Tea with milk and spices

I hosted a Tea Party last week and there is a recipe for those who found it interesting.
This recipe makes 8 cups. You will need:
- 1 qt.water
- 1 qt. whole milk
- 1/2 tsp. ground cardamon (I didn't add it, it was too expensive to buy)
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp.ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 4 tsp. loose tea leaves (I used 4 bags of fruit berry tea, LDS version)
- 1/2 cup honey

Combine water and milk in large saucepan; bring to boil. Reduce heat to very low. Add spices and vanilla. Cover and simmer for 12 minutes. Remove from heat, add tea and steep for 5 minutes. Strain into a pitcher or pot, add honey and mix well.

That's it! Warm up with a cup of winter tea!

Cake "Fruit Maze"

I get it now. They say, "Never try a new recipe on friends... if you still want to keep them!" I hope I didn't loose my friends last Saturday, but I tried a new recipe for cake known as "Fruit Maze".

You don’t perm your hair the day of prom, wear new shoes to run a marathon, or apply self-tanner before a job interview (quote by A. Goto). But I was talking to my aunt in Russia and she tried a new cake on some one's birthday party. From her words recipe sounded really easy and I decided to try it for the party....My kitchen ended up being very messy, almost like this cartoon.


And I didn't think that the cake was a big success, but I took some leftovers to work and my co-workers found it tasty. Ha-ha-ha! That's the secret ingredient - cake needs to be tree days old to start taste good!

So, if you are brave enough, let me introduce you recipe for my new creation "Fruit Maze"!!!
You will need:
For the dough: 1cup of sour cream, 2 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, 2 TBS soft butter, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 3-3 1/2 cups of flour.
For liquid cream: 3 cups of sour cream + 1 cup of water, 1 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 TBS vanilla.


For filling: 1 1/2 cups of raisins, washed and dried.

1 1/2 cups of dried apricots, chopped.

1 1/2 cups of dried pitted prunes, chopped.

I also added 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts. They go well with dried fruits.


Dough: mix flour with baking soda. Add soft butter. Add sour cream. , sugar and eggs. Mix well into ball.

Divide into 3 smaller balls.

Roll each ball with rolling pin into flat circle about 5 mm width.

Spread each dried fruit filling over the dough circle. Sprinkle with walnuts, if desire.

Fold the edge of the dough covering part of the filling.

Carefully roll it into Swiss roll. Press ends sealing the edges.

Repeat with two other fillings.

Place rolls filled with dried fruits and walnut onto greased baking sheet.

Tricky part is baking. This kind of dough needs really low temperature. 350F or 180C is the highest temperature you can afford. It takes about 20-25 minutes to get rolls done.

Coll them down. Cut into small pieces about 1/2 inch wide.

In a meantime, mix 3 cups of sour cream with water and sugar, add vanilla. (Water is necessary to make your cream runny.... (Это русскую сметану не нужно разбавлять водой, она и так жидкая. А вот в американской сметане стоит ложка, поэтому добавляю воду, чтобы можно было обмакивать кусочки рулета в жидкий крем..)

Now fun part. Dump each piece into liquid cream mixture and line them into shallow dish layer by layer. Make sure you dip them generously. It will make your cake softer and moist.

After you use all liquid cream, cover it up with plastic and let stand for 4-5 hours at the room temperature. Than 24 hours in a fridge. That amount of time will let cake soak into sour cream mixture. Remember, it was good on the third day in my case?

It was a little bit of a time-consuming recipe, but new and fun to try. Happy cooking!

Русская версия рецепта:

Для теста: 1 стакана сахара, 2 яйца, 1 стакан сахара, 2 столовые ложки мягкого масла, 18 гр соды (1 ч.л.), муки сколько возьмет, где-то 3-3.5 стакана.

Начинка: 300 грамм чернослива, 300 грамм изюма, 300 грамм кураги.

