Piroshki and other bits

So I made my second from scratch Russian meal in Samara, Piroshki. What are they? Well from the name, maybe you can guess they are in a species with pierogies from Poland. Instead of pasta surrounding the filling, you use bread. My Russian teacher, Katya has generously loaned me her Russian cookbook full of pics to get me in the mood to cook. Katya translated 3 for me to start. I'll probably make the other two when we return from Kazan next week, but I couldn't wait that long for the piroshki. I've only heard of two restaurants in Samara worth eating at for authentic Russian fare and even at these places, it's better to get certain foods because others aren't worth leaving your kitchen to eat. One such food is pelmeni, a drool inducing dumpling and I have a feeling another might be piroshki. I suppose if you look hard enough you could buy yourself one, but I've had only one opportunity so far to see them in plain sight in public. Of course that opportunity I took with delicious results! So about the filling, meats are good, but potato and such is fine. I may tray a dessert fruit filling in the future...

Let me tell you about the ones I made. The recipe called for ground beef and sauteed onions, but I tweaked it a bit, adding yellow peppers and some garlic seasoning. They were nice, but these days meat can just taste like dead animal to me. I also made some with ham and Gouda, plus the onion and pepper. After making 7, I thought I would just freeze the rest of the dough and beef and I added the rest of the cheese to one last one. My presentation needs work, but here are the results.



My mom said she wants the recipe, so look for a recipe blog in the near future. I might just make a complete new site where I add in new recipes now and then. Of course it won't be as frequent as this one, but maybe it will encourage you to try your hand at Russian cuisine?



Extra things. Seeing Saddam and the whole sentencing thing is almost sad, not only because it is more like an afterthought to the chaotic and failing war we've been suckered into, but I hate thinking about anyone having some sort of right to another's life even if he was a big jerk. The whole thing just smells of a diversion to me. Anything to get off the wrong track. Let's see if life changes for the better in a few days...


Another bit. I found this pic today. It makes me super excited about the prospects of going to Turkey which may happen sooner than later since Jeremy's schedule is basically full for the rest of the year. I better write my Baba Blue and good friend Ahmet...There's a bakery nearby that has like a dozen different types of baklava, but I will only look until Christmas. A holiday is good excuse to have butter and sugar soaked pastry, right?