Upcoming Easter Menu, Mark I - with recipes

This year, "regular" Easter and Ukrainian Easter are the farthest apart they can be--five weeks. So Ukrainian Easter won't be until May this year! I'm saving the more traditional Ukrainian items like bitter beets for Ukrainian Easter.  Except for the mushrooms. Can't hold those back!

I got a lovely pork picnic shoulder for the ham this year, going to bake it in the slow cooker, then glaze it in it the oven.  Your typical brown sugar, Dijon mustard glaze. And I'm going to do that cross-hatching the fat and studding it with cloves thing, too. Yum! (An example is here, using maple syrup too! http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/classic-baked-ham-with-maple-mustard-glaze-10000001598619/)

Potato and mushroom bake is a fantastic side for a baked ham, a delightful combination of flavours that's really different from regular scalloped potatoes.  My only change is that I only use 1% milk, I find if I use cream it makes it too rich to eat as much as I want. :)  I also use Swiss Cheese instead of Gruyère.  http://www.muminawe.com/recipes/potato-and-mushroom-bake.html

My pidpenky will be prepared as I always do, according to my recipe on my learnpysanky website.   I'll be using mostly Portobello mushrooms this year, because I want this dish to be a little more robust this year. http://www.learnpysanky.com/recipes/pidpenky.html

And I'm going to try this delicious-sounding recipe for Bourbon mashed sweet potatoes I haven't tried before.  I might end up simmering the bourbon a bit longer than stated, as I do find sometimes when cooking with whiskey that the alcohol doesn't burn off enough and the dish ends up a bit harsh.  http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/bourbon_mashed_sweet_potatoes/

Uncle Steve's pickled eggs (see my recipe: http://www.learnpysanky.com/recipes/pickled-eggs.html) and my Habitant mixed pickles (http://mtpearl.colemans.ca/habitant-sweet-mustard-pickles-750-ml/)will round out the meal.

Dave's family recipe for pineapple whipped cream squares will be our dessert.  I buy canned whipped cream now, because I found it hard to use a whole container of it before it separates.  I know, talk about your first-world problems...

Super Simple Pineapple Whipped Cream Squares

Make a graham cracker crumb crust (you can buy the crumbs in most supermarkets, or buy the crackers and squish them up yourself).  About 1 1/4 cups of crumbs to 1/4 cup melted margarine or butter. Press into 9" pie plate or equivalent square bottom dish.

Drain a can of pineapple chunks or bits well.  Mix about 2:1 or 1:1 ratio of pineapple with whipped cream (enough to make the pineapple stick together nicely).  Spoon onto graham cracker crust.

That's it!  SOOOOO good, too. :)

Have a great Easter, everyone!

Happy Easter (dinner)!

Hope everyone has a wonderful, peaceful Easter weekend. I'm working, of course. :) Hotels never close! But I still made a nice meal for us to enjoy, albeit separately.

I tried this recipe for ham, but left out the sauce (I just used a little toupie ham, so the drippings weren't really existent). So basically, it was a steaming, then glazing with Dijon and brown sugar, followed by a packing on of toasted bread crumbs baked on high heat for a few minutes. It looks DIVINE...

For sides, I went with mustard mixed pickles (a jar of Habitant in the fridge is a great memory of childhood, it always goes great with pork and ham dishes), my fave pidpenky (my own recipe, an amalgam of ones I found online) with garlic, wine and beef consomme, candied carrots (with a little butter and brown sugar, although this sounds really good...), possibly vinegared beets (I'll share the recipe if I end up making it - its a symbolic dish for Ukrainians, with the red symbolizing the blood of Christ, and the vinegar and usually horseradish symbolizing the bitterness of the death Jesus faced), and for a starch we'll have Potato bread stuffing - I'll use this recipe as a base - instead of poultry seasoning, I'll likely use a lot of sage and a little summer savory, little minced onion, etc (check out more details on how I've made my dressing in the past). No paska this year though, no time! (Here's the recipe my family's used for decades). And no koubassa either :( you have to hunt in this city for decent stuff, we don't have a large Eastern European community like Montreal or Toronto. Although we are getting more ethnic cuisine from other cultures, slowly over time, which is great!

Just a side note: I love SOAR (which is where the stuffing base recipe came from) - for SO many years in the early days of the Internet, that was THE place for online recipes. They don't show up high in the search engines these days, but there are a TON of great recipes there (and not a lot of repeats of the same ones over and over that you find on ALL the sites, this site was before those days!), be sure to take some time to look around! The ethnic foods section was especially amazing, you just didn't have access to these recipes unless you were brought up with them - it was really inspiring!

