Apple "Charlotte"

In my Russian cuisine course, we watched a video several times: how to make the classic Russian apple cake Sharlotka.

I had no choice. I had to make one. 

The reviews from the family are good. 

Ingredients (modified slightly from the video recipe, of course):
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1 c. sugar
1-2 T. vegetable oil
1 scant cup flour
3-4 apples, peeled and cut into slices
1 t. cinnamon
optional: 1 scant cup walnuts and/or dried cranberries
powdered sugar

Beat the eggs starting at a low speed and increasing to high. Add vanilla and sugar and beat until foam forms. Add some vegetable oil. Sift flour into bowl and stir by hand or on low with the mixer. Add the walnuts to batter if you like.

Line a baking pan (I used a 10" springform pan) with parchment or other paper. Cover the bottom with batter. Add a layer of apples and sprinkle with cinnamon if you like. Add another layer of batter, then apples, then batter. (At any point you can add the cranberries -- I happened to be out last night.)

Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean. Turn onto a plate or platter. Sift a little powdered sugar on the top.

Yum. Eat while still warm.

I first learned to make sharlotka at a Russian dacha outside of Moscow, and we baked it in an iron skillet. In that case I think you might go ahead and grease the skillet with a little vegetable oil. 

Mushroom Kulebiaka -- the vegetarian option

When I coerced my students into making a kulebiaka a couple of weeks ago for our Russian cuisine day, they bought salmon and cod ... and chicken stock. Which technically means I couldn't eat any -- I have avoided all meat products for years, though I have been eating fish since getting pregnant (now 14 years ago... seems like just yesterday!).

But I also wanted to have something to do during the cooking session, and though I could have taken the opportunity to horn in on their recipes and give advice (cut those cucumbers into smaller pieces! chop finely!), I instead chose to make a dish of my own.

Grabbing another Darra Goldstein classic off the shelf, I launched into a mushroom version of the pie. The added advantage was that I made the dough at home, which enabled me to use my cuisinart, and I doubled the recipe, as I always do.

One of my Fulbright chums asked for the recipe, so here it is:

Mushroom Kulebiaka (Darra uses the French title, Coulibiac)

Dough:
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking powder
1/2 c. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 lb. cream cheese

Filling:
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 T. unsalted butter or olive oil
1 lb. mixed mushrooms, trimmed and finely chopped
1/3 c. raw pearled barley
2/3 c. water
pinch plus 1 t. salt
freshly ground black pepper
3 T. sour cream
2 T. snipped fresh dill

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

Place the flour, salt and baking powder into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the butter and cream cheese and process, using the pulsing motion, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Turn out onto a bowl and with your hands gently press the mixture until the dough sticks together and forms a ball. Do not overmix or the pastry will be tough. Wrap the dough in wax paper and chill for at least an hour before using. (I made it the night before.)

In a large skillet, saute the onion in 2 T. of butter or oil until it begins to turn golden, 8-10 minutes. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter or oil to the skillet along with the mushrooms and cook the mixture for 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan bring the barley, water, and a pinch of salt to boil. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. The grains will still be chewy. Stir the cooked barley into the mushroom mixture. Add the remaining 1 t. salt and the pepper, sour cream, and dill. (I forgot the sour cream in the heat of the moment, but it was still tasty!)

Preheat the over to 400 F.

To assemble the pie, roll out the dough on a well-floured surface to a 10 x 14 inch rectangle. Trim the edges, saving the scraps to make decorative shapes for the top of the pie if desired. (My students made fun of me, but I thought this was pretty.)

Mound the mushroom mixture lengthwise down the center of the dough. Bring the two long sides of the dough up to meet at the center over the filling, then fold up the short sides to enclose it completely. Seal the edges with cold water.

Gently place the finished pie seam side down on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush all over with the beaten egg yolk and decorate the top, if desired. Bake for 20 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and nicely browned. Allow to sit for 10 or 15 minutes before slicing.

Serves 6 to 8.

My students with the unbaked mushroom kulebiakas.
Wish I'd taken a picture when the pies came out of the oven!

Banana Bread ... with Chocolate Chips (why not?)

An excellent question: is this my mother's banana bread recipe, or my grandmother's?

I think the former. My grandmother made banana bread not by the pailful, but by the can-ful. She quite literally recycled tin cans by pouring banana bread dough into them, baking them (I assume upright?), and then popping the bread out onto a plate, ridges and all.