Крем:
1 л сметаны 20%. Она должна быть жидкая.
1,5 стакана сахара, ванилин

Муку смешать с разрыхлителем и растереть с размягченным маслом. Добавить сметану, сахар и яйцо и замесить пластичное тесто.
Готовое тесто разделить на 4 части. Каждую раскатать в прямоугольник толщиной около 5 мм, намазать начинкой и свернуть рулетом. Рулеты выпечь при 180 градусах до готовности (минут 20). Остудить.
Остывшие рулеты нарезать кусочками толщиной 1,5-2 см.
Форму диаметром 22 см выстелить внутри пищевой пленкой. На дно налить немного крема и плотно уложить кусочки рулета плашмя. Залить кремом. Опять кусочки рулета и крем. И так, пока рулет не закончится. Сверху залить кремом.
Готовый торт оставить пропитываться на сутки, причем первые 4-5 часов при комнатной температуре.
Через сутки перевернуть торт на блюдо, снять форму вместе с пленкой. Залить шоколадной глазурью.

Для начинки курагу и чернослив распарить до мягкости и попустить через мясорубку. Хорошенько перемешать.

Для крема сметану смешать с сахаром и ванилином. Взбивать не нужно.

Приятного аппетита!

Adjika (Аджика)

I want to continue my cooking blog. My son Sergey moved out for real this time and, surprise, he loves my blog! Even his friends are interested in cooking Russian food.

So, in today's menu we have Russian Hot Sauce Adjika. I made it last year and it was a big success with my son. We loves hot food! So, if you are in a mood for something hot, here it is! I did a lot of hot sauce at once, so I had to can most of it.
You will need: 6-8 pounds of tomatoes, 2-3 pounds of bell pepper (any color), 1/2 pound of garlic, 5 oz of red hot pepper, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of salt, 1/2 cup of vinegar, 1 cup of vegetable oil, one bundle of fresh herds of your choice (parsley, cilantro, celery). I also added 1 pound of apples and 1 pound of carrots.

I found a great deal for tomatoes at the fresh market - huge box of home-grown tomatoes for only $12. After I measured them up, I had to double my recipe because I had over 10 pounds of tomatoes. But you are allowed to follow the original recipe. :) Wash tomatoes thorough.

I couldn't find red hot pepper, I found green ones. But even these little pods were very hot and dangerous. Wear kitchen gloves working with them. Wash them, cut the tops off. Here is a little secret. If you want your adjika really hot - do not delete the seeds from the pepper, use the whole pod. If you want it mild - cut pods open and discard seeds into garbage. Then your sauce will have mild taste.

Peeling off garlic was very time-consuming and annoying business. But I don't know any other way to do it better except peel off each one individually. Maybe you know?

Carrots: if you use baby carrots they are ready for cooking. If you use the big real carrots, then wash them and rub them with something hard (like new sponge) so they will be clean.

Wash the apples, cut them into pieces and delete the middle part with seeds.

Now, part by part put all ingredients listed above into blender and crash them well. I dumped all veggie mix into a big metal pot, added vegetable oil and simmer them on a low heat for an hour.

While it was simmering, I took care of my jars. You can use the regular mouth 1 pint Mason jars. But any other glass jars will work too as far as they are whole and have leads.

I placed them into dish-washer to wash and sterilize.

Add the rest of ingredients from your list to the veggie mix: salt, sugar, vinegar, crashed hers. Bring it to boil again.

Simmer a few more minutes and start pouring the hot liquid into the clean jars. Be careful! This is very hot business! I used a special device (лейка с широким горлом).


When you fill up all your jars, tight them up with clean hot leads, place then on some soft surface and cover up to keep them warm. Leave them for another day. They continue to pa-sterilize inside.

Afterward, I had a lot of garbage....

and a lot of dirty dishes that I had to wash...

But it was totally worth it. It was very good. If you are still not convince to make it for yourself, come to my house and I will give you one jar for free! :)

Cake for Leana

When I asked Leana what kind of cake she wants for her Baby Shower, she replied, "Napoleon..." But I found it too time-consuming and made her a different kind of cake! I made her a Diaper Cake! I want to warn you that this cake is not eatable! But it looks good and it is my Baby Shower present for Leana! So, I want to share recipe here for those who wants to "cook" it sometimes! It is really easy to cook and it takes only 20 minutes compared to the real "Napoleon" cake that takes a couple of hours!
First, I will list the main "ingredients". You will need a box of new-born size diapers.

