Apropriately or cooking my style

Easter bunnies and duckies.

2011-04-24T16:36:00.005-06:00

Easter here and I was invited for brunch, so evening before I prepared bread dough. This time little thicker than I usually do it for the Bread recipe
First I thought I will make rolls, but then I realized I have cookie cutters, perfect for easter.
And so in the morning instead or rolls I rolled out the dough
I do not own a roller meant for rollong a dough, but I do own alternative nice blue roller, that works magic, and can be used afterwards for serving water at the dinner table to guests.

I do not own a roller meant for it, but I do own alternative nice blue roller that works just as well and doubles as a serving vessel for water at dinner table.
And got to cutting shapes - this was such a success I got asked for recipe!

Joke

2010-11-09T17:04:00.004-07:00

A woman was sitting at a bar enjoying an after-work cocktail with her girlfriends when an exceptionally tall, handsome, extremely sexy young man entered. He was so striking that the woman could not take her eyes away from him. The young man noticed her overly attentive stare & walked directly toward her. Before she could offer her apologies for being so rude for staring, the young man said to her, 'I'll do anything, absolutely anything, that you want me to do, no matter how kinky, for $100, on one condition.' Flabbergasted, the woman asked what the condition was. The young man replied, 'You have to tell me what you want me to do in just three words.'
The woman considered his proposition for a moment, withdrew from her purse and slowly counted out five $20 bills, which she pressed into the young man's hand along with her address. She looked deeply into his eyes & slowly, meaningfully said, "Clean my house."

zzz , eharmony zzzz1313 , match

David's Swedish bread

2010-07-07T22:12:00.004-06:00

I always love when we hang out with friends and everyone is cooking one meal, really comfy and sometimes you learn new recipes, we had this bread fresh from oven and I definitely had dejavu. Remembering how I used to go with my mom to bakery to pick up fresh bread - it was still hot when we bought it, and by the time we walked back home it was halfway eaten. Guess what I did with this hot bread. Luckily David made 4 loaves, 2 each day and was nice enough to share recipe. Now I have to try it myself. Magic is in the pot to keep moisture in while baking.
You can use any kind o flour, I am sure I will use whole wheat since I do not have anything else at home.
1/8th heaping teaspoon of yeast
1.5 cup hot water
3 cups flour
1-2 tsp salt
mix with fork just until well mixed – let rise 6-8 hrs up to 24 hrs
cover in bowl with cellophane seal so it does not loose moisture
after 6-24 hrs you
put it on floured surface in the shape of the ball with floured hands let sit for 15 minutes covered with celophane
after that put in on plate covered with corn flour for another 2 hrs of rising before it goes into oven cover with towel put empty pot in the oven while it is heating to 465F
put bread in pot covered for 30 minutes and then take lid off for 12 minutes
note when you are putting it in bowl for baking work top smooth by folding under and then flip so the top is on the bottom of the pot. That keeps bread from bubbling up. Let it sit just a bit before cutting off slice of amazing piece of end crust. Thankfully there are 2 ends on each loaf.

Note: now that I have been doing this one for a while I added several shortcuts.
I found out that I can skip most of the steps and I definitely skip the cellophane.
I let it rise in covered bowl. And skip all the second rise part or simply rework the dough and do it next day. Have not have major issues, bread would rise and crust is heavenly. At one time I added herbs. and if I do not feel like making the whole bread I just drop the dough in small balls on the baking stone and make rolls.
Have fun with this.

Baclava

2010-06-20T22:29:00.004-06:00

I had a phyllo sheets and I had bag of walnuts and I had a craving for sweet baclava...
Well put that together and the fact that I own a Droid and can find a recipe for virtually anything really fast, and here I was experimenting with what I found online.
First I could not believe how easy the recipe sounded, I thought they missed something, but I did try anyway. It turned out awesome.
Thinking "This is so darn easy" I made anther batch. And this time I shared. Turns out I shared with just the right person. She does her own as well and even simpler than what I tried so far. I talked to my friend from Turkey who told me how they do it there. And came out with my own recipe - a combination of all the ones I heard. That does not mean I will really stick to it in the future, but I really like simplicity of it.

