I used to get this salad in the kindergarten as a kid. It’s simple , yet nutritious. It’s considered that raw cabbage helps fight cancer cells, therefore you should eat it more often.

Preparation Time: 5 minutes.

Serves 2 pesprinkle the salad. ople.

White cabbage shredded- 2 cups

Carrot shredded – 1/3 cup

Onion choppped- 1/4 cup

Vinegar – 1 tablespoon

Sugar -1 teaspoon

Salt – 2 pinches

Dill – 1/4 cup

Olive il – 2 tablespoons.

Shred the cabbage and the carrot, add the chopped onion. Squeeze the cabbage well and add sugar , salt and vinegar. Chop the dill and  add it to teh salad. Sprinkle with olive oil, mix well and serve.

Tastes amazingly delicious with any dish or if you are dieting it’s a great snack.

Enjoy!

Love,

Ukrainian borscht is normally cooked with meat )pork or beef) and is eaten with sour cream of course.

I think that sometimes it comes out way too rich and fatty.

I love to lighten the food and avoid cholesterol and its derivatives by all means.

Vegan borscht is a great analogue of Ukrainian vegan borscht that I published some time ago on my blog.

This soup doesn’t include anything meaty or fried. It’s a great comfort recipe for every day.

Cooking time: 55 minutes 

Preparation time: 25 minutes

Serves: 6 people 

Ingredients:

Pinto beans – 1 cup

Cabbage shredded – 2  cups

Beet shredded – 1 pcs

Carrot shredded – 1 pcs

Potatoes peeled – 6 pcs

Tomato juice – 2 cups

Red bell pepper – 1 pcs

Onion – 1 pcs

Dill – 1/2 cup

Garlic – 2 cloves

Salt and pepper – per your taste

Preparation:

Pre-soak the pinto beans before going to work or going to bed. So that when you are ready to cook the they will be pre-soaked and ready for boiling. Set the pre-soaked beans to boil, pick  4 qt sauce pan for this soup . Meanwhile: peel the beets, potato and carrot. Clean the red bell pepper out of seeds.

Shred the beets and carrots and add it to the boiling beans, then add to the sauce pan the peeled potatoes cut in cubes.

Chop the onion and red bell pepper and add it to the boiling veggies. Pour 2-3 cups of tomato juice into the soup.  Season according to your taste. I normally add 2-3 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

While the veggies are boiling shred the cabbage and add it to the saucepan. Stir the boiling soup well.

The soup should be cooking for 25-30 minutes by now.

Let it boil for more 20-25 minutes and when all the veggies ready, finely chop the garlic and dill.

When serving the soup sprinkle the garlic and dill  on top of the soup. It will be just delicious.

This soup is served with special biscuits , but ordinary buttermilk biscuits will also work fine.

I served it with Uzbek flatbread. It’s very delicious and you can find it in pretty much any Asian or Russian store.

You can sprinkle the flatbread with garlic and dill as well.

Serve the soup warm and enjoy the flavors!

I pictured this recipe on my handmade tablecloth. The embroidery is unique  and made by my Grandmother for my 30-th birthday. I just love the colors of it and it’s very traditional pattern for Ukraine. Hope you  love it same as I do and enjoy the vegan Ukrainian borscht!

Love,

Simple, fast and delicious recipe.

You can get this dinner on the table in 20 minutes. What cam be better for a working woman? Only the dinner in 5 minutes, which would most probably be the oats:-)

Cooking Time : 15 minutes 

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Serves : 3 people

This teriyaki sauce may be used with pork, chicken or beef.

For teriyaki sauce: 

soy sauce- 1/2 cup

flour – 1 teaspoon

honey – 1 teaspoon

garlic powder – 1/3 teaspoon

ginger – 1 teaspoon

vinegar – 1 teaspoon

Meat:

pork- 1 lb finely chopped

In 1/3 cup of soy sauce mix honey, ginger powder and garlic powder, stir well, add vinegar and flour stir well.

