a day of {delicious} meals

{i love summers in ukraine.}

Fresh produce in rainbows at the bazaar, a kilogram of cucumbers for about $0.50, berries coming and going in their natural cycles – it makes you aware of and awestruck by nature.  Or at least it does me.

my {thrown together} lunch

These days meals generally go as follows: pick fruits or vegetables.  Chop them.  Throw together on a plate or in a bowl.  Scramble some egg whites.  Enjoy.  Though alterations generally need to be made to recipes here in Ukraine due to product availability (or cost way out of a PCV’s price range), there’s one thing we have an equivalent for, for which I’m extremely grateful – salsa.  Top a salad with salsa and I’m in heaven.

Forgot to mention my amazing breakfast: strawberry almond pancakes!

managed to save the last bite for a picture

My frying pan has absolutely no coating of any sort, so the pancakes came out sort of mangled, but delicious nonetheless.  The strawberries make the pancakes even softer and very moist.  You want to make them now, don’t you?  You can easily crush the almonds too – just throw them in a plastic baggie and use just about anything to crush them.  I used a coffee thermos, so really, anything works!  Sumptuous pancakes, strong coffee and comfy slippers…my kind of morning.

don't those look delicious?

And for dinner…mustard roasted new potatoes from Joy the Baker!  Not only were these potatoes amazing (and we all know how much I avoid eating potatoes) but everything she makes is that I’ve tried.  The recipes I haven’t tried aren’t from lack of desire, simply lack of ingredients here in Ukraine.  I halved this recipe because I was cooking for just me, and I didn’t have any onions.  I also chose to use a mustard with horseradish sauce in it because I wanted a little extra kick.

crispy outside, warm inside. yum.

Check out Joy’s Website because I’m obsessed!

a {summer} lunch

smoothie, almonds & grey's anatomy

Half a banana, some strawberries, a splash of milk and kefir, topped off with a spoonful of ground flax seed and some {fruit garnish} to make myself feel fancy.  I am thoroughly enjoying my recuperation from the school year.

Warm Spiced Milk

{sometimes in the evening} I want something warm and spicy even though it’s already summer and humid.  The nights are warming up, but the desire never really goes away. As much as I love hot toddies, I prefer to avoid alcohol except on special occasions so this is the perfect replacement.  Not to mention…{protein}…I need more of it.

Warm Spiced Milk

• skim milk
• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 1/2 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon allspice

Warm the milk with the cinnamon stick.  Don’t boil it!  Mix together the tablespoon of honey and teaspoon allspice because spices will float and stick to the sides of the pan if they don’t have something substantial to which they can stick.  Make sure the honey melts completely, stir well.  When warm and mixed, pour into a mug and enjoy.

project {health}

{my peace corps service} is winding down, unbelievable but true.  At the beginning of our service we’re given a health manual that contains a convenient mental health chart of the challenges we will face in each service phase.  Essentially, the last few months volunteers general either sink into apathy or jet into hyperactivity.  Since three of my last six months will be spent with no professional outlet, I decided to kick start myself into a time consuming energy outlet – improving my health so I can return from my service the healthiest I’ve ever been.

Many volunteers drastically lose or gain weight throughout their service due to the myriad of changes our minds and bodies go through – distance from friends and family, dietary changes, alterations in our activity level, and cross-cultural challenges all play a part along with daily encouragements and frustrations in both our personal and professional lives.  Luckily, I’ve managed to lose weight slowly and consistently.  I want to solidify this by focusing on getting healthy rather than skinny in my last few months in western Ukraine.  I mean healthy in a more than dietary sense.  Mentally, I need to be prepared for the drastic cultural change of coming home.  Since all good projects start with a plan, here are my goals;

project {health}: by the end of August 2011

• be able to run 60-75 minutes {do so 2x/week +1 shorter run}
• develop my flexibility and awareness of my body {yoga 3x/week}
• healthy, balanced eating {cut out the sugar}
• find healthy money savers {going shampoo-free}
• accept and work through daily challenges {20-30 mins daily journaling}

If you want to team up and work toward better health together, I’d love to have you.

За здоров’я!

