Great soup, if you have turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving or if you just wish to have a rich, hearty soup for lunch. Any part of turkey will be good (I cooked mine from turkey neck and some leftovers). It takes 30-40 minutes to cook and the taste is amazing. The key to great taste are tomatoes and herbs.

Preparation time: 15 minutes.

Cooking time: 30 minutes.

Servings: 6

Ingredients:

2/3 lb of Turkey meat

1 white onion

1.5 cup of boiled pinto beans (boil separately or canned rinsed very well)

½ can of diced tomatoes

2-3 potatoes

½ of red bell pepper

½ teaspoon of cumin

½ teaspoons of basil

½ teaspoon of oregano

Pinch of black pepper

Pinch of salt.

1 carrot (optional)

3 quarts (approx.) of water;

1/3 cup dill

Prepare the vegetables: peel onion, carrot and potato. Wash everything carefully.

Shred the carrot, cut the potato in mid-sized chunks, and finely chop the onion. Set half of onion aside.

Wash and chop the red bell pepper.

Take a 4 quart pan, put the turkey meat and cover it with water (approximately 3 quarts), set on medium heat and wait until it starts boiling. Take away the scum if any. Add salt, pepper, bell pepper, carrot, potato and onion. Boil for 15-20 minutes, then, add the tomatoes(canned diced tomatoes) and spices: cumin, basil, oregano. (if you have fresh herbs basil ,oregano etc. – add them at the end). Let the soup boil for 10-15 more minutes and then, just before serving add the finely chopped dill.

Serve warm, with toasted bread or garlic bread.

 These three soups are the best comfort meal for the lunch in fall: it enegrizes, keeps you warm and boosts your taste buds. You can add lots of flavors to these soups by experimenting with herbs: basil, dill, parsley and others.

Vegetarian Pea Soup 

Vegetarian pea soup is good those days when you want a rich-creamy soup without any meat component in it. It’s a comfort food perfect right for the days when it’s chilly and drizzly outside. This recipe has simple ingredients and doesn’t require to be a skillful chef to prepare it.

All in all perfect autumn soup for the family. Read more

Pumpkin crème-soup with shrimp, cream cheese and basil.

It’s autumn and it means that it’s time for a great pumpkin soup with shrimp that I just LOVE cooking.

It doesn’t require a lot of effort but it comes out perfectly smooth, bringing in the autumn flavors and colors into your kitchen.

I tasted this soup long time ago in Europe, brought it into my kitchen and my family just loves it. Hope, you will too. Read more

 Zucchini crème-soup

This is a very simple crème soup. It takes 40 minutes to cook and your family will enjoy this meal. It’s a great summer or fall soup for your to enjoy! Simple and flavorful! It takes little effort to cook and it’s a really light  dish. It gives you energy and makes you feel good. Read more

Vegetarian pea soup is good those days when you want a rich-creamy soup without any meat component in it. It’s a comfort food perfect right for the days when it’s chilly and drizzly outside. This recipe has simple ingredients and doesn’t require to be a skillful chef to prepare it.

All in all perfect autumn soup for the family. 

Cooking time: 1 h

Preparation time: 15 min

Inactive time: 30 min 

1 cup of peas

3-4 qt. of water

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black fresh ground pepper

3 tablespoons of sour cream

1 tablespoon of cooking oil (vegetable better)

1 medium white onion

1 carrot

3 medium potatoes

1 red bell pepper

2 bay leaves (or 1 teaspoon of crushed bay leaves)

Pre-soak 1 cup of peas for 30 minutes. (Use hot water and twice bigger bowl, in order for you to keep the beans in the bowl not outside of it:-).

Peel and wash the veggies: onion, carrot, potatoes and pepper. Shred the carrot and finely chop the onion and pepper. Cut potato in medium sized pieces. Put the half of the chopped onion aside.

Set a 3 quart saucepan with water and add the veggies plus couple of bay leaves, add salt and black pepper.

Simmer for 10 minutes and then add the peas. Boil the soup for 30-40 minutes at the low heat.