Chop the pork in 1 in X 0.5 in chunks. pour the sauce in the wok pan, add pork and simmer on low heat until the sauce thickens. Don’t let the sauce become too thick, add water if necessary. I didn’t add the salt here as the soy sauce is saulty, but if you need salt, you definitely should add it here.

Broccoli:

1 lb of broccoli

Cut the broccoli flowers off,wash. put on a frying pan, add 1/2 cup of water, add salt and steam for 2 minutes.

Rice:

1 cup of white rice

Wash and roil rice until cooked (15-20 minutes).

Rinse with cold water, add 1 tablespoon of butter , 1 teaspoon of salt and stir well.

Your dinner is ready, serve warm and enjoy!

Love,

This week is filled with balloons, cakes and presents for me so,this weeks top is dedicated to… cakes, of course.

I love cakes, the inspire  and change my mood for better. These three cakes are cooked by three lovely bloggers: Baked by Rachel, I’ll Have What She is Having, The Country Cook 

Mini Lemon-Lime Cheesecakes

I always loved cheesecakes. These mini lemon-lime cheesecakes from Baked by     Rachel are a great idea for a party. With little effort you can enjoy these bite size cheesecakes in no time.

I love the lemon lime flavor here because it’s very refreshing these warm spring days.

Thank you Rachel for sharing these delicious cheesecake party treats with us.

Read full recipe

Chocolate Marzipan Cake

Chocolate Marzipan Cake is a tempting treat from I’ll Have What She is Having, that are just the right spring treat for me. Marzipans are associated in my mind with beautiful Prague and spring and cherry blossoms. I love going to Prague in spring and this recipe is a piece of Europe in your house.

Besides Marzipan this cake includes chocolate and fruit, which make this recipe light and just the way I like cake to be.

You just have to try the recipe this spring, I sure will!

Read full recipe

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

This is the cake that I had for my Birthday party, well. almost.

This is my all time favorite! I can eat it 365 days of the year and Brandie from The Country Cook   makes it simple for everyone of us.It is so simple even your kids can cook it (seriously:-)

Read full recipe

Visit these blogs for more great recipes, I promise you’ll find lots of amazingly delicious cooking ideas for every day!

Hope you have a great sunny weekend.

This salad is rich and creamy and very nutritional. Cauliflower is one of my favorite ingredients to work with.

It’s nutritional benefits are as follows: low in fat, low in carbs but high in dietary fiber, folate, water, and vitamin C. Almost perfect vegetable!

I love it when dieting or when fasting (which occurs more often than dieting:)

This recipe doesn’t require a lot of time, but  you have to be very careful when cutting the flowers of cauliflower, because they are very jumpy and  tend to “jump  out of your knife and onto the floor” (I am serious here:-)

I normally cut 1/4 of one average cauliflower for a salad for two, so make your calculations.

For the salad you will need:

Cauliflower – 1/4 of it

White onion – 1/2 pcs.

Tomatoes- 2 pcs.

Salt, pepper – according to your taste, I put 1/2 teaspoon of each

Mayo – 2 tbsp.

Preparation time: 10 minutes.

Serves: 2 people

Preparation:

Carefully cut the flowers of cauliflower. Chop the onion and slice the tomato. Cutting the caulflower will take most of your time. Try to cut is to medium sized chunks approx 0.5 X 0.5 in

Season you veggies, add  2 tablespoons of mayo and stir well.

Serve! Goes well with mashed potato, rice and even noodles.

Scrumptious recipe, simple as that.

Asparagus is considered to be a luxurious plant as it not harvested for at least three years after being planted. Plus asparagus needs a lot of space to grow.Main nutritional benefits of asparagus is that it has  No Fat, contains No Cholesterol and is low in Sodium, what can be better?

Asparagus has number of health benefits, such as: anti-cancer benefits, heart health and anti-inflammatory benefits etc etc.

Asparagus is easy and fast to cook, so when I came onto discounted asparagus at my produce store I was excited.

I wanted to experiment and cook it without animal-based ingredients, as I usually use butter for my orange sauce.