Then some "stuffing" like clothes for the baby, according to the gender pink or blue.

Some small toys, hygiene items or anything baby will need.

I also found very cute baby-shoes with Winnie the Pooh picture on them!

Also you will need knitting yarn, scissors, sewing pins, hard-board circle and plastic wrap for the decoration part.

I did three-layers cake. It is handy when you have someone to help you to fold diapers in the shape of the big round. If you are doing it alone, you need to cut pieces of yarn before you start. Cut about 5 of them with the different length from 1 foot to 3 feet. Now open the box with diapers and start rolling them together, adding them one by one.

When it is hard to hold them together, take a piece of yarn and tight it around the diaper roll.

Do all three layers with of desired size. I did the biggest one first just to make sure it fits my "cake plate", meaning the hard-board circle that we prepared before.

When it is all done, they should somewhat like that picture.

Now you need to use sewing pins to hold them together. DO NOT USE GLUE GUN AT ANY POINT! It will totally ruin the diapers and the whole point of this present is that the mother of the baby will have her first diapers handy. So, little tiny wholes from the pins won't ruin it, but glue gun will for sure!

Next part is decorating. Place the big piece of wrapping plastic or other kind of wrapping material you want on the table. Set our "cake" in the middle of it.

Now use all your items for decorating. Roll pieces of clothing and tight them up with the yarn. Use tape or pins to keep your items in places. Let your fantasy be your guide and be not afraid to overload your cake with baby items. Mom and new-born will need everything!


Carefully wrap the plastic around your cake trying to keep all the decorating items in places. Tight it up on the top.

Place the bow and some ribbons.

Your cake is ready! Wasn't it easy?? I hope that Leana and Aleks will like it!

Pork Loin with mushrooms (Буженина)

This recipe probably won't be really popular among my American readers. :) Somehow, I rare meet Americans who love pork. But this fact won't stop me from posting the recipe. It is mostly Sunday Dinner recipe for big family, also suitable for banquet and big party. I cooked my pork loin for Harsha's party and use some tips from Bear-foot Contessa recipe book. But the original idea was mine and I cooked this meat for years.
If you are not big mushroom-lover, skip this part. But if you don't mind mushrooms in your menu, you need to prepare them first. Just fry them with onions and oil in frying pan and set aside to cool down.


Now meat. Choose pork loin of desired size and cut off fats. Wash in cool water. Wrap it in paper towel to dry of a little bit.


Next, prepare your spices: salt, pepper and mustard. Get them ready but don't use them yet.

If you want to use mushroom stuffing, you need to make a pocket inside of the pork loin. If you are not using mushrooms, skip this step too. Instructions for pocket: insert a sharp knife into middle part of pork loin and make a clear cut, however, you don't want to cut through completely. Work left and right cutting a pocket of desired size. Something like that.


Use salt, pepper and mustard and generously season your meat inside and out. Stuff with fried mushrooms.


Now we need to prepare the place to cook our pork loin. I use a baking sheet with 2"-high borders. Place a piece of aluminum foil on the bottom (easy to clean off). Spray with oil. This is my personal touch to the recipe: I use any vegetable I have at hands for the bottom of the pan just for moisture and nice taste. If you short on carrots and potatoes, you can cook your meat just on the piece of oiled foil, but if you can afford to waist a couple of potatoes - use them. You even don't need to peal them, just wash them and cut into slices and place on the bottom of pan.


This part is a little bit tricky - you need to tight up the loin. It also helps to keep it whole and moisture. Peal a couple of cloves of garlic and insert into meat sides by making a sharp short cuts.


Season and cover with mustard one more time. We are ready to bake!

I set my oven to 400-420 degrees by Fahrenheit. Cooking time depends on the size of your meat and well-done you want it. Meat Temperature Chart is here. I cooked mine for an hour and it was a little bit pink in the thickest part, the rest was nice and brown. My inside temperature was 145. Take it out and let seat for while. NEVER CUT MEAT RIGHT AWAY - LET IT SEAT!


Either way, hot or cold, it is juicy and moisture, also good with garnish or without, with piece of bread or veggie salad. I served it with horse-radish sauce mixed half-and-half with sour-cream! Delicious!