Food and Crafts for All Occasions

The King of Pancakes: Dutch Baby

Dutch baby is an amazingly versatile, super delicious and astonishingly easy to make oven-baked hybrid of pancake and popover. It can be made sweet or savory and topped before or after baking with all sorts of tasty things. It’s good for breakfast, br/lunch or dinner and is suitable for both everyday meal or special occasions.

More Roasted Poultry: Goose for Thanksgiving

The other day we've been chatting with Sen, an owner of the best coffee shop in north Seattle 'Seattle Sunshine Coffee' (killer macchiatos, guys!) and the conversation gradually led to discussing favorite Thanksgiving treats. Well, with Thanksgiving being only a month away it's high time we started talking about holiday food here as well.

In our family, no one is big on roasted turkey. We’re just not fans of “white meat” overall, and turkey with its huge breast is mostly white meat. So, whenever we celebrate Thanksgiving at home, we prefer to roast some other kind of poultry: Cornish game hens, duck or, best of all, goose. When it comes to dark meat, nothing can beat goose!

Vanilla, Lemon and Honey Semifreddo

Semifreddo is an Italian dessert that literally translates as half(semi) cold(freddo). What it really is, is ice cream without ice cream machine. It is frozen and it has the same smooth, creamy, airy texture, though it’s done using absolutely different technique than ice cream.

In fact, the method* of making semifreddo is very much the same as for mousse. So, you may say that semifreddo is frozen mousse. Whereas in ice cream light airy texture comes from ice cream being churned, in semifreddo it comes from the ingredients being whipped before combined together. In my recipe, I separately whip all three major ingredients – cream, egg yolks, and egg whites. The result is a super light semifreddo.

Paella, My Thoughts on Successful Paella Making

From the vast variety of one-pot meals, paella is one of the world’s most famous and most delicious. It can be colorful and complex, containing all sorts of seafood, meats and vegetables, or simple and unpretentious, consisting only of a few ingredients, as it, most likely, traditionally was.

Brined Mackerel (or Herring if you're lucky to get it!)

This is not exactly a summer dish for me (it was 90 in Seattle this afternoon!), but I was asked to post this recipe, so here it is. Elli, thank you for reading my blog!

Salted herring, especially salted in brine, is a popular Russian dish. Skinned, filleted, thoroughly deboned, then sliced into bite-size pieces, layered with sliced sweet onions and drizzled with aromatic unrefined sunflower oil and several drops of table vinegar or lemon juice, it makes a nice dinner along with boiled potatoes and some vegetable salad. 

Grilled Whole Trout

Grilled whole fish has become one of our most favorite casual dinners. As I have mentioned before, we’re happy owners of a Green Egg, a ceramic charcoal grill, that is perfect for grilling, smoking and even pizza baking.

When grilled right, a whole fish has a beautiful thin, crispy skin and tender and moist flesh.

Dinner: Pan Seared Duck Breast with Balsamic Pearl Onions, Sauteed Fennel and Pureed Cannellini Beans

As a rule, I serve our dinners family style so that everyone can help themselves to what they like and in the amounts they like. This way, nobody is compelled to eat what they don’t want to; food doesn’t get wasted and guests don’t have to feel embarrassed if they didn’t finish something on their plates or took 2

But once in a while, when there’s just two of us, we like to play restaurant and have our meals thoughtfully matched and plated. Like the other night, when I served pureed cannellini beans and sautéed fennel with a pan-seared duck breast with pearl onions in balsamic sauce and crispy fried sage.

Pirozhki

The other day, I decided to treat Ilya and myself to homemade borsch and pirozhki. Interlaced with a couple of shots of ice cold vodka, of course. (Sort of Russian MSG - makes everything tastier and give you a headache if you overdo it).

This whole combination has a great warming up quality and so is best served when it’s chilly outside. Judging by the weather forecasts, this could've been the last borsch and pirozhki this season. Till October, perhaps. Though, occasionally, June in Seattle feels more like "Junuary," as my neighbor Jean calls it, and then this hearty meal can be quite useful.  

Rich and Airy Chocolate Mousse

This mousse is everybody's favorite. It's so light and fluffy and creamy and velvety and melting in your mouth and so deliciously chocolaty, it will make you go 'wow' and squint your eyes until the last bite.

Baked Eggs, aka Shirred Eggs, aka Oeuf en Cocotte

When it comes to breakfast, Ilya's and mine first choice is always eggs. Simply boiled – hard-boiled to eat with mayo or soft-boiled to spoon out. Sunny side up or over easy on a bed of slowly sautéed onions. Scrambled with hot peppers and ham. Poached in spicy tomato sauce, Shakshuka style.

Today I'd like to share with you another favorite recipe of ours - baked eggs (sometimes also referred to as shirred eggs). In France, this dish is known as oeuf en cocotte. Everything sounds so much cuter in French, doesn't it?

Nokedli or Spaetzle, Super Simple Homemade Pasta

Nokedli (Hungarian) or Spaetzle (German) is a free-form pasta made from a thick batter that is grated into boiling water through a special nokedli/spaetzle maker or pressed through a colander.

Pizza, Part IV: Baking

In winter, we bake pizzas in the oven on a pizza stone; in the summer, we prefer cooking it on the Green Egg. Here’s how it goes:

Green Egg Smoked Pork Baby Back Ribs

Have you watched So I Married an Axe Murderer? If you have, you should remember how Charlie’s mom got herself a Juice Tiger and announced that she juices everything now. Well, the same happened to us after we'd bought a Green Egg grill. We grill and smoke everything we can put our hands on. For the smoking purposes we also got a special blower/fan called BBQ Guru that lets the Green Egg maintain the same low temperature for a long time. We also bought a plate setter for indirect heat.

Pizza, Part I: the Dough

I’m a big fan of pizza and have been perfecting my recipe for a long time. Still haven’t reached the ideal, but getting close with practice.  

Lazy Dolma: Ground Lamb and Vegetable Stew

This fragrant and hearty lamb and vegetable stew is truly delicious and liked even by those who swears that they wouldn't eat eggplants or lamb to save their lives.