Here's another Russian recipe for turkey, courtesy of the turkey lobby, eatturkey.com. This one looks really, really good. I mean really good. Any recipe that includes turkey, bacon, sour cream and 3 kinds of cheese cannot have anything wrong with it. I don't know how traditional this is, but whatever. Eatturkey considers it Russian, so I'm there.

This recipe is meant for a restaurant, so I'm not quite sure how many servings this is. I'm thinking 2? Since it's got 9 oz. of meat and 6 of cheese? Maybe 3 servings? Dunno. Again, if you're any kind of cook at all just use it as a general guideline. Also - note that it calls... more

Having served Thanksgiving dinner to a couple of young boys and my mom and step-dad, who happen to be vegetarian, needless to say I have mucho turkey left over at my house.

We love turkey, so it's not really a problem. Cold turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, reheated turkey and stuffing and cranberry...yum.

But in case you're already bored with all that, I've found a recipe that incorporates traditional Russian cuisine with leftover turkey: Turkey Stroganoff, courtesy of our friends at eatturkey.com. They must be some kind of turkey lobbying group, not that the turkeys are thanking them.

Anyhoo, here's... more

No, silly, not Thanksgiving or even Christmas, but....(drum roll please!) my 38th birthday.

I'm actually feeling a little depressed about it. Don't know why. It's not a milestone or anything. Maybe it's that to me 38 sounds pretty old.

Anyway, in a feeble attempt to bring this blog back into the realm of Russian adoption I thought I'd tell you what Russian people do on their birthdays. As far as I can tell they typically have a party and then they eat birthday pie.

Hmm. As someone whose birthday occurs on Thanksgiving day every 7 years... more

If you're like me, you have a couple of pumpkins sitting around your house right about now. We haven't carved ours yet, so I might actually be able to use some of the pumpkin after Tuesday. Usually we carve them so far ahead of time that they get all rotten and nasty by the time the 31st rolls around.

I searched for Russian pumpkin recipes and found several, so I think that pumpkin is probably an ingredient the Russians use often.

Here's a fantastic Russian recipe that uses pumpkin. I may actually have to serve this at Thanksgiving:

Russian Stuffed Pumpkin (from... more

I have a job interview coming up soon. If I should be so lucky as to be offered the job my life is going to change immensely. I will be out of the house for most of my day for the first time in about 7 1/2 years.

Yikes.

It won't be a bad thing. I'm actually looking forward to it! I hope I get the job - it's a really cool job and a wonderful opportunity. But change is unsettling and I don't want me working to affect my family, especially my kids, too, too much.

Right now I cook dinner every night for my family. My husband is a crummy cook (sorry, dear), and so he... more

My in-laws are here. They are lovely people but they have a few quirks around food. One, they bring large quantities of food with them when they come. Seriously. They stop at the grocery store on the way to my house and buy everything they need (like milk and fruit and cereal)...never mind the fact that since I have houseguests I've already stocked up.

Actually, there's a simple solution to that problem: I don't buy anything for them any more.

The other quirk is my father-in-law's food preferences. He only likes to eat about 12 things and all of... more

Do you ever eat breakfast for supper? It's one of the favorite dinners at my house. Typically we eat eggs or I make a quiche and we have fruit and sauteed mushrooms and I make biscuits for the kids and husband. But if I wanted to mix it up a little I could make waffles or pancakes...or even blini if I wanted to give a little cultural flair to the meal.

I could also try my hand at Olady. Olady are another kind of Russian pancake - thicker and smaller than blini and with a base of kefir or sour cream. Here is a recipe for the "other Russian pancake" from the Russian Foods website:

Ingredients:

4 c... more

I don't know about the rest of you but here in central NC it is ridiculously hot. So hot. Too hot even to swim. We are just staying inside in the nice air conditioning. Dog days of summer are coming up quick.

I found some cooler-temperature Russian recipes to try on days like these. In weather like this I don't like to cook. Freezing stuff or chopping stuff I can handle.

I found a bunch of recipes for cold borscht and another cold soup called okroshka, which involves boiled eggs, potatoes, and beef, all cold, as well as a recipe for holodets,... more

I am on a diet. No desserts for me for the rest of my life...

But that doesn't stop me thinking about them - most specifically ice cream and cake frosting (although not an actual dessert it goes on a dessert, so maybe it counts?)

According to the wonderful website Ruscuisine, "Long time ago Russian desserts were called "zaedkami", that means "after-eaters", for they were served after the principal meal. Native Russian sweet dishes are kissel, compote, levashen (fruit pastila), sweet pirohi, baked apples and... more

черный хлеб Black bread The classic food of life for Russian people. Here's what Ruscuisine says about black bread:

Bread has always been considered as the wealth of the Rus. Give us this day our daily bread… Slavic people mainly grew wheat, barley, oats, and millet. Rye bread became Russia's real "daily bread", even though it had come to Russia from outside.

How did the first bread taste? Sour bread from leaven dough was particularly... more