Avocado Cucumber Soup with Spicy Eggplant

Today was a cooking day, bear with me.

Again, used the hand blender.  I know, I know, this is getting pretty ridiculous even if all of these dishes happen to be delicious.  Duly noted.

Avocados might be a bit of a splurge on a Peace Corps Volunteer living allowance, but they’re so worth it.  I feel that I’ve found an appropriate price balance with this dish since cucumbers are shockingly cheap now that summer has blown in.  For all you back home readers, a kilo of cucumbers goes for about 4 UAH in these parts…that’s $0.50.

Today, I used a recipe from savoringtimeinthekitchen for the Avocado Cucumber Soup but needed to make something up as a vegetarian replacement for the spicy shrimp.  As luck would have it, an eggplant sat waiting for me in my tiny fridge.  The sauce she uses in her blog for the shrimp looked really good, so I took the main foundation and altered it a bit to my spice addicted taste buds.  The spices were pretty experimental, so I’m going to give you a couple disclaimers before I launch into the ingredients and process;

1. I am a spice nut.  If you’re hesitant on spices, use discretionary judgement.
2. This is a dish to be savored, not devoured.  It’s a really complex mix of tastes.  You can simplify of course, or just slow down and enjoy.
3. The soup is chilled.  Some people have a problem with cold soups so I felt it only fair to give a heads up.

Avocado Cucumber Soup (6+ servings)

• 2 ripe avocados
• 3 small cucumbers (or 1 large)
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1-1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice* (I altered from lime)
• 8 oz stock (I used a bullion cube)
• some dashes of Tabasco
• salt

This is the easy part.  Put ingredients in a pot or bowl together. Mix with a hand mixer, or masher as is available.  When smooth, check that spice is to your liking, and chill.  *Note from my batch: watch the red wine vinegar – I wrote a lower amount here than I used because the taste quickly got overpowering.

Spicy Eggplant (~3 servings)

• 1/2 medium eggplant
• 5-6 peeled cloves garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sunflower seed oil
• 1 1/2-2 cups water

Slice garlic cloves of a medium thickness – I wanted them to be edible chunks rather than simply seasoning.  Slice eggplant into thin circles.  In a plastic container, coat each slice with a light rubbing of salt and place in fridge for a couple hours.  The salt will draw the excess water out and allow the eggplant to cook quickly and easily.  After sitting, rinse thoroughly with water – the slices might look slightly desiccated, but that’s alright as they’ll absorb the sauce and spices.

Warm butter and oil in a pan so that the butter melts rather than boils (on a low heat).  Add the spices and let simmer for 1-2 minutes.  You’ll smell when it’s coming together.  Add tomato paste and, mixing, let cook for another 1-2 minutes.  Add 1 1/2 cups water.  Allow the water to heat until it boils slightly, then add the honey so it will dissolve easily.  Add eggplant slices and garlic.  Cover, turn up heat slightly, and allow to boil until the garlic is soft and the eggplant is clearly cooked all the way through (this time depends on the thickness of the slices).

Remove chilled soup from fridge, put in cup or bowl and garnish with eggplant and garlic.  The heavy spices in the eggplant-garlic mixture should give a nice balance to the cool crisp taste of the soup.  Hope everyone enjoys it!

Quick Banana Bread Ice Cream

Summer in Ukraine means one thing…no, I’m not thinking of mesh.  So, ok, two things the other being ice cream and lots of it.  Everyone’s eating ice cream and I practically trip over ice cream vendors on the street.  Unfortunately, year-round living in Ukraine tends to mean consuming much more sugar than I’m comfortable with, so I’m hesitant to eat yet more sugar in the season of rainbow bazaar options.  Luckily, I stumbled upon a recipe from thekitchn.com that sounded like the answer – single ingredient banana ice cream.  Bananas have enough fat that, frozen and then blended, they hold together like a soft-serve ice cream.  Yum.

Since the recipe was already simple enough, I decided to alter it a bit into a refreshing summer version of a beloved childhood memory – banana bread.  No offense to all of your dads and moms, but my dad makes the best banana bread on the face of this Earth.  Sometimes missing home, I can almost smell the rich, spice-thick smell that hung in our kitchen, the heat from the open, cooling oven a nice contrast to the cold tile floor on my feet.