But my mother's banana bread is the very best ever. Just the right consistency, just the right flavors, a little less sugar when I make it, but still a sweet treat, especially straight out of the oven. I know that when I wrote out my own recipe card, I did so with my three (now fairly beaten up) bread pans in mind -- not full-size, but not tiny. I should measure them -- 7" x 3"? I wrote out my card for 1 1/2 x the original recipe, which must have made two loaves. Mine makes three.

Just the right size, because if they were full-size bread pans, we would simply eat more of it at one sitting.

Banana Bread
3/4 c. vegetable oil
1 - 1 1/2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 c. mashed bananas
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. salt
3 c. flour
1/2 c. nuts (optional -- I never use them)

Grease the pans and bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Now, you might say "yum, what could be better?"

My friend Dana shocked me the first time she showed up at a daycare event with banana bread with chocolate chips in it. But of course, everything is better with chocolate chips. So now I say "why not?"

Double yum.

Bran Muffins by the Pailful

Amazing.

I went over to my friend's house this evening to trade parenting teenager books (necessary reading these days), and she had bran muffins to offer me.

But I myself baked bran muffins this afternoon, using my grandmother's recipe. The recipe card has been in my possession for about 20 years, and this was the first time I made them. Apparently Jen has a recipe from another friend for "refrigerator bran muffins" -- essentially, I think, the same thing.

There are several things I love about this recipe card. Firstly, it has my grandmother's handwriting in the corner: Rose B. It has a suggestion: "Try 6 teaspoons bkg soda," and a rejection of that suggestion (the note is crossed out).

It also features my grandmother's voice, her commanding presence: "Always serve warm." Hard to read -- clearly she made a typing error and then went over it, with her typewriter. Who types out recipe cards anymore? (Who even writes them out, except me?) The best part of the recipe, of course, is the quantity: by the pailful. "1/2 batch makes 45 to 50 muffins medium size." Really? Who needs that many muffins?!!

There was a time when my grandmother made bran muffins (and banana bread, and zucchini bread, and applesauce, and bread-and-butter pickles...) for a crowd. A large crowd. Sometimes for the entire congregation of the church, for coffee hour. Sometimes to sell at a bake sale -- usually to make money for the church, or for "cancer dressing" (what did that mean?), or for meals on wheels, or for the Countryside Center for the Handicapped, her favorite charity.

But she didn't just bake for charity. She actually sold recipe cards for charity. I suppose in her spare time she would get out her typewriter and copy her recipes onto cards -- bran muffins one evening, Rice Krispie Treats another evening, even CCH bars. I don't even know what CCH bars were -- but I do have a recipe card, copied out by my Aunt Jane, and someday I will try it.

Does anyone use rick rack anymore? 

My grandmother kept a basket on the floor in her living room full of these recipe cards, and whenever people came over (usually to work on some project in the basement that would generate something -- wastepaper baskets made out of ice cream containers from the local 31 Flavors, or flower vases made from old dishwashing liquid containers, which they would decorate with wallpaper samples, rick rack, or lace), she would offer them the chance to buy her best recipes. 10 cents a card.

To me as a child, this was all normal. Now, I think maybe not so much. But I loved that my grandmother was a do-gooder. People lived in fear of her phone calls. "This is Rose. Have you collected your money for penny-a-meal this month? I'll be over to get it this afternoon." "This is Rose. What are you bringing to the church potluck?" "This is Rose. What shift are you taking at the ice cream social on Sunday afternoon?"

How else do you think she got all those ice cream containers to turn into wastepaper baskets?!

My son now listens to my stories of my gramma and finds her to be a scary old lady. She was always formidable, and I was super-proud of that, but of course she lived a long time, and in the end she was truly rather a grouch. (I tell him that I too will be a grouch at the end -- some would argue I am frequently one now!) But regardless of the tough years (when her back started to act up, and she couldn't walk very well, and people stopped coming to see her because there weren't any projects going on), there were lots and lots of good years, when she was at the epicenter of a volunteer network that really got things done.

I am not as impressive on the phone as my grandmother was, but I like to think that I do my part in volunteering, donating, keeping the world rotating, and spreading love and good cheer. I may not sell any bran muffins by the pailful, but I'll at least be sharing them with neighbors. In fact, I sent my son's friend off with some for his family this afternoon.

