YanaKhan's cook - book :)

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YanaKhan
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YanaKhan's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

Well, I cook a lot. And I mean really :) I have a kid and having home made food I consider best for everybody, so I do cook at least 5 times a week. I am starting this thread as I would like to share my recipes with you. So, first of all, I don't like cooking for hours and rarely have the patience to do so, therefore I'm going to post easy to make, fast recipes. I hope you're going to enjoy them.
So here we go, I'm going to start with an easy to make sweet pasta in the oven.
For 8 portions you need:



400 gr pasta
200 gr white or feta cheese
4 eggs
1 tea cup sugar
1/2 l milk
100 gr butter
1 vanilla powder
Making: Boil the pasta in water with a teaspoon of salt in it. Then drain them from the remaining water. Put them in a baking dish.
Scramble the eggs and cheese in a bowl and add the sugar, vanilla and the milk. Stir well and pour over the pasta. Cut the butter in small pieces, add it to the pasta and put in the oven for about 20 - 30 minutes at 180 degrees.
It should look like that:
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

I promised, I'm gonna put a lot of recipes here, so here's what I'm making today. It's called "Stephanie meat loaf".
You need:
1 kg minced meat
bread crumbs (here you can buy ready bread crumbs in packages, but if you can't where you live, you need about 3 slices of white bread)
5 eggs
1/3 jar of pickles
2 carrots
50 gr peas from a can
1 onion
1 table spoon vegetable oil
30 gr cheddar or similar cheese
Making:
knead the minced meat with 1 egg, the bread crumbs, the parsley and the onion, which needs to be cut in very small cubes and spread the "dough" on baking foil.
Boil the other 4 eggs and the carrots. Then place them on the "dough" along with the pickles and peas. At this point what you should have is this: http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/9876/5oka.jpg
This meat loaf on the picture doesn't have peas on it, if you don't like peas, you can remove them from the recipe too. Or if you like, you can add other veggies you like.
So what you do next is you roll the paper and make sure you seal the edges of the loaf to get this done: Image
Then put in a baking dish which you have greased with the oil and bake for about 20 minutes at 180 - 200 degrees. Then put the grated cheese on top and put back in the oven for another 3 to 5 minutes.
The final result should be something like this: Image
Serve with tomatoes, french fries, salad or whatever you like on the side. Here it's usually served with potato mash. Enjoy.
P.S. I can also add the amount of calories my recipes have for a portion if you are interested.
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Echo_of_shadows
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by Echo_of_shadows »

Thanks for sharing. These look tastey. :)
I love to cook and I'm always looking for new recipes to try. I experiment with food a lot, but it's hard sometimes because my boyfriend is such a picky eater. I did tell him after dinner today that if he left me, he'd probably end up skinny and starved. :P
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. My kid is a picky eater, so is my husband. So I have to be very very creative in the kitchen :D I hope your boyfriend will enjoy some food one day :wink2: I also hope you will enjoy my food. I find the Balkan kitchen very tasty (well, I grew up with it, so it's no wonder) and many other people have said it is, so you can try and make some for your boyfriend. If you tell me what kind of food he enjoys, I could post some recipes for you to surprise him. After all, man's love comes from the stomach ;)
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by Echo_of_shadows »

I would love to get my boyfriend to eat more vegetables. I can sneak onions into his food if I use the freeze dried minced ones. I once got him to eat mushrooms because I chopped them up really small. :P I bought a box of pierogies made with sweet potatoes instead of the usual white potatoes, just to try them, and I might as well have told him they came from the moon. :roll:
I'm starting to think that maybe I've become a bit of a snob because I don't really like eating food prepared by anyone but me. But I guess that might have been inevitable since I've been the sole cook for a while now. halfsm
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