I doubt I need further hype, so without further ado…

Quick Banana Bread Ice Cream (1 serving):

• 1 banana
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• granola* (optional)

Peel and chop the banana into pieces.  Place in a bowl or on a plate in the freezer.  When the banana is frozen, place in a larger container and start to blend with your new hand mixer that of course you ran out and bought to make Pumpkin Ginger Puree with.  Don’t blend it all the way yet.  Mix until about half of the banana is a thick (slightly sticky) cream.  Sprinkle in some cinnamon and nutmeg to your taste – I love spice, so I was heavy-handed.  Continue to mix until all of the banana is smooth.

Scoop into your bowl, sprinkle with some granola and thoroughly enjoy.

Pumpkin Ginger Purée

Ukraine has fostered a deep love for pumpkin on my part.  I never considered cooking with whole pumpkin and, as most Americans, largely considered it something to be used in sweet dishes, or for that matter only pumpkin pie.  On a whim, I tried sautéing pumpkin and was delighted with the light, buttery squash taste.  Though green when it comes to cooking with pumpkin, the idea for a pumpkin-ginger combination surfaced a while ago out of the blue.  While I don’t think I’ve found the perfect sweet-savory combination yet, here’s the recipe as it is as of now:

Pumpkin Ginger Purée

• 1 small summer pumpkin (гарбуз) (0.666 kg ~18 UAH)
• fresh ginger (імбир) (0.104 kg ~3.50 UAH)
• 2 small onions
• 1 tbsp butter
• 4 c water
• 1 bullion cube (vegetarians can use a mushroom one, or vegetable broth as I did)
• white pepper
• cumin
• salt

Cut the pumpkin into 1/2 inch slices, then cut these into 2-4 pieces depending on the slice size.  The bottom of these summer pumpkins are almost entirely seed which may be rougher than their fall counterpart to scoop out.  There are many ways to cook down pumpkin, but I prefer steaming.  You need a small boiling pot about half full of water and a steaming pot (or a thick pasta strainer will do wonders if you’re in a bind).  Just make sure if you’re using the strainer that the bottom doesn’t dip into the boiling water.  Load in pumpkin and check back occasionally on firmness; you want it to essentially fall away from the rind, but retain some firmness because you’re going to sauté it more afterwards.

While the pumpkin is softening, peel and grate 1 knob of the ginger (which should be yellow or white, not pink like at bad sushi restaurants).  Please note that it is very fibrous and contains a lot of liquid; just do the best with grating that you can.

Dice two small onions and sauté them in a large saucepan with the butter.  You may need to add more, use your judgement.  You need a large saucepan because you’ll be adding several cups of broth later.  In a separate pot, prepare the broth or bullion.  Add the ginger, some white pepper and salt to the sautéing onion.  I used 3 dngs of white pepper (this is an old measurement used by my grandmother and mother that I insist on using – a “doing” as in the sound it would make if you hit a metal spice tin with your finger).  Salt lightly – you can always add more later.

When the pumpkin is soft, you should be able to easily pull the pulp away from the rind, possibly using a fork or spoon.   After the onion and ginger have simmered for a while, add about 4 cups of broth the the saucepan with the ginger, onion and white pepper.  Add the pumpkin pulp to the mixture, continue cooking for a few minutes.  Add cumin to taste to balance the sweet and savory (when isn’t cumin the right choice?!) and add more salt according to your preference.

This is where a small Peace Corps splurge comes in – using your handy dandy hand mixer (ручний блендер ~80 UAH) purée until all the chunks of pumpkin are gone, being careful not to spray the delicious mixture all over your walls.  If you 

don’t want to spend that much Living Allowance, you can get approximately the same effect with a masher and a lot of elbow grease. *I am a big advocate of buying the hand mixer, as soups are the ideal food for Ukrainian winters.  You’ll definitely get your money’s worth.  I’m already in love with mine as you can see, and will be passing it to some lucky volunteer when my service ends.*  

Top with a dollop of kefir or sour cream and a dash of cumin for effect and extra flavor.