So, that'll be Easter supper here in Halifax - hope you have a great Easter supper celebration wherever you are! Christos Voskrese!

Thanksgiving 2011

I hope all my fellow Canadians had a nice Thanksgiving weekend! I didn't get my work schedule until Saturday, so unfortunately I was unable to set up plans to make Thanksgiving Dinner for my family this year (as it turned out, my folks went on Sunday to their favorite restaurant which had a set Thanksgiving turkey menu, and I was able to join them along with a dear family friend and a cousin - it was great turkey, and no dishes!)

But for Dave and I, dinner didn't happen until we were both off Monday afternoon. I had found a marinade online that I wanted to try, so we decided to have a Thanksgiving BBQ (Dave's not a huge fan of turkey, so no big loss for him).

There's a place locally that my family has gone to since I was little - it used to be right around the corner, but it moved several years ago, so we don't get there very often any more. It's called the Steak & Stein, and I have tons of fond memories of eating their delightful steak (and their great kids' birthday parties). Their signature steak is the Delmonico, Derby style. There's enough about my love for their steak and my wish for a replica of their amazing recipe to have at home to fill another blog post, but suffice it to say, I found a nice marinade online that is a great start towards that amazing flavour, and that's what I used for my Thanksgiving steak. I cut up a super-sale pot roast for this steak, and it turned out nice and tender after 48 hours (LOL) of marinating. (Here`s the original recipe I started with: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Melt-in-Your-Mouth-Marinade/Detail.aspx).

Aside from that, we had roasted potatoes I had grown from sprouted store-bought potatoes over the winter, and some tomatoes I had picked and saved from my blight-ravaged tomato plants. Its a celebration of the harvest, even if that harvest was lean. We also had some lovely fried fresh mushrooms and onions - no steak is complete without them!

I tried another recipe too, using my mother`s garden garlic and some adorable fresh little italian eggplants I found in the supermarket. However, it turns out that (at least this kind of) eggplant gets very...slimy....when roasted, and we didn`t enjoy the sensation of that at all. The garlic roasted up really nice in them though!

All in all, although not as elaborate as I like, it was a nice Thanksgiving dinner, and it was great to have some homegrown produce to share at the table, to welcome the end of the growing season, and be thankful for all our blessings.

Food pics from last night

Here's all the dishes I made for dinner last night:

From the top right, clockwise:
Baked Haddock fillets, McCain's Spicy Fries, salmon fish cakes, compote, fried mushrooms and onions with beer. Missing from photo: Greek salad, home-made pickle.

And the Cape Breton Post is running an article on Old Christmas featuring the parish of the Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church in Sydney (where my mom grew up and we still have family). Check it out here!

Have a great Christmas day!

Sviat Vechir dinner tonight

Tonight is Ukrainian Christmas eve, aka Sviat Vechir. Traditionally, twelve meatless and dairyless dishes are served (in honour of the 12 apostles, or from pagan times, the 12 months of the year). But when you have a small family (just Dave and I, in this case), some of the traditional dishes are just too elaborate to warrant making. So, adapting is sometimes necessary, and in this case, I try to present a variety of small meatless dishes in lieu of the traditional twelve (and suited a bit more to our tastes). :)

My menu will consist of

- fried haddock
- a mushroom and onion stir fry - mushrooms usually feature prominently in the Christmas eve dinner
Chopped shiitake, button and crimini mushrooms with diced onions, cooked in canola oil with a little beer added in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Cook until liquid is evaporated.
- fish cakes
A small can of salmon, mashed with 2-3 mashed potatoes. Formed into patties, coated in flour, and fried in canola oil till crispy on the outside.
- Greek pasta salad, without added feta cheese
- compote
my own style, based on fruits we have around the house - a few raisins, dates and apples, simmered in water, with a touch of honey and spiced rum.
McCain's spicy potato wedges
- homemade relish pickle made in the summertime

There's tons of great recipes for the traditional 12 dishes served, here are a few links to get you started:

• http://pages.prodigy.net/l.hodges/xmas.htm

• http://www.ukrainianclassickitchen.ca/YaBB.pl?board=Ukrainian-Special

• http://www.myerchin.org/RCP%20XmasEveHolySupper.html

Enjoy your Christmas eve dinner! And the lovely smoked-meat-fest that Christmas day will bring - I know we will! :D

[EDIT: Here's some great pics from around the world of people celebrating Christmas this night: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12128728]

Happy Thanksgiving!