1 roll 1/2 package of phyllo dough (20 sheets)
2.5 cups ground walnuts
1 tbsp cinnamon (or what you like)
1/2 tsp coriander ( really optional - I made this one up)

mix walnuts and spices
layer 6-8 sheets on pan to start
sprinkle with walnuts
layer 2 sheets (or whatever sticks together at the moment - trust me no one will notice)
repeat above steps until you run out of walnuts
layer remaining sheets on top (if you ran out of sheets first that will be fine as well but they look more usual when finished with sheets)

Now CUT TO SQUARES - this is important so juices get down into individual pieces.

drizzle over evenly
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter melted - or even less than that

put into oven 350F for 15-20min. Untill it smells nice - that is how I usually notice it is done, an top is nice golden.

While it is in the oven dissolve you probably do not want to boil honey for nutrition preservation.
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup honey
1 tbsp lemon juice

when baclava is out of the oven, drizzle the honey mixture over it.
It will make sounds of water hitting hot pot - I really like that sound.

let it cool off a bit.

I used to cut it into triangles at the first cutting step - but now I wait until it is cooled off - I like o get big piece first. And it is so much easier to cut it to triangles later.

Enjoy and share.

Why share? I did goo thorough math on this one (out of curiosity mostly) and it looks like each triangle has about 70-75 calories (you should have about 24 squares or 48 triangles), so if you gobble the whole pan you should be definitely set for a day or 2 not needing much more to eat ...
But if you top ot off with vitamins - you should have quite balanced meal - lots of proteins and sugars and fats (even lots of omega-3) - hey who says we are not eating healthy...

Cooking Toastmasters?

2010-05-03T13:29:00.001-06:00

What has Bozeman Toastmasters to do with cooking? I guess I have another topic to talk about! what an idea maybe that will be my next speech - i could swing that one easily ;-)
So far my newest attempt at public speaking was a blast.
Anyone want to join?

Yogurt (by Christina)

2009-12-31T08:28:00.001-07:00

Get milk (NOT the ULTRA pasteurized, but pasteurized is okay). Heat to 180 F, cool to 108 F, stir in 2-3 tablespoons of yogurt you already have for every liter of milk you are heating. Put in jars and then allow the yogurt to cultivate for 4-8 hours to desired thickness. I put mine in the warm oven at about 100 F to cultivate. Don't let it be hotter than that or it will separate. Once you put it in the fridge it will stop thickening.

beet brownies

2009-09-02T22:58:00.002-06:00

As I mentioned earlier I am subscribed to the veggie delivery, but more importantly, finally this year Tomas gave in to my pleas and planted beets.
They are so ready to be eaten, just as most of our garden is.
It is hard enough to keep up with zucchini and I have not started on onions or carrots much. This was great year for garden and even Tomatoes are now finally turning red.
It is great. My brother cam visit with his wife and Leo and they were quite happy we still had peas. What that meant is that we snacked on peas day in day out even on camping trip. And final result is , we have hardly any in the freezer now and all are already "processed" they were great and we had help picking.
My front porch flowers are completely opposite story, somehow they did not survive out travels and all that was happening around - well one can not have it all.

But I am moving out of my main subject: beets.
I found out that I love leafs and roots about the same and could eat it it all the time, so time has come to start harvesting. I think I have to go fast since I noticed something has been sharing my love for beets and is eating them directly in the garden.
So tonight I picked some. I chopped leaves and stalks and froze those I cooked rooots and will proceed tomorrow.
To make full circle in my blabbing my coleague who is also in on the weggie delivery mentioned that her boyfriend found a recipe for brownies from beets.
I will have to try that
For now just recipes I found online:
Scarlet beet brownies
Dark chocolate and beet brownies
Beet brownies
or just knock yorselves out
google beet brownies for all there is out there.

Later I will post followup on how they actually turned out and what combination of recipes I used.

Swis chard soup and other greens.