“but i don’t have the words in my head”

Being a vegetarian in Ukraine is something that starts as a challenge and slowly degenerates into tedium, both in cooking and in representing a lifestyle largely missing from this country.  In training, the constant stomach-clenching fear of offending your host family keeps your vegetarian identity edgy and interesting.  You’re asked, told, begged, ordered, cajoled into tasting, eating, sampling, nibbling this meat and that.  Each situation presents a new obstacle course of cultural values, family traditions, and hospitality to be negotiated with perspicacious mental agility, a situation which largely distracts you from the fact that your diet is, most likely, already dull (if you’ve seen/read it, think restaurant scene from Everything Is Illuminated involving the potato).  As a lacto-ovo vegetarian (one that eats eggs and dairy products) my host family finally surrendered to force-feeding me more eggs than I thought a normal person could possibly eat.  Varieties in my diet, thus, largely came from different forms in which eggs could be cooked.  They now have a certain recipe dubbed “Linnea’s eggs” because they were the kind I was most happy to see come dinner (or lunch or breakfast) time.

After an understandable adjustment period in which a volunteer figures out where everything can be found or purchased for the lowest price at their respective sites, cooking experimentation begins.  For me, this wasn’t until spring rolled around, a significant four months into my time at site.  Figuring out the stores and bazaar wasn’t the only factor; as TEFL volunteers, we arrive at site for the beginning of a long, hard winter…alone.  Missing Christmas away from home for the first time in my life, I largely escaped to the world of fiction and drank hot chocolate for sustenance.  Tempest past, I finally emerged and stumbled, amazed into increasingly fresh and tempting produce at the bazaar.  The variety of squash, rainbow of fruit, and bouquets of fresh herbs called out creative recipe ideas of their own accord as I tiptoed along boards covering the floor of puddles.  Long into September, I was still canning and preserving apple butter and pear jam while trying to resist the raspberry jam made earlier in the summer.  Playing around with tastes and textures, I whipped up stuffed eggplant, deep-dish spiced apple pie for an American Thanksgiving abroad.  Then fall started frosting over, warning of the winter to come.  My schedule wore me down, the setting sun at 4:30 in the afternoon pissed me off, and another approaching Christmas far from the comforts of home was already invidiously wreaking its havoc on my mood.  I stopped cooking.  I quit baking.  I bought hot chocolate.

This curve was paralleled by my experience singularly representing vegetarianism in my community.  Food and communal eating plays an important role in Ukrainian culture that is readily apparent.  No different from my experience living with a Ukrainian host family, explanations were expected when I balked at the passed cold-cut tray.  The first day in my new town had prepared me for the continuation of this dialogue.  My attempt at a gracious decline of a fish dinner had been met with the terse response, “so you’re refusing my gift outright.”  It was not a question and my verbal footwork had clearly been found lacking.

I gradually tired of sitting with my hands in my lap at parties centered around an array of largely meat-based dishes, smiling like an idiot, answering questions about my lifestyle that were posed with condescension.  The fatigue I experience after a night of explaining my particular type of vegetarianism, (as well as providing a brief overview of the spectrum of vegetarian lifestyles) repeating myself for those who hadn’t bothered to listen initially, being misrepresented by those with more proficient Ukrainian, correcting the misrepresentations for the once again deaf ears was one of body, mind, confidence, and enthusiasm.  Whereas before I was proud to share a piece of my culture and lifestyle, I found myself frequently begging lack of appetite rather than peak interest in which dishes I was choosing to partake.  It strained my appreciation of the culture I had been given the chance to experience.  Health conscious but thoroughly castigated, polite apologies were my solution to the dinner party problem.   The latent problem was the ambivalence created in respect to my vegetarian diet.  Attention to my diet was shirked, as my only focus became a steadfast loyalty to the lifestyle.

Recipes turned to routine and I ate almost the same three meals each day simply because eating is necessary.  Something akin to joy left when I stopped cooking to cook, to experiment, to share and to create.  Diffidence turned me into a person who happened to not eat meat rather than a vegetarian.  I lost sight of the fact that being vegetarian is a sign of my culture, finding nothing extraordinary about it a luxury of my culture.  As culture, it should be respected even if it cannot be understood.  My patience with Ukrainian culture was worn thin as a result of the constant disparagement of my own.  Then a couple weeks ago an unexpected thing happened.  Cherries reappeared in the bazaar, and I was ready to cook again.

