few days. Also wanted to ask if you know how to make Plov ? I understand there are quite a few ways to make it. Let me know please if you have a favorite recepie. Thanks
Hello Edward and thank you!
I do have 2 recipes for plov (with chicken or pork):
Pork Plov: https://www.enjoyyourcooking.com/main-dish-recipes/pork-pilaf.html
Chicken Plov: https://www.enjoyyourcooking.com/main-dish-recipes/chicken-pilaf.html
The main thing there to not to over cook rice 🙂 and ofc you can use lamb instead of pork for the original recipe. I don’t really like lamb.
I am so glad I found you blog on google. I was looking for Uha recipe and it directed me to your blog. thank you, there are foods I will certaintly try.
Thanks and welcome 🙂