Although technically, it's tomorrow, but we always had our dinner on the Sunday growing up. :) Gorgeous day outside, sunny but windy. Definitely getting fallish out there, it's downright freezing in the mornings!

My kitchen is filled with the wonderful scent of fresh herbs from the pork roast I'm making. Just a small dinner for me and Dave. Of course, I'm probably going to go overboard as I always do and make too much food for 2 people.

Roast pork with sea salt, pepper, fresh sage and rosemary, and dried parsley from my parent's garden.

Candied sweet potatoes.

Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic (again, grown by my parents).

Possibly mushrooms.

And possibly this amazing glaze recipe that would go equally well with chicken or pork. If not, then good ol' pork gravy.

Again, too much food for 2 people, but we'll enjoy the leftovers!

And we are thankful. :)

Home made sushi - a first!

Is it perfect? No. I could have rolled it tighter, added less cucumber, and so forth. But I'm still super-proud of my first attempt at making sushi at home!



I first considered making it myself after getting a veggie one from the local grocery store. Since it didn't have any raw fish product in it, I got to thinking I could make it myself at home. But, I was still pretty nervous about trying it. Then I found this video:

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-make-Sushi-5290

And while many may complain about his technique, he did make it look simple enough that I thought I really could try to do it myself. Now, there is sushi, and then there is SUSHI. Mine is very much "small letters" sushi, nothing spectacular, but it's good enough for me to have as a snack now and then at home, for a lot less than it would cost at the store.

For my first maki sushi, I used cold cooked shrimp, green onions (only the tops), and cucumber, deseeded. I already had plenty of nori here, which I use on rice, and rice balls (onigiri) sometimes. I also had fun making the sushi rice myself, fanning it and cutting in the rice vinegar (see a good explanatory video: http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Make-Sushi-Rice-1498)

All in all, a fun experience I'll be happy to replicate in the future!

Finally, a trip to Hamachi!

Finally, after a whole year of dashed plans, my family and I got to go to Hamachi. There are 4 Hamachi restaurants with different themes in the Halifax area - we went to the one on Portland Street, Hamachi Grill & Sushi House.

The atmosphere was really nice in there. The staff were super friendly. The decor was very nice - very traditional, formal Japanese, not plastered with tons of stuff on the walls, but just a few well-chosen art pieces. There was a lovely Japanese water fountain, and a very cute sushi bar surrounded by a moat, where your sushi is delivered to you via "boat" (have to try that next time)!

But on to the food! I told my parents it wouldn't be a proper Japanese meal unless they had miso soup, so we all had some. It was really lovely, and my parents were pleasantly surprised by the taste (they heard the words "seaweed" and "tofu" and weren't expecting much good to come of it). But there's so much more to a good miso soup, of course, and all the wonderful flavors came together perfectly.

Pork Gyoza. The pork gyoza was spectacular. MAN, that stuff is good! I heard James Barber once say that every culture has a dumpling, it's basically only a slight change in dough, and whatever the culture chooses to stuff it with. Ukrainians and Poles are best known for perogies, of course, but Japan has its gyoza (delicious recipe @ About.com). Lovely with Hamachi's delicate vinegary/soya dip-in sauce.

Shrimp Tempura. Their tempura was above reproach. As I've often heard, proper tempura is really an art form, made in small batches with freezing cold water, leaving a few lumps of flour in so that upon frying, the batter puffs up light with extra crispy bits. We had shrimp, and it was lovely. Beautiful coloring, deliciously crispy.

Unagi Kabayaki. I had wanted to try eel for several years now. There's a day (the traditional "hottest day of the year" in Japan) that everyone eats eel on, as it's oiliness is believed to help you "beat the heat". So I finally ordered it. And wow, what an unexpected flavor! (But unfortunately, not in a good way, this time). I thought it would be rather chewy, but the inside really rather melted away, which was nice. Now, this is freshwater eel, mind - but it tasted like the sea! I can think of nothing that has ever elicited such a strong memory connection with the sea other than actually being there, breathing in sea air. It was astonishing! It tasted like ocean, it's the only way I can describe it. Not unpleasant like drinking sea water or anything like that, but as if you were actually able to eat ocean, and all the minerally, saltiness of it in a physical form. Dave had promised to eat whatever I ate, and so dutifully had some. Even my dad tried some. My dad and I also tried it in honour of our German ancestors, who came to Nova Scotia a few hundred years ago, and had to spend many a winter eating eel, as it was in abundance in the Lunenburg area. I applaud them for their courage. Or their desperation. I tried to like it. I really, really did. But it was such an extreme flavor, and it just didn't "chime" with me. Or my dad, or Dave. So we had to leave this beautifully prepared (I mean, it was gorgeous, and lovingly done, you could tell) food alone. We took it home to share with our furry family.

