Well, I survived the Holidays, (I think), and I am ready for the New Year. I did notice I did get a new companion. He is very small, but can cover a whole bunch of area. He is not liked by anyone, and has caused a whole lot of people to take drastic actions. Some of the self absorbed went to the point of starvation. I won’t mention any names, but they are always walking around on the boob tube or on the huge screen that we pay $15.00 to see. He is able to remake some personalities into walking and talking sticks. Well, if you haven’t guessed, I am gong to further wet your appetite. At one point in our history he was thought of as “beautiful” and many people would fight over the right to use it and make it desirable. Well, have I thoroughly confused you now? Well the “D” word is Diet and it is obviously to get rid of FAT. At least that is my conviction today (and hopefully) tomorrow. Some of us were born with great metabolisms and some of us weren’t, I am raising my hand here. I can remember as a child I was a little rollie-pollie kid that all of my relation loved. Now you have to remember that my family comes from a northeastern area of Europe known as Russia. There everyone is 250 lbs and climbing, I think it had to do with their winters; at least that’s what I heard. Anyway, I would always go to a dinner and on the table were loads of high calorie, high fat, and practically no fiber foods, that looked good and tasted, oh yes, tasted good, but was it healthy for you----not. The only things that had some healthy attributes were the borscht, only because it was made from cabbage, but of course it had a dollop of sour cream plopped onto the side, as a special treat, yah right. Then there was cabbage rolls (do you see some pattern here?), that had the cheapest kind of hamburger inside, with load of fat. The Russians are known for fatty foods, they do use a lot of cabbage and root vegetables, but always added a better tasting ingredient, they started to get it right, but threw in something that countered it. That is the story of my food life. When ever I started a diet, I would be successful, until I went to a huge dinner given by my great-aunt Tyota Gasha. This was a annual event that was during the Easter week. Why a week you ask, well, I believe it is a tradition that the older Czarist Russians kept when they left the motherland. If I remember correctly, my aunt would have a four course meal. I remember as a young boy going to the store with her to purchase the food for this event. I remember her talking to the butcher and complaining, (in Russian of course), that the prices where too high. We have to remember that she bought the best of everything. She had the fresh fillet of salmon, two types of caviar, the red and the most expensive black. She had several different native delicacies. I remember on year when I went to visit my Aunt with my Mother. I was looking over the table and noticed this one dish that no one touched. It looked okay, sort of like hardboiled eggs mashed together with tuna and mayonnaise. I took a small bowl and some bread and started to spread this on it, while I was wondering why no one was eating it. I ate about half of it, when I Aunt looked upset and talked to my Mother. My Mom came over to me and told me to stop eating it. I said sure, but asked her why, and she said that my aunt said that was one of the most expensive items on the table. She had it made special for this occasion. I thought that was odd for tuna and eggs. Then my Mom proceeded to tell me that it was not what I thought, but calf’s brain. My mouth dropped to the floor and my Mom just snickered and I swore never eat anything at my Aunts house again, unless I knew what it was. It still tasted like tuna and eggs though. During the week, my Aunt would have a large number of women, mostly wives, over to assist her. The Russian Orthodox Priest would bless the first dinner of the week. Then the ritual was 1st course soup, then salad, the main course and last but not least, the dessert. During the whole dinner a bunch of vodka was consumed and toasts and sometime a tune would pop out. The reason for this was their lent was so strict they did this to celebrate Easter by eating and overeating. They would stay up all night cooking and baking. They would make the “Easter Bread” an take it too the midnight service, (which broke the fast), at the local Russian Orthodox church and have the priests bless the bread and then they would come back home and continue cooking and then probably get about an hour sleep and then start cooking and baking again. The way this worked is the courses were spread out buffet style on the huge table, with the best linen and china/silverware and crystal glasses. Then the men of the Russian community would visit all of the houses and eat. There might have