In the midst of my period of dietary monotony, I volunteered to take the role of head of Healthy Lifestyle Working Group’s newly created Recipe Committee.  Part of me clearly wanted to be twirling around the kitchen again.  Though in its nascence, the committee had some immediate goals; to acquaint volunteers throughout the country with the ins and outs of Ukrainian gastronomy (as in what is possible, not necessarily cultural) by season and, as the name suggests, dispersing recipes via blogs and monthly newsletters.  So here is a declaration to all of my readers, no longer shall I neglect my cooking blog.  I cannot promise consistency as Peace Corps summers are filled with travels and summer camps, but for every week I am at site I will share a minimum of two recipes I have tasted, tweaked, or thought up.  Perhaps you’ll find something you want to try, perhaps a vegetarian (or carnivorous!) PCV in another Eastern European country will be encouraged or inspired to let their culinary creativity flow or simply to cook after a long, hard day at work.  No matter their influence, the recipes will be here…and I’ll be cooking up something new.

Check back for my first recipe coming soon.

*Music: “Rewind” -Diane Birch

candied citrus & the vegetable garden

Welcome to tracking my recipes; it should be interesting and challenging attempting to be a vegetarian in Ukraine but hopefully I won’t end up posting 25 different ways to cook a potato.  This past weekend, as you may know from my Peace Corps posts, I was watching my pets and enjoying some alone time while my parents took my brother back to the College of William & Mary in Virginia for his sophomore year.  Feeling the pressures of impending change, I relieved the negative feelings the only way I know how: I cooked…and baked.

Sifting through a drawer in my parents’ kitchen among napkins and cooking mitts, I was greeted by Martha Stewart’s smiling face.  My domestic urge was not strong enough to entice me into running to the store for anything, so I was limited to very few cups of flour, a lemon, a couple small apples, and the entire contents of our spice cabinet.  The most beloved recipe fell to the ground as I flipped distractedly through the apple and citrus sections of Martha’s dessert book, separated from the binding due to years of practice and appreciation.  My dad’s writing altered the lemon curd tart recipe to our family’s particular taste-buds, but the recipe didn’t hold its usual sway.  Why in the face of a life altering change didn’t I opt for a well-worn recipe?  I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that our house was stocked with exactly one solitary lemon, but I’m glad I got a wild hair and decided I was going to make candied citrus.  (“Citrus” rather than “lemon” because I had the good fortune to find a lime buried under a pile on our cluttered counter.)

The recipe was easy enough: 2 cups granulated sugar, 1 cup water.  Bring to a rolling boil until the sticky bubbles become clear.  Cut citrus into thin slices.  Turn heat down to a simmer, place in citrus slices so they don’t overlap, and let them simmer for 20-40 minutes.

Now, I don’t like knives, so you should know that “thin slices” is a major accomplishment for me.  As far as I’m concerned there is serious finger danger in this part of any recipe.

Having made carmel by hand before, I’m a pro with the molten sugar and this step passed without a hitch.

The recipe mentioned adding in 2 tbsp of a liquor to the cooking fruit and sugar, but I didn’t like anything they suggested.  But I did enjoy the idea of adding a flavor to these colorful treats.  We happened to have a tiny bottle of Chambord in the house; thinking on my feet, I decided that the creamy quality of this raspberry and vanilla tasting liquor would add balance to the acid of the lemon and lime.

Erring on the side of caution, I only dared to add 1 tbsp.  Even before I got to taste the result, the pink color it added to the sugar was pleasing enough!

25 minutes later, I carefully removed the slices, placing them gingerly on wax paper to cool.  Now, you may or may not be able to tell, but I snuck two apple slices in there wondering what the result would be.  I cannot stress enough that you DO want to try apple slices.  They don’t entirely harden like the citrus slices, but the combination of candied apple peel and the rest that had soaked up the sugar and Chambord was heavenly.

Three simple steps and I had a treat that tastes as good as it looks: