Russian Season

As far as I remember, Mom first learned this recipe from one of those promotional brochures that arrive with Tupperware equipment. She has experimented with different kinds of yogurt and fruit ever since, so I am not sure how close this is to the original recipe. Anyway, this jelly makes a perfect summer dessert – light, fruity and extremely versatile as you have two layers to play with: one is made with yogurt or sour cream, and another with fresh or canned fruit or berries. Whatever your choice, this dessert will always look neat, glossy, and colourful. You might be surprised how little ingredients it requires – for example, to make this jelly we used only 2 canned peaches, 10 grapes, 500ml yogurt – which yields 7-8 servings. And, if you choose to freeze the jelly instead of refrigerating it, this can be a real time-saver. In a word, I’m happy I have now learned how to make this jelly too!

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A few days ago I discovered this amazing blog The Stone Soup that suggests lots of simple recipes with the minimum of ingredients and equipment, which really appeals to me. And can you imagine - Jules, the author of this blog, possesses the secret of making ice-cream without an ice-cream machine! Isn’t this wonderful? It’s only made with cream and honey. Which means my ice-cream mixture was ready in about 10 minutes, plus about 6 hours for freezing. Or maybe 7. That’s it. I left it in the freezer overnight and it still remained soft and creamy - simply unbelievable! I really like the idea of making 100% natural (well, as natural as store-bought cream can be) ice-cream at home. Until now I’ve only experimented with different kinds of sorbet.

I couldn’t resist decorating my ice-cream with pictachios just as Jules did it - mine were slightly salted and this touch of salt worked great with the sweetness of the honey-flavoured ice-cream and the dried dates that I also used as a garnish.

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I’ve done a little study on poached pears last night and found out there were so many ways to make this dessert that I could easily try one recipe per day for a whole week and still the desserts would be very different. The one I had in mind for a long time was Blushing Pears as posted on Foododelmundo, but then I realized I didn’t have any cranberries or raspberries for the juice, so I decided to try a very basic recipe for a start. I combined several recipes for pears poached in sugar syrup, added some honey and a splash of wine (I’m trying to avoid taking alcohol at the moment so just a little splash was good for me), plus some spice that I thought would go along well (it might sound bizarre but I really wanted some cilantro seeds in the syrup!!). I also added a few strips of orange peel and let them boil in the syrup for some 10-15 minutes until they turned translucent. Then I left them to cool and used as a decoration for the dessert.

I also have to note that while most recipes direct to poach pears for 10 to 20 minutes, I kept them simmering for almost 30 minutes. The South African pears I had were not too tender, but I wanted to have them as tender as possible without them losing their shape or becoming mushy of course. I was extremely careful to control their readiness, and about 27 minutes was just the perfect cooking time for me.

The poached pears had a pleasant yellow, translucent colour, a mild flavour with a subtle hint of spice, and tasted wonderful with syrup and vanilla ice cream. I also thought a pinch of diced nuts such as pistachios would be good to add, but unfortunately I didn’t have any at hand.

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With this post (which is going to be a little bit chaotic, as there’s so much I’ve got to tell you!) we are taking a short break until January. I am off to Slovakia on Friday (via Vienna - do you think I’ll still catch the winter sales this weekend?!) and will be back just a few days before the New Year. Being a Russian Orthodox, I celebrate Christmas on 6/7th of January, so there’s still plenty of time until Christmas for me. Anyway, I’m certainly going to participate in Christmas celebrations while I’m in Slovakia, and then spend a cosy New Year’s Eve together with my family. Sure we’re going to bake and cook a lot for New Year’s Eve, so expect new posts in the beginning of January ;-)

Speaking about travel, I’ve just read there’ll be direct flights from Riga to Belgrade starting from May 2010 – I’m so excited! I’ve always wanted to visit Serbia, and voila – they’re opening this new destination specially for me! :)

In this post I would also like to thank Barbara Rolek, the Guide to Eastern European Food at About.com, for mentioning our website. You can’t imagine how excited I was when Barbara wrote and let us know she was going to include RussianSeason in her latest list of blogs to watch for. Barbara is a professional cook, food writer and restaurant critic. Be sure to check out her Top10 (Eastern European) Foodie Gifts!

I’m not sure I will have the opportunity to spend a lot of time online while I’m away – I bet that you wouldn’t be often seen online either if you had only 10 days to see the Tatra mountains, visit Vienna, and learn a bunch of Slovak recipes! So, just a few technical notes: if you posted a comment and it never got published – don’t worry, it’s probably my Akismet module which sometime filters out good comments. I’ve got to approve them manually afterwards. Also, if you have a comment or a question to ask, please feel free to email us, I’ll reply when I come back (I *love* hearing from our readers!)

Before leaving, I’ve made two large pans of baked goods for my friends. I’d been thinking of some simple, homely goodies that would not be too fragile and yet look/taste festive. So I decided on Lazy Pahlava and Oatmeal Bars with dried cherries and walnuts, which evolved from a plain oatmeal cookie recipe. Those translucent dried cherries bring a Christmas note and add a fruity flavour to the bars, while the walnuts kind of merge with the oats and create that nutty aroma.

We wish a very happy Christmas to everyone! Thank you very much for being out there, cooking, inspiring, reading, commenting! See you soon! ^_^

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Oh my God, it’s Sunday afternoon and it’s the first time this weekend that I’m cooking :(  That’s because I’ve got to buy/find/fix/finish a million things before my Christmas vacation.

While the Potato&Mushroom pie is baking, I’ll just post a couple of pictures of those beautiful and juicy tangerines we got yesterday. I love when tangerines come with sprigs and leaves. Aren’t they marvellous?

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As soon as I saw Baby Portabella & Mozzarella on Mini Toasts at Sunny-side Up Recipes, I knew I would be making these. The recipe seemed perfect: golden-brown mini toasts topped with melting mozzarella and mushrooms sautéed in rose wine, seasoned with Italian herbs… just perfect! I really wanted to share this treat with somebody, so when Grandmother said she was going to visit us, I know what we’d offer her as an appetizer ;-)

Of course I had to alter Sunny’s ingredient list a little bit – for example, I couldn’t find any Portabella mushrooms, so I took plain champignons. The bread slices I used were bigger in size (I wish they sold such mini-toasts here!), and I removed the crust as it seemed to be too coarse for such a delicate dish. But the bread was really flavourful and I even ate almost all of the crusts while cooking, hehe. Read the rest of this entry »