been a hundred different homes that would do this. So there were men coming in and out of homes all week. By the time the week was over the traditional day the women could enjoy was the last day, Saturday. They would slaved all week to keep the food flowing, but couldn’t partake until the last day. But, I am sure a lot of test tasting took place. I know that this tradition wouldn’t go over to well in this country. The women would go to the different homes and eat what was leftover and talk about their cooking experiences, I am sure teaching each other, generation to generation. I felt it was a wonderful time in my life. Well, all of these wonderful families are gone and along with them are the traditions. My brothers and sister will do something like this, but only 1 day, Sunday, but wouldn’t go to different houses, just to my sisters. She and here daughters would cook and of course we would eat. I guess in a ways traditions don’t stop, they might get a diluted, but at least it is the thought that counts. Here are some of the foods that were made by my Mom, my Aunt Mara, and my Great Aunt Tyota Gasha:
Baklazhannaia Ikra
Russian Eggplant Spread)
(not one of my favorites)
Ingredients:
1 Med. Eggplant, approximately 1 pound
1 Med. Green pepper
1 Small Onion, chopped
2 Large Cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. Oil
¼ Cup Tomato paste
1 Tbsp. Sugar
1 Tbsp. Lemon juice
½ Tsp. Salt
1/8 Tsp. Pepper
Cocktail pumpernickel rye bread or black bread
Directions:
Pierce eggplant 3 or 4 times with fork. Wrap green pepper in foil. Place eggplant and green pepper in shallow baking dish. Bake at 400 degrees until eggplant is very soft, about 35 minutes. Cool. Remove skin from eggplant and seeds from green pepper. Chop eggplant and green pepper. Cook and stir onion and garlic in oil in 10 inch skillet over medium heat until onion is tender. Stir in eggplant, green pepper and remaining ingredients, except bread. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Place mixture in blender container. Cover and blend on high speed, stopping blender occasionally to scrape sides. Blend until smooth, about 1 minute. Cover and refrigerate until very cold, at least 4 hours. Serve with "assertively flavored" breads such as pumpernickel rye or black bread. Yields 2 cups.
Mom's Borscht (Makes a large pot)
Ingredients:
2 Pkgs. Oxtails
2 Onions
1 Bunch Carrots (8)
2 Parsnips
1 Bell pepper, optional
2 Bunches Beets (4 or 5 to bunch)
1 Head Cabbage, 6" diameter
5 Potatoes
1 can Shoestring beets
1 med. can Tomato sauce
1 Tbls Flour
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tsp Garlic powder
1 Tsp. Onion powder
Directions:
Boil oxtails, 1 onion (peeled and halved) for 3 hours. Skim off fat. Peel, slice and cut into strips: parsnips, beets, and carrots. Save 1 whole beet until last. Add to meat. Peel and cut potatoes into chunks and clean and slice green pepper and add to soup. Put in salt and pepper to taste, and add garlic powder and onion powder. Cook for 1 hour. Core and thinly slice cabbage and add to soup. Sauté 1 finely chopped onion, add 1 tbsp. flour, tomato sauce and can of shoestring beets and cook for 5 minutes. Stir to eliminate any lumps of flour. Grate "reserved" beet and stir into onion and tomato sauce mixture. Stir into soup, turn off heat and allow to set while preparing table.
Top each individual serving with sour cream and a sprinkle of dill. Accompany with hot French bread and butter.
Mom's Goluptsy (Cabbage Rolls)
My mom would make this a couple times of the year. It was good the first couple of days, but since my mom made enough for an army; we ate it for almost the whole week L. It sort of lost its appeal by then. I really didn’t like it the first day we ate it. I didn’t eat a lot of vegetable when I was young, and the consistency wasn’t something that I could swallow. But, as I got older my tastes changed and I love this, but I do have my limitations, I won’t eat it as a leftover more than twice. Sorry Mom.
Ingredients:
2 Cups Rice, uncooked
4 Lbs. Hamburger
2 Onions, chopped fine
2 Heads Cabbage, 8" in diameter
8 Cups Water
1 Med. Can. Tomato sauce
2 Tbsp. Oil
Directions:
Mix hamburger, rice and 1 onion. Add 1/2 cup water and mix well. In a large pot, boil water and add cored and peeled cabbage. Cook only long enough for cabbage to become pliable. Peel off leaves, one at a time, and cut off tough portion of rib at bottom of leaves. Lay 10 leaves at a time on a plate or cutting board and place 1/2 cup of meat mixture onto center of cabbage. Fold sides toward center and roll up. Line bottom of pan with removed core and leaves which have been chopped; retain some leaves to lay over the top of cabbage rolls to prevent sticking to bottom of pan and to aid in steaming. Place in roasting pan with edge-side down, creating 2 layers of cabbage rolls.