2009-07-08T21:22:00.004-06:00

So I signed up for local veggie delivery, which made my other half a bit jealous. He has beautiful garden right in our backyard and I was never really good at harvesting.
This kind of makes it a bit easy and with jealousy, we are approaching self sustainability.
Anyway now we are running into issue of having way too much swiss chard, both in the garden and in our weekly delivery. So far we tried to eat it in the form of swiss chard omelet, or swiss chard curry, and Tomas also made radish leaves into pesto (Great recipe from our regular idea contributor Christina). But spring and all the unusual moisture we are having provides us with more greens than we can eat. Almost.
There is soup!
I started with the following recipe for
SHCHAV - RUSSIAN SWISS CHARD SOUP (as with all usual ingredients, I get recipe online or in some cookbook) and then started cooking.
I added
Garlic, onion and beet leaves (one small rutabaga that Tomas brought from garden and asked me to use up) and added some celery we still had in fridge. And skipped flour and milk.Although I did not quite measure anything here is the scoop:

Ingredients:
1/2 onion
2 celery stalks
1 small rutabaga
Beet and swiss chard leaves (small bucket full, chop stalks separately from leaves)
1 almost whole garlic (coarsely chopped)
pich of salt and black pepper
1/4 tsp thyme (that is what my eye fell on and sounded good at the moment)
1 pint of chicken soup (leftover 1/2 of box I had in fridge)
extra water to make right consistency

I sauteed onions in butter,when they were nice translucent and golden I started adding the rest of the ingredients:
celery, rutabaga and leafy stalks cut up (this was great hint from original recipe start with stalks) let it sautee for 3 minutes,
add garlic stir about minute and finally add chopped green leaves.
sautee until wilted about 2-3 minutes more or until it looks that if you cook it any longer it will start burning and sticking to the bottom of the pot (whichever is less)
pour the chicken broth over and rinse the box with some water and pour that in the soup as well.
add salt
cook for 10-15 minutes.
add black peper and thyme just before finishing.

let cool a little.

if desired mix on slow speed so there are still some chunks - makes lovely crunchy soup.

you can serve with dollop of sour cream and some extra herbs
I just poured into a cup and gobbled up.

Note: beet stalks gave the soup beautiful red green color (at least until I run it through mixer)

Baby shower cake

2009-07-04T19:45:00.005-06:00

I organized my firs baby shower, thank goodnes for internet, I got all the ideas there and then altered them some to fit.
As present I made a baby shower cake. I made 2 since we had 2 expectant mothers actually at the shower, and I know the other might not have baby shower. And it is quite easy to make 2 at once - great gift - really easy to make and lots of diapers and usable small presents. You can go with just the diapers and ribbons and I think it would look fabulous, but I planned the cake for games as well.

From baby shower

Then we had couple of games, Being busy I did not quite manage to prepare all the games I had planned, but 2 were based around this cake.
First: guess how many diapers are in the cake. Everyone intently stared at the cake, or should have and counted/estimated number. Then I promptly covered them up for second game.
Now they needed to write down what was on the cake.
Turns out it was very much like psychology experiment with a guy walking through doctors waiting room with humongous syringe. Afterward no one in the waiting room can describe the man, just that he had huge syringe.
Actually same happened with the cake. Everyone was stumped, forgot to look on anything besides diapers.
There are some instructions on the webhttp://www.creative-baby-shower-ideas.com/how-to-make-a-diaper-cake.html but I kind of made my own.
on the first layer I put washcloths that were sticking out just where the second layer would fit in , and it made a structure to hols that layer. and second layer contained some taller tubs that worked as structure for third layer.
I assembled each layer separately and then just placed on on top of the other to form cake. It was fun and worked great. I placed the whole thing on a cardboard ring that I cut out out of diaper box. and covered with blue tissue paper, so it is easy to transport. I bet if you want to be fancy you could wrap the whole thing in paper or tulle or cellophane, but I like the final results as it was.

