Food and Crafts for All Occasions

Puff Pastry Turnovers with Lamb and Curried Potato Fillings

Despite all my proclaimed love to cooking from scratch, I have no problem with occasional semi-homemade cooking, i.e. using some commercial foods like cooked beans, frozen puff pastry or fresh pasta when I don’t have time to make them myself.

For these turnovers, I used good quality store bought puff pastry from Aussie Bakery, which saved at least a couple of hours of my time while giving very satisfying results. For the fillings, I used ground lamb, sautéed with fenugreek and mashed potatoes with curry powder and green peas.

"Wow" Factor or Stuffed Eggplant Rolls Baked Under Tomato Sauce

Sometimes, there’s a dish that you’ve been cooking successfully for a while and everybody seemed to love it and then one day you decide to change the recipe just a little, just a tiny bit, and all of a sudden you say, “Wow”, and your guests say, “Wow”, and everybody’s raving about it and asking for the recipe.

I had this situation just recently with my stuffed eggplant rolls in tomato sauce, which I’ve been making for years (top picture). I filled them with a mixture of ricotta and soft goat cheese and baked under a tomato and basil sauce. Kind of an Italian style dish. But then, for one party with a Greek flair (mezze, lamb kebab and such) I decided to alter the recipe slightly to fit the theme. I substituted ricotta with feta cheese, added some chopped dill to the filling and spiced the sauce with cinnamon instead of basil.

Mussels with Andouille Sausage, Fennel and Garbanzos in Vermouth, Paprika and Saffron Broth

With some foods, it can take me several attempts to start to appreciate their flavor. Like it happened with raw oysters and soft goat cheese, of which I cannot get enough now. With others, it is love from the first bite. Like it was with steamed mussels.

Spice Blends: Curry Powder

As you might’ve noticed, I like to use spices in my cooking. A lot. And lots. I have just counted my spices, spice blends and dried herbs and it turns out I have almost 100. Well, in fact, at least 100, because I’m certain that I have some more hidden in my pantry, but am reluctant to search for them right now.

Decadent Diet: Sliced Fennel Roasted with Garlic, Olive Oil and Lemon Juice

Who said that diet cannot be decadent? There’s no oxymoron here. You can eat food that will let you lose several pounds and still maintain high gourmet standards. Like that Japanese style salad below. Or what about roasted fennel? It’s just what the dietician ordered: it’s lean, it’s not starchy and it’s full of health benefiting nutrients. At the same time, it’s a perfectly decadent dish - unique flavored, moist, crunchy, fragrant and absolutely delicious.

Japanese Style Salad with Bitter Greens, Tuna and Edamame Beans

As it often happens in life, happy periods of binging on pasta, potatoes and chocolate are followed by sad periods of remorse with one major question to answer - whether to buy a pant button extender kit or switch to healthier and leaner foods for a while?

My Perfect Mashed Potatoes

I mentioned mashed potatoes in my previous post, so here they are in case you're interested how I make them. In the kitchen, I am one hell of a perfectionist, so when I cook something and am not 105% satisfied with the results, I will spend tons of time and effort until I get exactly what I have in mind. It can feel quite pain-in-the-assy, but the results are usually well worth the pain.

Chicken Thighs Braised with White Wine, Dijon Mustard, Soy Sauce and Cream

If you have nothing against super tender, succulent and moist chicken meat in a light creamy sauce, here is a recipe for you. I used to make this dish quite often several years ago, but somehow along the way, with trying more and more new things, it gradually dropped out of my cooking repertoire. Recently though, Ilya reminded me of it and so now it’s back on our menu and, OMG, how we love it!

My Favorite Dried Porcini Soup

 

When I lived in Russia, wild mushroom hunting was (and, perhaps, still is) a popular late summer and early fall activity. We would go to the woods and armed with small folding knives and long sticks to move aside fallen leaves and grass would walk for hours looking for mushrooms. If we were lucky, we would come home with several full baskets of these one-legged forest goodies - several varieties of boletes, including birch bolete, aspen bolete and most wanted king bolete along with tons of other mushrooms, the names of which I don’t even know how to translate.

Flourless Chocolate Soufflé Cake or A Little Chocolate Never Hurts 2

This recipe is on February page of my 2013 calendar, which I made with Mixbook for Christmas and New Year’s presents. For those who are not lucky enough (hehe) to have received my calendar, I decided to post this soufflé cake here as well.

Squids Stuffed with Ground Chicken and Spinach in Herby Tomato Sauce

If you love the combination of seafood and meat in one dish, this recipe is for you. Regularly, for the stuffing I would take quite fatty pork, but since during the fall and winter our summer clothes seems to have significantly shrunk in the closets, I temporarily replace fatty pork with leaner chicken or turkey. But you can take pork, beef or any combination of meats you like.

Dungeness Crab Season: Crab Ravioli with Lemon Asparagus Sauce

I hope my lengthy “pasta saga” didn’t discourage you in making crab ravioli, the recipe of which I promised a couple of days ago. Here they are and right on time - even though local whole cooked crabs are still in stores, they are getting more expensive, which means that their season is coming to an end. So, if you live in Seattle, hurry up to catch the last chance.

How to Make Ravioli: Several Techniques

 

Here's how I make raviloi.