Stuffed Bell Pepper: New Approach

My home-town Taganrog is very international town: Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Asians, Caucasians, a lot of Greek people, and some Italians live there. We have streets named Garibaldi, Greek Street and Italian Lane. That's why many local meals have roots from Greek and Italian cuisine. Those recipes are widely used and every family will claim them as their own family recipes! This is why I cannot imagine my summer without a few "summer meals" that I will introduce to you here on my blog. Stuffed Bell Pepper will be number one!


All vegetables are in season now and quite cheap. Bell pepper that usually costs about $1.50 each is three for dollar now. So, I decided it is time to cook them!

Cut the tops off from the pepper and wash thorough.


In meantime, cook rice, rinse and set aside.

Now is my new approach. Usually for the meet part you add raw ground meet. I decided to add cooked meet with onions and mushrooms. I fried 1 onion with 1 cup of fresh minced mushrooms and 1 cup of raw ground pork (use beef if you like it better). You can make your recipe vegetarian: add fried onions and carrots instead of ground meet. It is great to the taste and low on calories.

For one bell pepper I measured about 1/2 of cup of cooked rice. So I measured 1 1/2 cup of rice for my three peppers and mixed rice with fried ground pork.


Now, tomato sauce. I think I posted recipe how to make it here about 3 times already. But here we go again: 1 onion and a couple of middle size carrots cut into small pieces.


Add 1 can of tomato sauce. Bring to boil tomato sauce and add 1 teaspoon of sugar, one bay leave and fresh ground pepper. Set apart.


Now, fill up the bell pepper with rice mixture. Press the stuffing down and make sure it is sitting tight.


A little trick: take the dish where you are going to cook your peppers (soup pot, middle size saucepan or deep frying pan) and just add one splash of tomato sauce to the bottom. This will prevent your peppers from burning and sticking to the bottom. Place bell peppers inside of the pot. They need to be standing, not laying down. In that case all stuffing will spill over. Then pour the rest of your tomato sauce to the top of standing bell peppers.

Minced garlic and fresh herbs like cilantro and parsley will give nice smell and taste.

Cover up the pot with lid and let simmer on middle heat for about 25-30 minutes. Rice and meet are already cooked. All we need is just make sure that bell pepper is soft and cooked. This meal is great warm or cool, with sour cream or without, as a side dish or main course. It is not very time-consuming, but delicious and new to the summer menu!

Russian Borscht (Борщ)

This recipe of borscht combines healthy efforts, secrets from my culinary school teachers, personal preferences along with some adjustments I had to make regarding the availability of American produce and taste. It might look somewhat time-consuming, but it is definitely worth cooking!

First, meat part. For borscht any kind of meat will work: beef, pork, chicken. I used chicken thighs for mine. Take off the skin and fatty parts. It will save you about 2000 calories for the whole pot! Leave bones in. All normal Russian borscht recipe calls for some bones for the stock. Pork and beef bones are the best, by I simplify it and just use chicken. If you vegetarian (like Harsha) just use vegetable stock and skip this part.

Trick #1: place the meat of your choice into pot half filled with COLD WATER! Never use warm water to start with. Bring water to boil and dump it out!!! Yes, first stock is the most fattening and unhealthy part of the whole process. You don't want fat floating in your borscht. It will be tasty even without it!

Pour cold water again (half of pot) and bring to boil. This time, with my permission, you can keep the stock! Bring it to a boiling point and skim foam from the top. Simmer for at least 30-40 minutes and pull the meet out of the stock to cool down. Yes, this is my trick #2. Meet needs to be taken out of the soup, cooled down, separated from the bones and cut into small pieces.


In meantime, take three medium potatoes, pealed them off, cut into cubes and cook them in a separate saucepan.

This is trick #3: it takes longer to cook potatoes in stock. It will take about 10-15 minutes to cook them in just simple water. In stock it will take longer - 30 minutes at least, because of fat part of the stock. Cook it for about 15 minutes and set apart.

Beet is an essential part of borscht. It gives color and special taste. If you don't like it much - you can cook it without beets. Tomato paste will give the desired red color, but taste will be a little bit different. I use canned beets. It is easy.

Open the can, drain the liquid into a separate bowl and save it, cut or shred the beets and set them apart too.

Now the cabbage. One small head of cabbage is enough for the 5 liters-size pot. I simplify it too by using a bag of coal-slaw salad from the store. (I got so lazy that even don't want to cut the cabbage!) But it s about the same price and already pre-cut into small pieces, so why not?
Here goes my trick #4: cabbage never goes into borscht by itself. It is supposed to be added with bell pepper. That little trick will give you better taste. Sometimes borscht will smell like boiled cabbage, but if you listen to my advice and use belle pepper, it will eliminate unpleasant smell and your soup will smell like Bulgarian dinner! So, cut 1 or 1/2 of bell pepper and place in on the top of cabbage and set apart. You see, all ingredients are just sitting on your counter getting ready to be added into the soup. Be patient. Cooking doesn't take that long. Preparation does.

I adore garlic. It drives my husband crazy because I smell like garlic for a week! But there is no borscht recipe without garlic. So, embrace yourself and peal a couple of cloves of garlic and mince them.


Herbs and green onions are good additions too. Use any herbs that are in season - parsley, dill, cilantro. Anything you like. Cut them into small pieces and mix with garlic and green onions. And, yes, you guess it correct - Set apart too.

When tomatoes are in season, I like to add some fresh tomatoes into my borscht.

I crash them in the food processor, but simple grater or blender will do the work just fine. It is not a necessary ingredient, just a summer touch when you have plenty of tomatoes at hands.