Okay - dockey :) Trying to make someone eat veggies is a hard one. Have never had this problem as both my picky eaters love vegetables and fruits of all kind. But I'll try and give you a recipe that might just work.
So here it is - stuffed peppers
You need:
10 large peppers, red or green
1 tea cup rice
1 onion
1 carrot
500 gr. minced meat
vegetable oil
black pepper
salt
basil
savory
Making: Cut the onion and the carrot in small cubes and stew with a little bit of oil and water. Add the meat, diluted with some water and stew for about 15 minutes. Add the rice and the spices along with 2 tea cups of water and stew until the rice is ready. You need to stir, so the rice won't stuck. Clean the peppers of the stems and stuff the ready rice filling in them. Put in a baking dish, add 200 ml of water around and cover with baking foil. Bake in the oven for about 30 - 40 minutes. You can serve with yogurt (here in Bulgaria, we eat nearly everything with yogurt :) ) And I really hope this will make him eat some veggies. If he doesn't, I will post some deserts with many many fruits :D
The result should look something like this:
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Pinkpower_80
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by Pinkpower_80 »

Thank you for sharing! I'm a novice in the kitchen but I've got to where I enjoy making new things. I can't stand for very long because of health issues so that impedes a lot of my cooking ideas. My family usually likes what I make & are pretty willing to try new things so that's a plus.
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by Echo_of_shadows »

I love stuffed peppers! :D
I've never thought of serving them with yogurt, but it sounds worth a try. I can definitely get him to eat yogurt. I like the idea of eating yogurt with nearly everything. Bulgaria sounds like my kind of place. :)
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

To be honest with you, I don't really like cooking for a long time. First because I usually have like million thing to do when I get back home (I know it's not a good idea to bring your work home, but sometimes it's inevitable) and I usually get home about 7 pm, so I really need to make something fast, so the hubby and kid eat before 9 pm. So most of my recipes are quick to make.
Next on my list is "fried bread".
You need:
Flour - 2 table spoons
2 eggs
100 ml milk
8 - 10 slices of white bread
oil

Making: Mix the flour, eggs and milk in a bowl and stir well. Dip a slice of bread in the mix and fry in the oil.
You can serve with jam or cheese, or you can eat them just like that. You can also add vanilla or cinnamon in the mix before frying. The result should look like this:
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

Echo_of_shadows wrote:I love stuffed peppers! :D
I've never thought of serving them with yogurt, but it sounds worth a try. I can definitely get him to eat yogurt. I like the idea of eating yogurt with nearly everything. Bulgaria sounds like my kind of place. :)
Bulgaria is famous with it's yogurt. As long as I know, here there is a certain bacteria which makes it unique. We make a drink out of it which is simply yogurt and water mixed 1:1, add some salt in it and drink. It helps when you had too much to drink or when you have low blood pressure. One of my favorite deserts is yogurt with some fruit (whatever you like) and some sugar. You blend that and voila, you have something delicious and actually healthy.
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by Firebird »

OOOooo I love fry bread! ate some at the Pow Wow, anyway.. I was wondering on the Stephanie loaf,... are the pickles sweet? or dill?
This is really a great thread Yana, all of us witches love to eat !and I think most of us do not want to spend hours getting it to the table,...
Very cool! Thanks :D
Firebird
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

firebirdflys wrote:OOOooo I love fry bread! ate some at the Pow Wow, anyway.. I was wondering on the Stephanie loaf,... are the pickles sweet? or dill?
This is really a great thread Elcida, all of us witches love to eat !and I think most of us do not want to spend hours getting it to the table,...
Very cool! Thanks :D
Firebird
Thank you :) I really hope you enjoy my recipes. They are actually not really mine, as here everyone knows how to make them, but I've come across many many people who absolutely love Balkan kitchen once they taste it.
As for the Stephanie loaf, the pickles are whatever kind you like better. You can modify the recipe - you can add whatever veggies you like in it. I have made it with peppers, sweet corn, peas, pickles and eggs.
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

The most difficult question in my house is "what to cook" :) So whenever I can't think of anything else, here's what I make.
Partal sarma

You need:
Cabbage - about 1 kg
meat (I usually use minced meat, but you can use chicken, pork or no meat at all) - 250 gr.
Rice - 1 tea cup
2 tablespoons oil
1 onion
red pepper - 15 gr
black pepper
salt
cumin - one pinch
water