Brown 1 onion in 2 Tbsp. oil and add tomato sauce. Stir. Add 7-1/2 cups water to roaster or fill to top of cabbage. Add tomato and onion mixture and cover. Bake this at 350-375 degrees for about 2-3 hours or until cabbage is tender.
("Serve with mashed potatoes and sour cream. For individual servings: Ladle liquid from cabbage rolls over scoop of potatoes and cabbage rolls, which are served to the side. Add dollop of sour cream to top of cabbage rolls. Salt and it pepper to taste.")
Mom's Klotski (Dumpling Soup)
This is a strange soup that I grew up with as a kid. My mom did a lot of stretching of the budget and this is just one of her recipes to fit the bill. As you can see there aren’t a lot of ingredients and it is fairly easy to make. Bit it was the best on a cold winter night. I taught my wife to make this and we will make it once in awhile. My kids really like it and they ask for it occasionally when they come visit.
Ingredients:
1 Boiling chicken
1 Med Onion
6 Eggs
6 Tbsp. Hot chicken stock
1 Tbsp. Soy sauce
3 Cups Flour, approximate
Dill
Directions:
In stock pot, put chicken into pot and cover with water, add onion, boil for 1 hour then strain. Beat eggs, stock and soy sauce with fork. Add flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the right consistency, (you know when it is ready, when it separates from fork when pulled away with sort of a snap), for dumplings.
Bring stock to a rapid boil and drop dumpling mixture by the 1/2 teaspoon, using a long-handled "ice tea" spoon, (make sure you dip the teaspoon into boiling stock before you start scooping dumpling mixture so it won’t stick to the spoon), being sure to drop mixture down into stock, hence long handled teaspoon, shaking spoon to remove the mixture. Each time you dip into the bowl, scoop from the edge of the mixture, giving the bowl a little turn continue scooping and dropping until all of the mixture is in the stock. This has to be done quickly and make sure you use small amounts of the mixture, because it will swell, you don’t want these big dumplings floating around in the stock, do this until the dough is gone. Boil 5 more minutes. The Klotski should rise to the top of soup when cooked. Turn off heat and let set 10 minutes. Put into individual bowls and add soy sauce to taste and sprinkle with a little dill to taste. Enjoy!
Mom's Pel'meni
Where to begin……This is by far one of my whole family’s favorite dishes. We would eat this once a year at our housel. The reason, it took the whole family to make it. Making the recipe was easy. It was the assembly line that needed help. We would have my Aunt Mara over and she would help my Mom, create the pel’meni. It was an all morning/afternoon project. We had jelly roll pans/cookie pans all over the house holding these wonderful bits of heaven. They were excellent fresh, but we would usually put the pans in the freezer two at a time. When they were frozen we would bag them, and so on until all of them were done. My Aunt would roll out the dought into about 3 inch rounds, and they we would take about a teaspoon of meat and put it into the center of the round. We would then take some water and moisten the edge and fold it over and the two ends and fold them over again and pinch them. Then place them on the jelly roll pans. They would always be pretty much the same, and they were very filling. My Mom would actually count them out to us, to make sure we didn’t over eat, which you could do easily. They would feel like lead in your stomach. The process to make them was so tedious, that we were limited on our intake, again it had to last. But, were they good until the last. As you can see from the recipe that follows it was not an easy process, but worth it.
Ingredients:
Noodle dough:
6 Cups Flour
1 Tsp. Salt
6 Egg yokes
1 Cup Cold water
Directions:
Beat eggs with fork. Add water and salt and mix well. Add flour to egg mixture, 1/2 cup at a time until dough forms a ball in center of bowl. Turn onto floured board and knead until well blended, smooth and elastic. Place in bowl, cover with cloth and refrigerate. . This noodle dough was very flexible. You will see, because I have another recipe further down the list from my aunt Tyota Gasha that uses it.
On a floured board, roll noodle dough into long cylinder or tube-shape, 1-1/2" in diameter. Cut into 3/4" slices, approximately. Working with only half of roll, pat both sides in flour and roll into 3" circles. Place 1 scant tsp. meat mixture into center of circle. Fold in half over meat mixture, and firmly pinch edges together. (* Add flour to fingers first to prevent sticking.) Place on floured cookie sheet. Freeze. After frozen, may be placed in freezer bag.
Meat filling:
Ingredients
3 Lbs. Ground beef
1/2 Cup Water
1/8 Tsp. Garlic powder (pinch)
1 Onion, chopped fine
2 Tbsp. Soy sauce
Directions:
Mix together in bowl, cover and refrigerate.
Soup stock
Ingredients:
1 Chicken or beef bones or short ribs
1 Onion
2 Tbsp Soy sauce
8 Qts. Water
Directions:
Boil 2 hours, strain and cut meat off bones and place on a plate. Bring stock to a rolling boil. Add "still frozen" pel’meni to stock. When they rise to top, they should be done, or cook maybe 5 minutes longer. With a slotted spoon scoop out boiled pel'meni into bowl until tray by tray, all have been cooked. Be sure and cover with a lid to keep hot.
Add 1 cup soup broth to each bowl, pel'meni and soy sauce to taste.
(To surprise the youngsters in your family, add a dime to meat mixture as you assemble pel’meni... Be sure and warn children to be on "the lookout". It's amazing how fast the pel'meni disappear!)
Mom's Lamb Pilaf
This brings back a lot of memories. I remember when my Mom would bring this to the table we would all be sitting there with our forks and knives, at attention, in our hand with looks of anticipation and drooling mouths. It was a very easy meal, but it was the best. The Lamb flavored the rice which made it tastes fantastic, (the lamb necks didn’t have much meat and are hard to find at the butchers unless you ask in advance, you could use shoulder cut, but it wouldn’t be as much fun), My Mom would spoon out the rice, we would flatten it out on our plates and then she would give us the lamb, which she did sparingly, (it had to last the whole week, which was fine, it got better every day, but by the end of the week we just ended up with rice. But, a good note, we would fight over the brown crusted rice around the roasting pan, my Mom would scrap it off and give it to us and we would pick it up and chew on it and it had the most intense flavor of everything). We would eat the meat first, sadly for our manners would suck every last morsel of meat off the bone. Then we would attack the rice. We would add huge amounts of butter or margarine and spread it all over the rice, (we usually did this before we ate the meat, so it would have time to melt), then if we really wanted to we would add a layer of ketchup on top. My mouth is watering right now. This is another meal my wife will make occasionally and our kids love it.
Ingredients:
2-3 Lbs. Lamb neck or shoulders (cut into chunks)
4 Cups White Rice or (Uncle Ben’s if you are in a time crunch)
1 Onion, cut in half and sliced
9 Cups Water
1 Tbsp. Garlic powder
2 Tbsp. Soy sauce
Salt to taste
Directions:
Brown Iamb, in a large roasting pan, for about 30 minutes at 425 F. Drain grease. Turn oven down to 350 F. Add onion, garlic powder and soy sauce, stir a little to mix and bake 1 hour. Turn down oven to 275 F., add water and rice, stir a little, cover with roasting pan lid and continue baking, for 45 minutes or until rice is cooked and fluffy.
Aunt Mara's Vinaigrette
My aunt Mara was a kick, she was my Mother’s sister and she married my Father’s brother. So she was my aunt no matter what. My aunt and my uncle divorced, he left her and my aunt remained in their house, sadly, they never saw each other again, but she always had a fire burning for “Uncle Virgil”. When she was in her late thirties she lost one of her legs. She wore a “wooden” leg as we would fondly call it. Of course it wasn’t wooden, but a very real looking leg that she would get in and out of every morning and night. To say the least we, “the kids”, were all very curious about it. I would remember going into her bed room, before she woke up, and there it was sitting by her bed in all of its glory. During the week she worked as a professional baby sitter making about a fifty cents an hour, (which I am sure her employers loved), but also rented rooms in her house to make ends meet, (she had some of the most interesting renters). I would like to go with her on her baby sitting jobs, she worked for some very wealthy families and she would take care of their children and cook and clean. I got to swim in their pool and eat the best food along with the children, (I think that is what started my expensive palate). She lived only a couple of blocks from our house and we would travel over there a lot to help her with cleaning, painting, and mowing the lawn. We could always count on aunt Mara giving us our “quarter” for mowing the lawn. (She always did this with a little smile and twinkle in her eye, back then I didn’t realize why). Now, we should go back to her special recipe. She made this a lot and it wasn’t my most favorite, but today I do make an effort to eat it when my Sister has her huge family “Russian” dinners.