Beef Sashimi. The true treat of the night was the beef sashimi. Sashimi usually refers to raw fish, served with a dipping sauce, so I assumed (correctly) that this would be beef seared on the outside, but completely rare (or blue, as the server called it) on the inside. It was served super-thinly sliced, in a ponzu sauce. What an amazing experience. Holy moley! I put it in my mouth, and as I was experiencing this incredible taste sensation for the first time, I looked over at Dave and could see the range of emotions he was going through as he was hit with it. My parents were asking us eagerly how it tasted, but we both couldn't talk - I could tell he loved it as much as I did though! When we finally could speak, we both just oohed and ahhed, we couldn't even really put it into words. It was so delicate and tender, the meat just melted in your mouth, it was truly amazing, amazing. WOW. SO GOOD! The sauce complimented it wonderfully, and the whole thing together was the most incredible taste sensation. WOW.

My parents had sesame seed salmon, with a very unJapanese portion size. It was HUGE! BIG salmon, lots of sake grilled veggies and fried rice (traditional Japanese meals usually have MUCH smaller portions, but we're used to bigger here in the West, so I guess that's what they serve).

Dave and I had a couple different kinds of sushi, all impeccably prepared, of course! As I've said before, I don't think sushi will ever be my all-time favorite, but it is nice to have a little on a special occasion.

So, all in all, we had a lovely time, and will definitely go back again. My parents were nervous about trying a totally new cuisine, but I think they were pleasantly surprised. And there's tons more on the menu, so we'll have lots to try next time, too! So if you're ever in Dartmouth, be sure to check out the Hamachi Grill and Sushi House - you'll be glad you did!

Merry Ukrainian Christmas

Things still haven't gotten to what one would call a steady, regular pace here in our new home - I hope to reorganize in the new year and get back to regular blogging updates! Sorry it's been so long!

Had a lovely haddock dinner for Ukrainian Christmas eve - haddock encrusted with parsley, served with roasted garlic on the side. Yummy!



Krystos Razdayetsia everyone!

Summer Fun: Spicy Toasted Hot Dog Buns Recipe

This was one of the first recipes I successfully reproduced as a kid. It was from a giant cookbook collection (I think from McCalls?), that my mom likely got as a wedding present. They had one whole volume dedicated to recipes kids could try, and this one caught my eye right away when I was little.

I've loved it ever since then, and have made it throughout my life. It's a fun alternative to the traditional triad of mustard, ketchup and relish toppings.

Note: We didn't have chili sauce in the house growing up, so I got used to them without it.


Spicy Toasted Hot Dog Buns
Serves 4

4 hot dog buns
2 tbsp softened butter or margarine
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp minced or grated onion
4 hot dogs
1 tsp canola or other oil, for frying the hot dogs
1/4 cup chili sauce (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Mix the margarine/butter, parsley, and onion together with a spoon until it is soft and creamy. Open up the hot dog buns, spread the inside of each bun with the mix. Place the buns in pie plate and bake for 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, cook the hot dogs in greased skillet over low heat. Place hotdog in each roll and top with 1 tbsp of chili sauce and serve piping hot.

No freakin' way-- Crusty, delicious bread with NO KNEADING??!!

I am blown away, and will be even more so if it really works. I was on the Mother Earth News page, and saw this article: Easy, No Knead Crusty Bread

I'll wait here while you go read it, and copy out the recipe for yourself.

...

You're back? Great! Holy crap, can it be THAT EASY? I mean, it's like a lazy person's DREAM method of bread making! It's something even I could do! No 3 hours, knead, rest 3 more hours, beat down, knead, 3 more hours and on and on it goes. Just mix the ingredients, wait a half a day, fold over, lightly coat in flour, pop it in the oven and you're done???!!! Soft bread inside, thick crusty coating outside. Wow.

If you missed the link at the end of the article, be sure to watch the video from the New York Times on YouTube showing the process step-by-step.

Something that struck me as unusual, but is probably a very important step: Remember to heat the Dutch Oven ahead of time in the oven - the video says that you want the pot "blazing hot".

It's still too cold here to have a consistent 70 deg F room temperature, so I'll have to wait another couple of months, but I am SO TOTALLY TRYING THIS!!!!

got eggs?