But this one essential! Onion and carrots cut into small pieces....

and fried them with oil. Add 1 can of tomato sauce at the end. Trick #5: bring to boil tomato sauce and add 1 teaspoon of sugar, one bay leave and fresh ground pepper. Set apart.


Now when you have a hundreds bowls on your counter, you are ready to complete your borscht! The order is really important. Bring stock to boil, add potatoes with water in which it was cooked. Now, cabbage with bell pepper together. Let it boil for about 3-5 minutes (depends if you like overcooked or crunchy cabbage taste). If you like it crunchy, after a couple of minutes of boiling, add the tomato sauce. If you like it very soft, let it boil for another 5 minutes, then add tomato sauce. Add shredded beets with juice, fresh tomato and pre-cut meets. Add your herbs. Bring to boil.

The main rule of cooking soup is bring it to boil after you add anything new to it. So, even when you add you spices and herbs, you have to make sure that it was boiling after that. I like to add fresh ground pepper, salt, and a couple of bullion cubes. Also make sure you have enough liquid and add just tap water if it's needed. But don't forget to bring to boil after that!

The best way to finish is to correct your spices, bring to boil the last time, turn your burner off and let it stand for about 20 minutes at the same burner, so it will gain its taste.


My borscht turned out really good. I enjoyed it very much. I wish you would too!

Creme-brulee for real

Creme-brulee is one of my favorite desserts. I was always fascinated about burnt sugar on the top of Creme-brulee. I watched the movie No Reservations where Katrine Zeta-Jones fries brown sugar with her torch and makes it pretty-looking with fruit decoration! And I just wanted to try to make it!
So, my long-term goal was to get me Creme-brulee set and on one memorable day of July 3rd Paul bought me a Creme-brulee set from Bath, Body and Beyond Store! It was $20 and with discount coupon we got it for $17!

Set had a small torch and 4 ceramic dishes called ramekins. We also bough a canister of butane for the torch, heavy cream for the recipe and I was ready to cook my first Creme-brulee ever!
The recipe is actually really easy to prepare. The hardest part is to bake it to perfection. But ingredients are simple: for 4 small ramekins you will need 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 3 eggs yolks, 1/4 cup of sugar and a pinch of vanilla sugar or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. The recipe specifically calls for using a good quality vanilla. I used my vanilla extract from Mexico.

Beat egg yolks, 1/4 cup of sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl until thick and creamy.


Then pour 1 cup of heavy cream into a saucepan and stir over low heat until it almost comes to boil. Remove the cream from heat immediately.

Stir cream into the egg yolk mixture; beat until combined. This process called "tempering" - meaning increasing the temperate of eggs to the temperature of heavy cream. You have to slowly add hot cream into egg yolk mixture and don't let it to be overheated.

For the better quality you need to drain you mixture in case if some parts of egg didn't dissolve. Take a strainer and pour the mixture into a measuring cup.

We are ready to pour our mixture into ramekins. I prefer to do it next to the oven since the next step is transferring the baking dish with hot water into the oven will need a special care.

Pour mixture into ramekins or any other shallow heat-proof dishes.


Pour hot tab water into the baking dish just enough to come 1/2 way up to the ramekins sides.


Carefully place in 325 degrees by Fahrenheit oven for approximately 25-30 minutes until Creme-brulee just set and still slightly trembling in the middle.


Remove from oven and cool to room temperature. Now we come to the fun part. Torch! Paul filled it with butane and showed me how to use it.

I used just regular white granulated sugar. Brown sugar works pretty good too - even faster. And Paul told me that there are different colors of sugar sold just for Creme-brulee lovers somewhere on Internet! I need to explore that topic!

You need to spread the sugar evenly on the top of Creme-brulee and caramelize top with torch by constantly moving it from side to side. It was FUN!!!!

Make sure you don't burn it, because even after you take the torch away sugar keeps burning and it can be overcooked. If you don't have a torch, you can use just a regular oven with broiler. Place dishes with Creme-brulee under broiler until sugar melts, about 2 minutes. Watch carefully so as not to burn. It is ready!

I decorated mine with strawberries and mint leaves. It was the most delicious Creme-brulee I've ever eaten! Join the club of Creme-brulee lover and try one for yourselves. It is good!

Patriotic Cake for 4th of July

I made a 4th of July cake and I want to share with you my recipe.
For the base of the cake I just used a regular "mix in the box". Betty Crocker brand works pretty good. I took the Super Moist white cake and mixed it with water, eggs and oil according to the instruction.

While cake was baked in the oven, I washed my berries and then dried them with kitchen towel.

I used Heavy Whipped Cream and Powdered Sugar for preparing the topping.

It takes about 10 full minutes to whip the cream until it is almost stiff. For 2 cups of heavy cream I added about 2/3 of sugar. Add vanilla; beat until cream holds peaks.

I baked the cake for 30 minutes. Cooled 5 minutes and carefully removed it from pan to the cooling rack. Let the cake cool completely.

With long knife I cut the cake horizontally in two pieces.

Spread the whipped cream over the first part...

Here is my secret ingredient - I cut grapes in halves and placed them over the whipped cream like fruit topping int he middle of the cake.

Carefully placed the second part of the cake on the top of grapes. Spread more whipped cream.

Now decoration part. Blueberries were placed in the corner like blue field for the stars on American flag.

Then stripes made with strawberries. I cut them in fourth to try to make them look like the real red stripes.

Place the rest of whipped cream into decorating bag and make more stripes between strawberries...

And stars...

Cake is ready!

I decorated mine with more fruit like grapes, strawberries and mint leaves. It very delicious and moister.