If you don’t know how to trim the asparagus, it’s really as simple as snap!

Please see the video tutorial here.

Ingredients:

Asparagus- 1 lb

Orange- 2 pcs

Salt- 1 tablespoon

Black pepper- 1 teaspoon

sesame seeds- 1/3 cup

Olive oil – 1/3 cup

Water- 3-4 qt.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time 5 minutes

Ready in 15 minutes

Serves: 2-3 people

Cooking Level: Easy

Preparation:

Wash and trim the asparagus as shown in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhVEBsOWJDA&feature=colike

Set a 3-4 qt. saucepan with water to boil. Put your asparagus in boiling water and set the heat on medium. Boil for 3-5 min.Add 1 tablespoon of salt just 1 minute before taking the asparagus out.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce:

Take the juice of two oranges, pour it into preheated frying pan, simmer for 2- minutes, then add olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Put the sprouts of prepared asparagus on plate(s) and pour the sauce on it, cover with sesame seeds.Enjoy!

As you see I didn’t add no mustard and butter , which is normally added in the orange sauce. I wanted to make this recipe as light as possible. It’s good with brown rice or white rice.

The dish is light and is good for those working on their weight loss or for people with heart conditions.

Preparation time: 2 min

Cooking time 2 min.

I love pancakes or biscuits with cottage cheese., they have different texture and amazing taste, and… I convince myself that I get more calcium by cooking pancakes with cottage cheese. So, when I decided add to my pancakes with cottage cheese blueberries I figured that the dish would be even more beneficial, as blueberries are beneficial for the nervous system and for brain health, and there is exciting new evidence that blueberries can improve your memory. Besides all this these pancakes are very, very delicious, that’s why you can see only one pancake in this picture – it was the last one that I managed to take a picture of… before it vanished

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Eating time: 5 minutes:-)

Serves: 3 people

Servings: 6 thick pancakes

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of blueberries

1/2 cup of buttermilk

1/2 cup of cottage cheese

2/3 cup of flour

3 tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or vanilla sugar)

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

6 teaspoons of  corn or vegetable oil.

Preparation:

Very simple and all time favorite recipe the ingredients are simple and can be found at any kitchen. Cooking time is 20 minutes.

Preparation time is 10 minutes.

Eating time is 15 minutes:-)

Ingredients:

1 bell pepper

1 small carrot

1 onion

1/2 lb of minced meat (pork/beef/chicken)

1/4 cup of dill (optional)

salt, pepper,oregano

Preparation:

Boil the macaroni.

While macaroni are boiling; chop the onion and pepper and grate the carrot.

Mix the veggies with meat in a frying pan, add some cooking oil, season with pepper salt and oregano,fry until cooked.

When macaroni is ready drain and mix with meat. Serve warm with the tomato sauce.

I love this salad for it’s simplicity and richness. Only 4 main ingredients, what can be better? It’s very dressy as well. You can serve it for the Easter holiday table feast or just cook it for a quiet family dinner.
Four main ingredients are:

Chicken breast- 2 (boiled)

Hard boiled eggs- 3

Canned corn (rinsed) – 2/3 of the can

Boiled potatoes – 3 medium

Plus add to your salad some herbs:

Dill finely chopped – 1/4 of a cup

Lemon basil leaves – 1/4 cup

Salt, pepper and mayo.

Serves 4 people.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes.

Preparation:

Boil in 2 different sauce pans: eggs and potatoes in one and chicken breast in another. It will take about 20 minutes to cook the potatoes and breast. The eggs will be ready earlier of course, so you can just take them out cool them down in cold water and shell them.

When the potatoes are ready let them cool down and then peel the cooked potatoes.

Rinse the corn, cut chicken, peeled potatoes and eggs in cubes. Add salt ,pepper and herbs. Mix everything with mayo.

The salad is good with rice and with meats, it’s good on sandwiches as well.

If you have a number of salads on your table for the Easter celebration this  may be one of them:-)

Enjoy!