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.

One Potato, Two Potato: Smashed Potatoes 2 Ways

One:

And two:

My husband is a huge – huuuuuge - fan of potatoes. Loves ’em spuds. All types. All ways of cooking. Well, some more than others, but ultimately – any. Fried, sautéed, boiled, roasted. Mashed and smashed. Grated in latkes. Grilled on skewers. As a side dish as well as in soups and salads. The more the better.

So, I cook potatoes quite often. And if you’re crazy about them too, I have some good recipes for you. Today it is smashed potatoes. Two ways. A traditional one, where you roughly mash skin-on boiled potatoes. And a relatively recent one, where you boil whole small potatoes, smash them by pressing each one flat and then roast of fry them till the crispy exterior.

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.  

Pizza, Part III: the Toppings

Besides a good dough, the success of pizza depends on its toppings. A tasty topping means a tasty pizza, right?  And to make a tasty topping is quite easy – all we need is quality components and a balanced combination of them.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

 

When wild mushrooms are not in season, my next favorite mushrooms to cook are Portobello with their slightly sweet and slightly earthy flavor and dense, meaty texture. They work particularly great for stuffing.

Russian Style Wild Mushroom Gratin, aka 'Julienne'

Mushroom julienne is a dish made with sautéed mushrooms (preferably, wild) combined with sour cream or béchamel sauce and baked in small individual ramekins or cocottes under a cheese crust. It's one of those treats, eating of which is always accompanied by joyful moaning and multiple "OMG" exclamations. No exaggeration here!

Julienne is quite rich, so a small serving is enough to enjoy it. It’s served as a hot appetizer and I prefer to eat it with a teaspoon.

Tara Nabe: Japanese Black Cod and Matsutake Mushroom Soup

I am not the biggest fan of the fall in Seattle with its heavy rains and gusty winds. The only thing that somewhat reconciles me with this season is that it is a wild mushroom season as well. Chanterelles have been around for about a month; matsutake have just started and trumpets are coming to the markets and stores any day now.

On a rainy Saturday like today I love to treat Ilya and myself with some nice warming soup. Like Tara Nabe, a fantastically fragrant Japanese soup with black cod, matsutake mushrooms and mizuna. I fell in love with this soup at Nishino restaurant several years ago and reconstructed the recipe at home so we can enjoy it any time we want. Since then, I cook it whenever matsutake are in season.

Asparagus and Chanterelle Risotto

 

We went to a farmer’s market the other day and returned home with a paper bag full of amazing fresh chanterelles. My favorite mushrooms are in season again, yeehah! If I had a pogo-stick I would just hop around the block several times, so happy I am. (Good news for my neighbors – I don’t have one and ain’t planning to get any soon.)

Spicy Miso Soup with Chicken, Mushrooms and Soba Noodles

I’m introducing a new category into my blog: quick fix. I already have one called  “easy peasy”, but easy peasy doesn’t always equal to quick. Some simple things can take quite a while to cook. Like, for instance, a majority of braised meats, which, as a rule, take no more than a half hour of prep work, but up to 5-6 hours of actual braising time. Quick fixes, on the other hand, are really fast, but not necessarily super easy to make.

Bulgur Risotto with Chanterelles, Arugula and Parmesan

Even though the word “risotto” comes from “riso”, which is Italian for rice, as a method of cooking it can be applied to other products as well – pearl barley, buckwheat or even pasta.

This time I decided to try risotto with bulgur. To my (and my husband’s) taste, it turned out even better than rice risotto because of the bright, nutty flavor of bulgur. And the texture of cooked bulgur and the consistency of risotto were far beyond my expectations: the former had a nice subtle crunch to it and the latter was perfectly creamy, not too thick, not too thin.

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.

Bitter Greens Salad with Potatoes, Mushrooms and Quail Eggs

It looks like a salad week in my blog (high time to go on strike and demand some meat!), but I can’t help myself but give you one more of our favorites. It makes a great vegetarian lunch or a first course of a bigger meal.

Fall Harvest Preservation Time, Last Call

It’s the beginning of November, guys, the last opportunity to preserve whatever this fall gave us in terms of fruits and vegetables.

For me, it means sautéing and freezing chanterelles (which are pretty scarce this year), turning quince and apples into thick sliceable marmalade (dulce de membrillo and dulce de manzana), and oven drying and pickling the last batch of tomatoes from out little garden.

 

Puff Pastry Squares

Wednesday was my last pottery class this quarter and we had a potluck. I was thinking about bringing something easy to make, easy to transport, easy to eat even without plates and utensils and came up with these savory puff pastry squares. All you need is a package of puff pastry sheets (I use Pepperidge Farm), soft goat cheese, some vegetables and mushrooms and no more than 45 minutes of your precious time including baking.

Morel Mushrooms Sautéed with Asparagus or Green Peas

Hurry, hurry, guys! Morels are in season right now. I won’t lie to you, they are quite pricey - around $50 at Whole Foods and $40 at Central Market – but the good news is, being hollow inside, they are very lightweight, and you don’t need that many of them because of their strong earthy flavor. Today, for dinner for two us, we needed less than a quarter of a pound.