Rhubarb bread

2009-06-18T10:13:00.000-06:00

This one was surprising and surprisingly tasty, rhubarb gives the bread nice tangy taste.
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup oul
1 egg
1 cup sour milk or buttermilk (if you have it, if not mix cup of milk with 1 tsp vinegar and wait a few minutes)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla
(I suggest adding cinnamon as well if you like it)

combine together and mix in
1 1/2 c diced rhubarb
1/2 cup chopped nuts (what to say - I can never stop at just 1/2 cup, unless I am running low)

Original recipe calls to mix butter and sugar and spread on the pan, I would just season it as usual, butter or oil the pan and dust with flour - skip the sugar.

bake at 325F for 1 hour.

I think this yielded about 1 bread, multiplied by 4 makes 4. They all fit in the oven at once and you make mess just once. Then I often freeze my breads for future use with great success, though I did not try this variant yet.
Still, if you freeze it fresh it will taste like fresh when you finally let sit on the counter to defrost and eat. I took some of my chocolate zucchini bread I made in September to ski race in March and no one would even guess, by the time we got there it was ready to eat. Needles to say that year I made freezer full of those.
Other option is to give some to your friends. Just as we did yesterday. And I froze one as well.

Rhubarb time 2.

2009-06-17T22:08:00.002-06:00

I have not done this one in ages, but I just might since we are running low on our homemade apricot jam.
Rhubarb-orange crepes
5 cups rhubarb (chopped)
3/4 cup sugar
2Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp orange juice
1 Tbsp butter
I use frozen juice concentrate -it is our normal staple, and add water if need, but more concentrate makes the taste that much richer and I skip the orange zest, since Tomas does not like it and I usually do not have it - they do not add that to orange concentrates - or probably they do but it is hard to separate.
They call for orange zest for garnish, but I bet nasturtium flowers or pansies would look even better and are also edible - Now you can almost call it a salad !

combine all of these (except flowers) in a saucepan and cook 10 -15 minutes over medium-low heat stirring regularly (constantly if you have time, I rarely do)

Now let it sit while you make your favorite crepes, pancakes or just toast.
If you have crepes you can fill them with fruit and roll up. If you want to be fancy dust with powdered sugar and decorate with flowers or orange zest if you like, I bet mint leaves would do well on anything as well. and with some water it grows like weed here, so it is great and healthy garnish for all deserts before flowers come up.
Actually I have some Sweet Woodruff maybe that will be the right decoration.

Rhubarb time!

2009-06-17T21:30:00.003-06:00

we have 3 rhubarb, and on top[ of that we got some extra so it is time to resurrect the recipes I got from Minnesota and start cooking.
well again recipes are for directions mainly the rest is eyeballing and putting in what we have at home and not putting in what we do not.
Unfortunately we ran out of flour so last rhubarb bread that Tomas made was a bit short on flour I am told.
anyway here goes, since i promised some of these to my friend:

Strawberry rhubarb crumble
This one although I do have recipe you really can not go quite wrong by just making stuff up as you go.
preheat oven to 375F,
prepare 9" pan - just get it out of the cupboard and you are ready.

Filling
Rhubarb (4 cups)
strawberries (1 cup)
(one recipe called also for apples - will have to try that next - substitute 1 cup rhubarb for apples)
1/4 cup sugar - mix in or just sprinkle on top ( I doubt I ever put in whole 1/4 cup)
cinnamon (optional, but I like it so it never hurts)
2 tbsp flour (optional)- coat the rhubarb. It makes it less watery, easier to serve and as usual I use whole wheat.
chop rhubarb and strawberries (and apples) mix with the sugar, cinnamon and flour.
spread and press in the bottom of 9" pan.

Crumble Topping:
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup flour (whole wheat will do well here)
1/2 cup brown sugar (1/4 will do just as well)
1Tbsp butter
1Tbsp oil
1Tbsp cranberry or apple juice

Original recipe does not call for it but it gives it better taste and nutritional value: nuts.(about 1/2 cup to a cup never hurts) I think I like to add nuts to pretty much all my cakes.
I start my chopper with nuts: walnuts or pecans whatever strikes my fancy, and whatever is at home at the time. Pour them out and then put in flour, sugar and butter, mix until you get coarse crumbs. Add oil and oats and nuts and enough liquid if I do not have juice I add water and extra cinnamon.

now sprinkle crumble uniformly over the fruit. and put into oven for 35-40 minutes

yummy!! just be careful fruit is really hot when it comes out from the oven, I know I burned my mouth multitude times since I can not wait for it to cool.