With only a week to go before the big feast at Easter, it's time already to make pickled eggs! Man, time goes by so fast!

I've enjoyed my uncle's recipe for these eggs for several years now (although I don't add the pickling spice, I prefer the flavour without) - they're a great addition to my Easter table!

And I HAVE to make time this week to try my hand at paska again! Last years' first attempt at making this special Ukrainian Easter bread went pretty darn well, but the decoration left much to be desired... :) Hopefully, it'll turn out prettier this time! ;)

Pickles with a message

In the States, Rabbi Mendy Margolin is doing a traveling show teaching congregations how to make Kosher pickles. The people learn the ins and outs of making something Kosher, a little about their Jewish heritage, and at the end of it, get some great pickles to take home.

And during this class, the congregation's Rabbi got in a pickle suit and danced around. Now that's the sort of dedication to pickles I can't help but admire!

I copied the story from the Herald this morning, my link is here. The article includes instructions on making your own Kosher pickles!

Time to Check Your Spices!

This is a fantastic ad I saw in one of my women's magazines a couple of months ago, hilarious AND informative:



Especially for this time of year, it's important to chuck out your old spices and get some fresh ones. I know, I find it difficult to throw away something I haven't finished using, but really - using something really old and flavorless isn't going to do your cooking justice, now is it? I have a lot of old ones I have to get rid of...

Check out McCormick's awesome site regarding spice freshness. Only one note: they have a visual display of old bottles (if you have this bottle, it's too old) - but here in Canada, we're still using the bottle from the '90s in America. So don't chuck your bottles if they look like that and you're Canadian! :D

Spices are often at sale prices at this time of year, so take advantage! Do your cooking a favor!

Thanksgiving time is here again!

We'll be doing Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday this year (Dave has to go into town for a play rehearsal on Monday). This year's Thanksgiving Menu will be as follows:

1. homemade dill pickles


2. turkey breast


3. patychky


4. pidpenky


5. dressing


6. mashed potatoes


7. gravy

1. We have a water issue with our well, so we don't have a lot of fresh water - and one thing you need to make proper pickles is LOTS of water (for processing the mason jars). So I've been making super-small batch pickles (read: one jar) and only keeping them a maximum of one month. One jar's worth is easy enough to eat through in a month, so there's no waste. I tried dill pickles this time around, with a simple mix of sugar, vinegar and dill seed.

Remember to dehydrate your cucumber or onions or whatever you'll be pickling by coating them with a thin layer of salt and letting them sit overnight. I do this in the afternoon, and before bed, stir the pickle and add more salt. Drain and rinse and drain again before pickling. This is vital for getting a crisp pickle!

2. Just making dinner for Dave and I this year, so no need to go through the rigamarole of a whole turkey. If you're having a small gathering, I highly recommend getting just the breast (or legs, if you like dark meat) - it's much easier to cook than a whole bird. Just the right amount too, if you're having another meat like we are.

3. Hallelujah, it's another holiday! Time for patychky! Read my previous blog post with pics showing how to make this delicious incredibly awesomely delicious Ukrainian food! And my eternal thanks to mister anchovy for his recipe for a food I loved all my life, but didn't know how to make!

4. Mmmmmm...pidpenky. For the un-Ukrainian amongst you :D that's mushrooms in gravy. I made my own recipe for it based on several different ones I found online.

5. Inspired by my homemade dressing (aka stuffing) of last year, made with yummy Farmer John's Herbs stuffing spice mix, I thought I'd make my own again this year. Wasn't able to get hold of their spice mix this year, but I think I'll do a pretty good job on my own, based on their recipe.

My recipe will be:

• about 1/4 loaf of bread. Use whole wheat AND white bread (to equal 1/4 loaf) - the different breads make it taste richer. Let it go stale overnight, and cut into 1" or smaller cubes.
  
• 2 big potatoes, mashed. Don't add any milk or such to them, more liquid will be added later.
  
• About 1/2 a large onion, and 1 stalk of celery, finely chopped. Fry this up ahead of time, so your dressing won't end up too al dente.
  
• Put 2 tb butter or margarine and 3/4 cup of water in a microwave safe bowl. Nuke until hot, about 1 minute or so depending on your microwave. Add one oxo chicken broth packet/cube and stir 'til dissolved.
  
• Sprinkle your herbs over the potatoes. I'd use about 1 tb of sage, crumbled - add more or less depending on your tastes. Add pepper and savory, if desired.
  