As the recipe card says, "Can be stored in refrig. up to 4 weeks." I have some dough left over -- now I just need to decide whom to bake for!

Love you, gramma.

New Year's Scrambled Egg Pizza

So for new year's we made homemade pizzas, but some of our guests didn't make it, so I had extra pizza dough and other ingredients left over.

This morning (or, to be honest, this noon) when I dragged my 13-year-old son out of bed on his last day of winter break, I made him a scrambled egg pizza.

I remember when I was in Russia, pizza had recently arrived. Eating out had mostly been either cafeteria-style or banquets in the Soviet Union, and informal cafes where you might get a meal were new, especially exotic ones. I went to one pizzeria on ul. Rubinsteina in 1987 and I recall that we stood in line on the sidewalk for quite a while to get in. But then in 1988-89 there was a pizzeria not far from my institute on ul. Volgina, so we went there fairly frequently, especially with out-of-town guests.

We marveled at the crazy ingredients -- ham, for example, or chicken and hard-boiled eggs. As Americans, we thought we knew the "right" way to make pizza. But we were wrong.

New Year's Scrambled Egg Pizza

Drizzle a pizza crust with olive oil and bake at 550 for 8 or so minutes.

In the meantime, slice some small potatoes thinly and cover with water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Fry in butter in a cast iron pan (it's good to add iron to your diet!) for 4-5 minutes a side. Add half a diced onion.

The left side has the chicken for the boy, and the right side is vegetarian...

Take the pizza out of the oven and let it cool a little. Spread some sour cream on it, then some shredded cheese (I had about 3/4 c. of mozzarella). Sprinkle with dried basil, salt and pepper. Add a layer of fried potatoes and onions, then more basil.

Scramble four eggs in butter and add to the pizza. Salt and pepper to taste. At this point I also added chicken to one half of the pizza -- left over from the salad I had out at a Mexican restaurant last night and packed to go home to add protein to meals for my growing boy...

I had a fresh mozzarella ball, so I sliced half of it to add to the top of the pizza, then heated in the oven until the cheese melted, about 5 minutes.

Yum.

Reviews: definitely delicious. I am hoping to go cross-country skiing in the brilliant sunshine this afternoon, so I will burn off some of those cheese and sour cream calories, but I am happily sated, and so is the boy.

My photography will improve, I hope. My son tried to express sadness that I will have to make my New Year's Eve cheesecake again, since we ate it without taking a picture. Now that was delicious.

Three-Cheese Dill Buttermilk Biscuits

One of my challenges for 2014 is to fiddle with recipes. Always one to be a bit too literal, I'm hoping to experiment, combine, alter, and otherwise "doctor" my recipes and document those efforts here.

Yesterday I prepared my new year's dessert, an attempt to recreate a version of the pomegranate seed/cream cheesy/chocolate tart we loved at the Ministerstwo Kawy in Warsaw. I wanted to make it gluten-free to accommodate a friend with whom I'll spend new year's eve. So I made a version of my flourless chocolate cake and baked it for about 15 minutes, then spread a cheesecake filling on top. Reviews tomorrow if it comes out, and I'll concoct a recipe for it.

In the meantime, for breakfast this morning to try to lure my son (who just got the spacers for his braces and has a sore mouth) into eating, I made Three-Cheese Dill Buttermilk Biscuits. The goal for the past few days is to use up what is in the house (after the orgy of spending that inevitably occurs at the holiday season, it's nice not to go to the store!) while still making yummy meals. When modifying my recipe (for Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits, from Epicurious) I made about half, since there are only three of us at home this morning.

Ingredients:
about 3/4 cup regular flour
about 1/3 cup cornmeal
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 stick of cold butter
grated cheese -- whatever is available (I used cheddar, romano and muenster, about 1 cup in total)
chopped dried dill (because I didn't have any scallions)
2/3 c. well-shaken buttermilk

Drop in spoonfuls onto buttered baking pan and bake at 450 degrees for about 12 minutes. Makes 8 medium biscuits.

Reviews:

Not bad. A little salty, maybe because I only had salted butter. Next time I would leave out the salt, or use unsalted butter.

I now note that I could have used half that quantity of butter -- the original recipe called for 1/2 a stick, not 1/2 a cup as I thought. I can't really taste the dill, so I guess I should have added more.

With fruit and yoghurt, this could be a delicious breakfast, or for dinner with chili.