Comments: I do not actually measure fruit if I have fewer strawberries, that is what is in. (frozen will do just as well, but ingenuity of this combination is that they are in season together) You can also completely skip them, but they sweeten the rhubarb without adding sugar so it is better to put in some. And if I have more rhubarb that is just fine as well. You might end up with little crumble on top of lots of juicy fruit - really nice as well.
Well an don occasion I added too much water and crumble had rather doughy consistency - no prob, just spread it as evenly as you can and bake away, it still tastes great once it comes out - and again, make sure everyone knows this is how you planned it all along.

Sponge cake ala bublanina?

2009-03-29T20:32:00.002-06:00

I just found a recipe for
Sponge cake on wiki-how
it is really similar to my bublanina - just without all the fun fruit additions. I bet if you really need measurements that make sense this will cut it well.
except instead of melting butter I just pour in oil (usually light olive oil since that is what I have at home, but really whichever light oil I happen to have)
I figured out that when I poured a lot more than usual - everyone was craving, that this was the best it ever turned out
;-)
funny how that goes.

vyprazany syr

2008-05-20T19:30:00.001-06:00

This is my son's favorite, takes a little time and is somewhat messy but OooohSoGooood! We just made it and he asked me to post it here so here comes:

Cheese (swiss or provolone)
ham or some other deli sliced protein source (optional - this will make it gourmet)
3 plates
Flour - in first plate
Egg whisked - in second plate
Bread crubms - in third plate
pan with oil - make it high heat oil (extra virgin olive oil is not good for frying)

take cheese slices (if using ham put it between two slices of cheese)
dip it in first plate, cover with flour on both sides
then dip in second plate and cover with egg
and finish with bread crumbs - try to cover entire "cheese sandwich"
repeat with all "sandwiches"
heat a frying pan with oil (see third hint - do not overheat too much)
put a dressed up cheese in the oil after it browned on one side turn and fry other side -repeat with the rest of the cheese that you plan to eat.

If you made more than you plan to eat right away store the dressed up cheese in cellophane (You can even freeze it) and fry it fresh before eating. the really messy part is already over.
Eat with mashed potatoes or rice and pickle will do you really good - at least it will make this a somewhat balanced meal.

Hints:
- Get cheese sliced at the deli really thick, or half really thick and add ham in between every two slices. If you buy prepackaged cheese double or triple up slices.
- Be generous with oil - you are frying don't you?
- to test if the oil is hot enough wet fingers of one hand (you just had to wash them from the covering cheese and your fingers with flour, egg and crumbs, so they should be already wet) flick a little of that water into the oil. If it sizzles immediately oil is ready.

Pears in wine with blueberries and chocolate

2007-11-29T10:09:00.001-07:00

A friend of ours brought this to our Thanksgiving bash:
Ingredients:
- Pears 4
- Wine (She brought Dry Riesling but I guess Chardonnay or any sweet white wine would work as well, I used red wine and it was great)
- Cup of blueberries (she used frozen ones) mixed and strained to make blueberry sauce. I skip straining I just use my blender to pulverize blueberries properly to make even richer sauce.
- Chocolate chips (sounds like no desert is complete without chocolate)
- chopped pistachios

Halve and core couple of pears (she did 4 big ones = 8 halves) – place in the oven proof pan cut side down (glass is probably preferred)
Pour some of the wine over the pears and put into oven preheated to 350 - 20minutes (I think)
Carefully remove from oven,
Pour some of the wine into blueberries and heat up on the stove.
Turn the pears cut side up and sprinkle with chocolate and pistachios – let melt on its own for a while and then drizzle with warm blueberry sauce.

I must say it was decadent – and it came from diet cookbook! (notice
no extra sugar is involved - I think this is where sweet wine would come in handy)

Have a happy holidays.