• Add the water/butter/chicken cube mix. Mix should be nice and soft. Now mix in your bread cubes. Spoon into a greased oven-safe dish.
  
• Pop it in your preheated 350 deg F oven for 1/2 hour (or till it reaches desired shade of goldeness on top), and you're done!
  

This will make enough servings for about 4 people.

6. Mashed potatoes. Yum!

7. It's funny, they even have an ad out now for Club House Gravy that shows a woman doing the same thing I do - making the CH gravy and adding turkey pan drippings to make the perfect gravy. Way easier than from scratch, and in my mind, just as good!


To get ready ahead of time, I made the patychky this morning, and fried up the onions and celery for the dressing. This will save me a lot of time tomorrow!

And, in a spare moment when I won't be cooking :) I hope to find a few minutes to reflect on this prayer I found by "Dear Abby", that's good for Thanksgiving or any time of year. I find it reminicient of the prayer of St. Francis:

O, heavenly Father: We thank Thee for food and remember the hungry
We thank Thee for health and remember the sick
We thank Thee for friends and remember the friendless
We thank Thee for freedom and remember the enslaved,
May these rememberances stir us to service
That Thy gifts to us may be used for others.
Amen.

- Abigail Van Buren

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Tonight, I'm revisiting some happy childhood memories. Saturday nights were always baked beans and fried bologna night at our house. I didn't find out until later that Saturday is the traditional night for Maritimers to serve baked beans - I was part of something more widespread than our little household).

I can vividly recall the sounds and smells of dinner cooking - the burble-burble of the beans simmering in the pot, the sizzle of the bologna in the frying pan. To wrap up the evening, I'd rush through taking a bath, so I wouldn't miss the beginning of Wayne and Shuster. Ahh...life was pretty simple back then.

But, back to the present: Dave's mom bought a big round of bologna, and said I could take what I wanted of it. I went out and picked up some beans to go with them, and tonight, I will have a traditional "bean night" dinner. :)

If you want to be REALLY traditional, however, you can make your own baked beans from scratch. Following is a pretty good recipe, from the Thompson's white pea beans bag. (note: Pea beans are just another name for navy beans - it took me a while wandering around the bean aisle in vain before I asked an employee, who told me this little informational tidbit). :)

This recipe requires an OVERNIGHT SOAKING and an ALL DAY BAKING! Plan ahead.

***********

Thompson's Old Fashioned Baked Beans

Serves 8
2 cups pea/navy beans
5 cups cold water
1 medium onion, sliced
1/2 tb salt
2 tsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp prepared mustard
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup tomato ketchup (they recommend no salt added ketchup)
pinch of black pepper
1/4 lb pork or bacon, sliced (they recommend low salt bacon/pork bellies or lean pork)

Sort and rinse beans. Soak beans overnight in cold water. Drain. Add 5 cups cold water, cover, heat to boiling, then simmer 30 minutes or until nearly tender. Drain.
Place onion slices on bottom of 6 cup flameproof casserole dish. Add remaining 7 ingredients in with the beans, stirring gently to combine, then pour entire mixture into casserole dish.

Add enough water to cover mixture, then place sliced lean pork on top. Cover with lid and bake in oven at 250 deg F for 7 hours.

When beans are tender, remove 1 cup of beans, mash, then stir back into pot carefully. Cover and continue to bake. Add water as needed to keep beans covered. One hour before serving, remove cover to darken up the beans. Salt to taste.

***********

Making your own beans is a bit of an art form. It's a difficult thing to ensure that your beans are not too firm, but not too mushy, either. And they can BURN, so for goodness sake, keep an eye on them - not the sort of thing you can put in the oven and forget about all day. They can be fiddly, but many people swear they're worth the effort!

I like them, myself, but unless it's a special occasion, I stick with the canned kind. :)

Best. Borscht. Ever. (BeanDreams 2007)

Wow. I harvested some of my beets (yay!), and here's the best part: the borax I added to the soil DID THE TRICK!! The beets were no longer bitter. And, they're getting bigger, too! (only about an inch wide, but way better than they were) :) So, a double-whammy of positive results from the borax. I guess I did have an imbalance. (If I was sure I'd have a garden next year (we might be moving), I'd get a soil testing kit to help fine-tune my soil more). I'm so very glad I found that awesome article all about beets! If you need to know ANYTHING about growing beets, be sure to read this article.


And, since beets are the heart and soul of borscht, good beets mean good borscht! I must have put in just the right amount of vinegar to my simmering beef as well, because it turned out extremely tender and yet there was no trace of vinegar taste to it.