Ingredients:
2 Cans Whole beets (Save 1/2 can of beet juice or 3/4 cup)
1 Jar Home-style sauerkraut
½ Cup Crisco oil
1 Sm. Jar Kosher dill pickles
5 Med. Potatoes, boiled in skins, then peeled
1 Med. Onion, finely chopped
Directions:
Cut beets into chunks and place in mixing bowl. Add diced potatoes, chopped pickles (small or medium chunks), onion, salt and pepper to taste, oil and beet juice. Drain sauerkraut and finely chop on a diagonal. Mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Aunt Mara's Bliny
Now this was more up my alley. I remember aunt Mara making these at her home and we would eat the ones with strawberry and sour cream like it was candy. They were soooo good and so easy to make. You could probably save a little time and just buy a mix for making crepes. Well on second thought, my aunt would probably be rolling over in her grave right now if she knew I was telling you that.
Ingredients:
1-1/2 Pkgs. Yeast
3 Tbsp. Warm water
4 tsp. Sugar
2 Eggs
3-1/2 Cups Flour
1 Tbsp. Vegetable oil
3-1/2 to Milk
4 Cups
4 Tbsp. Butter
Directions:
To prove the yeast you take a small bowl, combine yeast with 3 tbsp. warm water (100-115 degrees F.) Add 1/2 tsp. sugar and 1 tbsp. flour. Stir until mixed well. Set bowl in warm place, until foamy and bubbly, approximately 10-15 minutes. That is sad, most of the home in those days, the kitchens were separated by door and you would never see it while you were in the house, so, you could keep things warm, like rising bread dough. Funny, I think having it in a separated room like that gave my mom and aunts a sense mystery. Now, the kitchens are not walled and separated, but, the focal point of the house, so it is a little more difficult.
In a 5 qt. bowl, beat eggs. Stir in remaining flour, sugar, salt and 2-1/2 cups milk. Beat until smooth, 3-4 minutes, with wooden spoon. Add yeast and beat for 5 minutes. When batter is smooth, cover with cloth and set to rise in a warm place, until doubles in size, approximately 1 hour. When batter has risen, warm remaining milk to 170-180 degrees F. Pour quickly into batter and immediately begin stirring. Cover and let rise another 30-40 minutes.
Preheat oven to "warm" and place container to hold bliny while cooking. Heat oiled griddle to "medium". Pour 2 Tbsp. or 1/4 cup batter onto griddle and tilt to spread in an even circle. Brown on both sides, a little over 1 minute per side.
Serve for breakfast, dinner or for dessert with sour cream and strawberries or jam; if it was a dinner we would have it with red caviar and cream cheese; or salmon and cream cheese with chopped green onions, chives or parsley.
Tyota Gasha's Vareniki (Sweet Pel'meni)
This pel'meni dough recipe, is from my Mom’s recipe of Pel’meni that is listed above.
Noodle dough:
Ingredients:
6 Cups Flour
1 Tsp. Salt
6 Egg yokes
1 Cup Cold water
Directions:
Beat eggs with fork. Add water and salt and mix well. Add flour to egg mixture, 1/2 cup at a time until dough forms a ball in center of bowl. Turn onto floured board and knead until well blended, smooth and elastic. Place in bowl, cover with cloth and refrigerate.
prepare with either or both of the following fillings.
Cottage Cheese Filling
To 2 heaping cups of cottage cheese, add 1 egg yolk, 2 tbsp. sugar and a dash of salt. Mix thoroughly by hand or process briefly in a food processor. Fill pel'meni dough and cook in boiling water until Vareniki rise to surface. Be careful not to overcook. Serve with sugar and sour cream.
Berry Filling
Pit 2 Ibs. sour cherries. Cover with 1 cup sugar and let stand for 1 hour. Drain berries thoroughly. To make syrup – add 1 tsp. almond extract to the juice. In each small round of dough, place approximately 3-4 pieces of fruit, seal well and cook in boiling water until vareniki rise to the surface. Serve in bowls with syrup and sour cream. Pour both sour cream and syrup on the berries at the same time - "Don't hesitate".
Well, that is it so far, I have a lot of other recipes from my famous relatives, we also made a cookbook for our family which has a lot of these in it. I hope you enjoy these and keep working on those diets. Yah right, how can you after trying all of these…… :-)