Making: Cut the cabbage in small cubes or as in a salad. Put in a large pot and fill with water and boil. The water shouldn't be seen as the cabbage is watery vegetable and need very little water to boil. Cut the onion and put in a frying pan with the oil. Fry for about 2 minutes and add the meat. Fry for another 2 - 3 minutes and stir all the time. Then add the rice. Fry for another minute and add 3 teacups of water. Leave it to boil until the rice is ready. Add the black pepper and salt and stir. Just a tip - if you are using pork, you can make it very soft and nice by adding just 3 tablespoons white wine or beer right after you start frying it (you can do that whenever you cook pork).
So by the time your rice is ready, the cabbage should have started boiling. Add the red pepper and the cumin and stir firmly. Then add the boiled rice to the cabbage and leave it to boil for about 20 minutes. After you are done, put in a large baking dish and put in the oven for about 20 minutes at 200 degrees. And you have a great tasty dinner.
Note - I don't really know how much time you need to boil the cabbage, it should be soft, but not mashy before you put it in the baking dish. And I couldn't find a picture to post this time.
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

Hey, everyone again. So, I haven't written lately, cause I had a lot going on and today I'm going to post two recipes. They are quite similar, but one is salty pastry and the other - sweet one. So here they are:

Banitsa with white cheese.
Ingredients

1 pack of filo dough (hopefully you can buy some, but if you can't, tell me, so I can post the recipe for it too)
3 eggs
1/2 kg white cheese (or feta cheese)
3 tablespoons butter (or 1 coffee cup sunflower oil)
400 gr yoghurt

Making:

Mix the crumbled cheese, yogurt and eggs together. Don't over mix - cheese should be lumpy. Melt the butter in a cup. Butter the bottom of a baking dish. Lay 5-6 sheets of filo dough, one after another (not together) as you spread some butter in between - use a brush for this. Spread some of the cheese mixture on top, lay another 3-4 sheets, spreading butter in between. Repeat until all mixture is used. Lay the last 3-4 sheets on the top with no butter in between. Spread the rest of the butter on top. Cut in portion sized squares and bake in the oven until golden (about 30 minutes on 200 degrees). After you take it out of the oven, sprinkle some soda water on top and cover with baking foil for about 20 minutes.
This is a traditional pastry and on New year's eve, we are supposed to make one and add some charms in it. I usually put small sheets with different things written on them (like "love", "travel" etc.) and also a coin which if you get, you are supposed to carry with you and not spend the whole year as it is a money charm and attracts money. Some people do that on Christmas eve, but I don't consider Christmas anything special (please don't judge, I haven't had anything going on on Christmas as a child, we used to celebrate New year as religion was somewhat forbidden in my country for 45 years ), so I keep doing in on New year's eve :)

The second recipe is for "tikvenik". Tikva = pumpkin, so this is some sort of pumpkin pie, but not quite :)

You need:
1 pack of filo dough
1 kg pumpkin (this one is really good when you make the Helloween lanterns)
1 coffee cup sunflower oil
1 and a half teacups sugar.
2 teacups grind walnuts

Making:
Stew the grated pumpkin with the sugar, 1 tablespoon of oil and some water until it becomes soft (I don't really grate it, just cut it in small cubes as I am too lazy to :) ). Wait until it cools a bit and start making banitsa, but with pumpkin mash filling. Don't forget to sprinkle the walnuts on top of every layer of pumpkin mash.
You can also add some cinnamon to the pumpkin mash if you like it.
This is they way these both should look:
images.jpg
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So, enjoy :)
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YanaKhan
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Re: Elcida's cook - book :)

Post by YanaKhan »

Ok, here's one of my favorite ones. Easy to make and extremely delicious :)
Kyufteta (some sort of burgers).

You need:
1 kg minced meat
1 onion
bread crumbs (Usually about 200 gr, but if you are using normal bread to make crumbs, you need as much as the "dough" won't be sticky )
1 pinch of cumin
1 onion
black pepper if you like it
sunflower oil

Making:

Mix the minced meat with the bread crumbs, the cumin and the black pepper. Cut the onion in small cubes and add to the "dough". Then take a piece the size of a tennis ball and squeeze it to make a burger. At this point you should have something like this:
images.jpg
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Do the same with the other "dough".
Put the oil in a frying pan and fry the burgers in it. The final result should be like this:
images2.jpg
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You can serve with any salad you like, potato mash or eat just like that. These are perfect for sandwiches are the most common thing in my house as they take like 1 hour from scratch to make :)
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