It was so tasty! So earthy and comforting. Well, it should be earthy-tasting, all of the main ingredients (save the beef) are root vegetables. :)


Of course, if you wish to make my family's recipe for borscht, I have it listed here. It's great in the spring, but it's equally great in the fall. :)

Patychky (aka Ukrainian Meat on a Stick)

My mom's family never made this Ukrainian food, but my uncle's wife makes an absolute killer version of this for major holidays. While I wasn't able to get her recipe for it, and armed only with my description of "meat on a stick", I was eventually able to track down this recipe online. I'd repost it here, but the originating guy asked for people to write him about their own experiences with the recipe, so I will just send you along to his site. Be sure to write him if you try it!

Apparently it is called patychky, and is traditionally served for major holidays. I know it will be part of my festivities from now on! This recipe is equal in total deliciousness to my aunt's, so I'm so thrilled I found it! Thanks mister anchovy! And thanks also to Anna H. who wrote me wanting to know if I was familiar with the recipe - it got me off my duff and out looking for it, after years of meaning to but never getting around to it!

Patychky

All the meat, cut up in small cubes, sitting in its marinade of 30 (THIRTY!) cloves of garlic, chopped, and a bottle of Dave's Premium Homebrew (not available in stores). ;) Looks good!

It recommends that you marinate overnight. I thought I'd go the extra mile and marinate it for two nights. DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE A VERY TIGHTLY SEAL ABLE CONTAINER. I had it in what I thought was a well-sealed container, and still had to put it into 2 groceries bags, tied up, followed by a Glad garbage bag (the kind that's supposed to suppress odor). And STILL the whole fridge stank. Badly. Now, while I thought it smelled delightfully like kielbasa, my Irish-background boyfriend Dave did not appreciate its bouquet beyond the 24 hour mark. So keep this in mind - best stick to just 24 hours marination. :)



After a long marination, the meat is skewered. I had to break the ends off my sticks by a couple of inches (the blunt end, not the sharp end!) to make them fit my roaster pan (you'll want to measure before you put the meat on). And don't forget to soak your skewers in water the night before.



Dip the meat sticks in beaten egg.



Then dip the meat sticks in seasoned bread crumbs.



Time for the fryin'! In a generous amount of canola oil, over medium high heat. Startin' to get a nice deep brown color, which is what you want.



This is the way I laid out the celery bed. DO NOT do it this way! The point is for the celery to keep the meat sticks off the bottom of the pan. However, the way I've done it, some meat sticks sat inside the curves of the celery, and got soggy because the juicy run-off pooled in the celery. Make sure your celery is turned so the curve is facing the bottom (the concave side is down, with convex facing up). Hope that makes sense. Just don't do what I did in the photo and you'll be fine. Of course, you could use a whole lot less celery and just put 3 or 4 small pieces across perpendicularly, which would support the sticks and not create any juice pools. Your choice! :)



The finished product, out of the oven and ready to eat! SOOOO DELICIOUS!!!!

Seriously, if you are a fan of garlic AT ALL, MAKE this recipe. You will be so very glad you did! I can't even describe the flavour, aside from amazing!

Try it! Try it now!

:D

EDIT: As much as Dave didn't like the smell coming from the fridge on day 2, he really loved the finished product! :) Even now, he's looking over my shoulder, saying "Hey, that was really good, you should make that again!") :D

Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day in North America and some other countries, a day we celebrate our mothers and all they do for us. Usually this involves the purchase of mass-produced greeting cards, flowers, candies, and often more expensive things like jewelry.

But it turns out that Mother's Day, as it is celebrated to day, is yet another example of the law of unintended consequences. The woman seen here, Anna Jarvis, worked tirelessly to have an official day set aside to honour mothers and all they do, for "families to get together in church to recognise the real value of motherhood". This culminated in the creation of Mother's Day, the second Sunday in May. BUT, within a few years, the holiday had become completely commercialized, and she was so horrified that she had herself incorporated into a company and tried to copyright Mother's Day - then, she could prevent it from being celebrated. The woman spent all of her family's inheritance, and died penniless, unsuccessful. What a sad story (read more on the BBC here).

So, if you want to keep the spirit of the holiday, as it was originally intended, you might think about simplifying the holiday. Mothers LOVE home-made stuff made by their children, and that doesn't seem to fade with the age of the kids! So along with the flowers, why not make something for your Mom this year?