New scale

2007-10-06T08:48:00.004-06:00

I was always curious about those scales that can figure out not only your weight, but also other vital information like body fat, metabolic rate, hydration level, bone mass and such. I finally gave in and got one. I got BC534 InnerScan.

I did weight myself twice so far and the measurements seem pretty consistent. I always had fat about 27% so I felt OK. That is until Tomas stepped on it. I was "put to shame". His fat was about 10%, metabolic age 12 as opposed to my 29 and bone mass was 9lb compared to my 5.4lb. Yes he is bigger - so more bone mass is in place, and he is in better shape and exercises more so all the other factors should not be so surprising, but I still wasn't sure if it should account for that much.
Anyway it is snowing outside, Jakub is taking his SAT test, so I started putting the scale through its paces.
I kept my age and height constant but started varying sex and activity level an lo and behold started feeling better again!
If I pretended to be a guy that is more athletic my fat dropped to about 9% and metabolic age to 12. SO I guess it is just me being woman and not exercising so much or not claiming to be exercising so much would do that. But mainly being a woman is the problem. So here is what I gathered.


sex activ weight fat% H2O% Bone(lb)M-rate m-age
M    1  147.8lb 16%   58.4% 6.2lb  2512cal  25
F    1  147.8lb 28.8% 49.9% 5.4lb  2215cal  33
M    2  147.8lb 16%   53.3% 6.2lb  2882cal  25
F    2  147.6lb 29.2% 49.6% 5.2lb  2317cal  34
M    3  147.8lb 9.1%  60 6%.8lb    3638cal  12
F    3  147.8lb 20.1% 54.4% 6lb    2828cal  16

My weight is consistent, no surprises there, at least I know the scale is working. The one 147.6 is probably just a side effect that scale can not go better that 0.2. It seemed always jumping between the two values before it settled on 147.8 or 147.6. Metabolic age and bone mass and fat% do not change as long as the activity level is 1 or 2 as soon as one should become more active (10+ hours of rigorous exercise weekly) The scale changes algorithm to accommodate for more fit individuals. That would explain part of the discrepancy between me and Tomas. I set my level to 2 while I set his to 3. But more major algorithm change is between men and women. If I changed sex from M (male) to F (female) my fat % nearly doubled !! My hydration level dropped probably the side effect of the fat increase? My bone mass dropped by pound! My metabolic rate dropped by about 300 calories! And Metabolic age increased significantly.
Anyway it is fun to look at my metabolic age and hydration levels every once in a while.

Talk like a pirate day

2007-09-19T20:28:00.000-06:00

It just so happens that this is also Jakub's B'day so I made him a pirate ship cake.
To start with I googled images with "pirate birthday cake" query and got an idea - in fact tons of ideas but this one seemed particularly simple and doable with what I had.
Needless to say I even went to store first, but as usual did not find what I was looking for and did not want to fork out almost $40 for mostly plastic cake (and I would have to go back to the store again to pick it up once they made it!). So I just went downstairs where my colleagues have stash of candy for the rest of us got some Rolos, Kit-Kats, and Twix bars, knowing that at home there is box of Legos and we did have one pirates island lego a while back. The hard part was to actually sift through the box full of Legos and find pirates and some accessories.
I pulled out my zucchini bread from freezer the day before, so I knew that that part is definitely done. (I baked about 12 of those weekend before I froze most of them - we will eat them through the winter I have like freezer full of those now.)
Anthony suggested that if I make pirate ship one guy must be walking the plank so the final version is here.

I cut the zucchini bread so it has point in the front and saved the pieces for islands. I left to sift through Legos, but by the time I got back Tomas ate one of the Islands. That was actually ok, plus he did not have a clue, they were islands while he was eating it.
I put the frosting on teh cake and ran around with the knife to make impression of wooden planks. decorated with candy bars - Rolos are great side cannons!
added candles and sails - they quickly recognize my artwork on the sails.
The only trouble was that once I lit the candles (18 is quite a lot) teh sail actually caught fire. Thanks to Jakub's big lungs he blew it out quickly and nothing else burned. Anyway it was quite a special effect.

So Happy B'day Jakub.

sulance

2007-08-20T19:57:00.000-06:00

leftover mashed potatoes (or cooked potatoes and cooled)
flour - semolina works great
egg
boiling water
topping: lightly browned bread crumbs, powdered sugar and heated melted butter.
Or you can replace bread crumbs with crushed poppy seeds for change and good night sleep or with cottage cheese for added proteins.

Mix mashed potatoes egg and flour until the dough is just about right consistency - not too sticky or runny and handles like thicker playdough
(if necessary divide in manageable chunks)
Roll long about one each thick roll from each chunk
Take a knife and cut about 1/4 - 1/3 inch thick slices from the roll
on floured surface or in your hands roll each piece (sulanec) into roll and put aside
Make water boil in big pot and drop each "sulanec" into water. After they are all in teh water stir with wooden spoon so they do not stick.
Cook about 5 minutes.
Drain.
serve with your favorite topping

I have seen people put pasta sauce on top but that that was some cooking show and it was called Italian gnocche - or something like that, and they shaped the dough not in their hands to rolls but replaced that last step and did some fancy way with fork - other than that recipe was identical - except they boiled potatoes specially for this I do sulance only when I have leftover mashed potatoes, which means, whenever I make mashed potatoes, I make more than we plan to eat, so that I have some extra.

Halusky from flour

2007-08-08T22:41:00.000-06:00

Egg
Water
Flour (I use whole wheat)
Boiling water

whisk egg
mix water and flour and egg until you have non runny but not really stiff mass.
get a special gadget (I have one) or cheese grates with big holes.
Boil water (you may put some salt in the water) in big pot pour the dough through the grater you shoul dneed to help push it through but it should almost fall to the water through the holes in the grater on its own. Once you are done putting all the dough through, stir the halusky so they do not stick, depending on the size they might be pretty much cooked right away. Or give them a minute or so and then drain them. Pour the whole content through sieve and rinse. Use them as side for Paprikas.

Or you can make scrambled eggs and mix in some halusky - bacon cut up to small pieces and fried is a nice addition in this case.

Note: to make for quick fill for chicken soup I throw them directly to the soup when it is almost done.

Tip: you may try to throw in one piece to boiling water to see if they are going to keep the shape. If not maybe add flour or egg.

If you are feeling adventurous you can just make the dough thicker and throw little pieces to boiling water with knife while having the dough on top of cutting board over the water.

Feel free to experiment, based on the ration of egg, flour and water the consistence of halusky is going to be different from homogeneous mush (you may overcooked it) through nice and fluffy to little pellets. Each stage has its charm, maybe spare the mush. But hey starving college student ... You can call that porridge!

What is cooking my style?

2007-08-08T22:20:00.000-06:00

I do not like to read cookbooks and cook at the same time. Do not take me wrong I love to read cookbooks and watch culinary shows. Even if I try to go by the cookbook, I usually do not have all the ingredients. There were plenty of times whn I planned to cook something spectacular. Got to reading cookbooks and couple hours later I popped frozen pizza in the oven so we do not end up hungry.
I also have been blessed with incredibly forgiving family, they eat most everything.
So I enjoy my freedom and like to experiment.
From my experiments I found that there is really many ways you can cook each meal.
And then you can either say that you messed up, or proclaim it to be your new design. I personally prefer later.
So here are recipes I am putting together for my son.
once he is in college he can check how to make some of his favorite meals.
I really like when I start with some basic idea and then start adding things, spices and replacing ingredients, and out comes something fantastic. I feel like a culinary chef. And in the case it is quite mediocre, as long as it still edible we eat it anyway. Food is really only to sustain us, we are not here for food.

Paprikas

2007-08-08T18:57:00.001-06:00

chicken (thighs, breasts) however many people you want to feed
onions - I like a lot of them
oil - appropriately
salt
powdered red pepper (I prefer sweet but a hint of spicy pepper will not hurt)
Boiling water (tea kettle is your friend).
sour cream - 1 container more tastes better
flour 2 tbsp?

Heat oil in a pan.
Add cut/chopped onions and salt, cover and sautee for a while, while getting the meat ready - just make sure to stirr them every so often and have medium/low heat setting.
Cut meat into small pieces (1 inch?)
push onions to the side (you can remove them from the pan for a while) put meat in the pan a lightly brown - chicken will turn whitish turn the pieces as you wait so it is done from all sides of chicken)
Once chicken is browned stir in the onions and paprika so it gets nice reddish - orange color.
Pour in boiling water, as much as you want sauce.
Cover and let simmer untill chicken is soft.
Stir in sour cream and flour dust flour on top slowly whil estirring to avoid clumping. Bring back to boil while stirring for a minute or so.
Serve with Halusky from flour, knedliky, or pasta(the kind that holds sauce well works best).

Tips:
Flour will make sauce thicker so use more for thicker sauce or if you do not use much of sourcream, and less if you use a lot of sour cream and you like it thinner. You can always add more if you feel that your sauce is too runny.

Bublanina or "Big Bubbly".

2007-08-08T15:15:00.001-06:00

ingredients:
fruit (apricots, or cherries, or blueberries, or simply frozen partially defrosted berry mix)
7-9 eggs depending on size
1 1/3 cup flour (I use whole wheat)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil (I just made this number up (just as the rest of the numbers) I usually pour it directly from the bottle and just eyeball it like everything else - so I do not have to clean measuring cups)
9x13 glass pan
butter and flour for lining pan

1) prepare fruit you plan to use for filling, wash and hull if needed. With berries just take them out of the freezer.
grease and dust your 9x13 glass pan.
2) Turn on the oven good old is 350F
3) separate eggs - this is trickiest part (See tips at the bottom)
4) pour sugar into egg Yolk bowl and mix. after it has been mixed a bit add oil and mix some more. ( I just put it all into my kitchen aid and let it mix while I beat egg whites.
5) Beat egg whites until stiff - for fun they are done when you can turn bowl upside down and they do not fall out - do this test slowly before you show it to your friends. You do not want to be scooping whites from the floor, your friends might not like the idea of eating a cake that way. Although college will help with that as well.
6)Combine egg whites and flour in the egg yolk bowl, alternating adding small portions of flour and whites at a time. Make sure to end with whites. Mix it lightly so the batter stays fluffy.
7) Pour batter into the pan and spread equally
8) put in filling see picture
9) bake 35-45 minutes depends on the oven
10) take out of the oven and let cool off for couple of minutes
11) if you feel fancy powder with sugar I skip this extra chore it get eaten in no time anyway.
12) cut into squares with apricots I cut it so each piece contains one half ( whole circle) of the apricot
Enjoy!

Tips for egg separation: try not to prick egg yolk and spill it into egg whites - do it one at a time over a little tea cup makes life and error correction easiest.
if hit side of the egg on the rim hard so it makes a big crack and then split it to two parts egg white will start spilling out let it spill in to the cup and then pour yolk from one eggshell to another and spill out white into the cup. you can repeat until you have most of it out. Spill the Yolk into prepared mixing bowl. Check whites for any loose pieces of eggshell and pick them out if necessary - you do not want to eat these. Pour the whites into different bowl. even easier is to just brake the egg and drop the whole contents into th cup and then scoop out egg yolk with your fingers. If you break yolk it is better to have some whites in yolk mixture than yolks in whites mixture. I guess there is whole chemistry/culinary theory behind this.

Tips for mixing: if you do not have kitchen aid use anyone nearby for manual labor. My mom would hand out two bowls to us kids and said: "mix it well, otherwise there is no cake"

KASA by threes

2007-04-21T09:28:00.000-06:00

three half cups of milk
three quarters cup of oats
three tablespoons of semolina

Pre-heat milk in a small saucepan or microwave.
Stir in oats and semolina .
Cook on medium heat.
Stir constantly.
While kasa starts bubbling spread on the dinner plate.
Thinly slice butter and put it on top while kasa is still hot.
Top with powdered instant chocolate milk or cinnamon or cocoa and powdered sugar.
Enjoy