For the last several years, I have made my own mother her favorite soup for Mother's Day: French Onion. And she loves it! She SO looks forward to it, she talks about it throughout the year - I don't think there's anything I could buy her that would make her as happy as that soup!

Family Recipe - Ann's French Onion Soup

Ingredients:
(At least) 2 cups onions, raw and sliced very thinly in rings (Note: I usually just about fill a large saucepan with onions, they reduce quite a bit during the cooking process)
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1-2 10 oz cans beef consomme
1/4 cup water
1 beef broth cube (or packet, like OXO brand)
1-2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup red wine

Shredded mozarella cheese (as much as you like)
French bread, sliced about 3/4" thick

Instructions:
- On low heat, melt the butter. Add the onions, (separate the rings as you go), and cook for about 30 minutes, covered, until soft, but not brown. Stir occasionally.
- Add boullion, water, Worcestershire sauce and red wine. You can add one or two cans of boullion, depending on how many onions you have. Heat to boiling. Add broth cube, stirring till dissolved. - Let boil about 5 minutes or so, during which you can toast the bread, and put one piece in the bottom of each serving bowl.
- Pour soup in bowls, top with cheese.

Makes about 4-6 servings, depending on the size of your bowls.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Adventures in Paska

This year, I decided to make my first paska. A big deal in a Ukrainian woman's life, this is something that every generation before has painstakingly and lovingly created for their family, and now it was my turn to join the tradition. Admittedly, I'm starting rather late in life (almost mid 30s) - I just heard about a friend of a friend doing her first one at 17! - but better late than never, eh?

I decided to keep the decoration simple on this first one, and I'm glad I did - as it turned out, the braid swelled up so much during baking that it distorted to the point you can barely tell what it is. :) Oh well, better luck next year. (I read on the Byzantine Forum - a great source of info on all traditions Byzantine - that if you make the braid very thin, the rising will make it just about the right size than if you start off making it very thick).

I noticed a couple of things about the recipe that my mother uses, and that I have posted on LearnPysanky.com that I think might have to be changed - I had to add a LOT of extra flour to the recipe, after adding all the liquid called for. I asked my mother and she said she often has to add several extra cups of flour to get the proper consistency. Now, from what I understand, at least in other forms of baking, adding too much flour makes for a dry result. I don't see why it should be different here, so I'm assuming something's off with the recipe - you just shouldn't have to add that much more flour than what's called for.

I see that you "proof the yeast" ahead of time in the recipe, and I'm wondering if perhaps the sugar, yeast and water that's used in the recipe is supposed to include the small amounts taken out to test the potency of the yeast ahead of time? So instead of:

1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 tsp. sugar
1 pkg. yeast

AND ALSO

1/4 cup sugar
3 cups lukewarm water


MAYBE, it's only
3 cups lukewarm water AND SET ASIDE 1/2 cup of that to test
1/4 cup sugar AND SET ASIDE 1 tsp of that to test

Even this might be too much liquid, so I would recommend trying what they do for most other recipes - add the water/yeast/sugar mix, and about half of the remaining water at the beginning, THEN add the flour. Then, if you still need more liquid, add it towards the end to get the proper consistency. That way, you don't have to add all this extra flour. I'll have to give this idea a test run next time around, and see if my theory is correct.

Also, from what I've read online, a little hotter than lukewarm water is best for yeast - you don't want it boiling hot, that will kill the yeast, but you do want it very warm. Think of yeast as a living thing (it is!) - do you like a scalding hot bath, or a lukewarm one? No, you like a nice warm bath, somewhere in the middle.

I ended up with a very sticky dough. After adding at least a couple of cups of extra flour, and still the dough was too sticky to work with, I decided to separate out the dough into two pieces. One, I left as is and put it in the bottom of the breadpan. The other half, I added more flour to, until it could be worked with, and this was the dough I used for the top braid decoration.

The bread browns REALLY fast, with the beaten egg brushed on top. So about halfway through the baking, check on it and see if it's the color you want - if it is, cover it with tinfoil so it won't brown further, and let it bake the full time.

Here's some pics of the process:

Here's the bread still doing its final rise - lookin' good!

Here I am adding the beaten egg to the top of the bread. As noted above, check the bread halfway through baking because this really does brown the bread beautifully and fast!

And here she is, the final product! And it tastes good too! :D As I mentioned, the braid distorted as it rose and baked, but I'll work on the decoration more next time. :D

All in all, it was an interesting experience, and I'm really glad I finally tried it! I have joined the ranks of breadmakers, and have done honour to my predecessors.