Set a frying pan and add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil and the chopped onion. Fry on medium heat, until golden brown and then add 3 tablespoons of sour cream or cooking cream. Braise for 5 minutes and then pour the sauce into the soup and stir very well.

Simmer the soup for another 20 minutes or until the peas dissolve in the soup, truning it into the rich creme-soup.

Serve this soup warm, you may add some sour cream in each plate separately.

I fry the fine italian bread cut in medium squares with salt and pepperand add it to the soup when eating.

You can choose to do the same if you’d like.

I hope you love the colors of this dish: it’s so autumn and bright! My family members call this dish “weird braised cabbage”:-)

To me the red cabbage tastes absolutely different, than the ordinary green one. It’s more flavorful, tender…. mmm, it’s more autumn!

For this recipe you will need:

1 lb of red cabbage (shredded)

1 onion

1/2  red bell pepper (or yellow one for the color)

1 chili pepper (small)

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

1 pinch of salt

Serves 4 people.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Shred the cabbage carefully, peel, wash and chop the onion, wash and chop the red bell pepper.

Chop the chili separately.(you will throw it in 3 minutes before serving).

Season the cabbage and squeeze it , so that it would be more juicy!

***Tip from Helen*** You can add 1/4 of shredded carrot if you would like to. I sometimes do.***

Start braising the cabbage with onions, then add peppers after 10 minutes of braising and 3 minutes before taking your cabbage off the stove throw in the chili.

*** Tip from Helen*** be careful with chili , wash carefully your hands and don’t touch your eyes when just worked with chili. Wash the knife and your cutting desk very well.

If you need during the cooking add some salt as well, I don’t as I don’t like too much salt in my food.

It is mushroom season, and I wrote a lot about (button) crimini mushrooms lately.

Button mushrooms have an excellent amount of selenium, zinc and manganese; all three are great antioxidant minerals. Also daily intake of crimini mushrooms for 1-2 months can reduce levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and TGs. And if you are not convinced yet then you gotta know that One cup of button mushrooms provides a good, very good, or excellent source of 18 different vitamins, minerals & antioxidant phytonutrients.

So this recipe should be fast and delicious for you, same as nutritional and helpful.

For this recipe you will need:

1 lb button mushrooms

1 small chili pepper

1 medium carrot

½ red bell pepper

½ white onion

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

1 pinch of salt

Wash the button mushrooms (clean them if you normally do it).

Peel the white onion, wash the red bell pepper and chili, take away the seeds out of both of them.

Finely chop the onion, red bell pepper and chili. Peel the carrot, wash and shred it.

Now: preheat the frying pan, add the cooking oil, throw in the mushrooms, season and braise at the medium heat for 5 minutes covered with lead.

Add the chili pepper and red bell pepper with onion and fry for additional 5 minutes at the medium heat without the lead.

Serve on a leave of romaine lettuce separately or with a brown rice.

Enjoy!

***Tip from Helen*** I normally add little or no salt to my dishes, so add additional salt according to your taste if you need to.***

This is a traditional recipe for the parties and holidays in Slavic countries. No one knows where it came to former Soviet countries from,(we were a huge country with closed borders for decades), but this was the main salad of every celebration in almost every family for decades.

I cook this salad very rarely and mainly in autumn and winter, as I consider this salad too conservative and even boring to cook it very often. I always experiment with the ingredients as it’s always good to have a different  taste of the same well known dish.

Serves 4.

Cooking time 35 minutes.

Preparation time 15 minutes.

For the salad you will need:

2-3 medium potatoes boiled

1-2 eggs hard boiled

1 medium carrot boiled

7-8 cornichons

2-3 tablespoons of pickled peppers (optional)

3-4 sausages or a cup of chopped ham or chicken breast

1/4 white onion

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of black pepper

2-3 tablespoons of canned peas

3 tablespoons of mayo (light)

Step 1: wash and boil the potato and carrot. Boil for 20 minutes of until cooked i.e. soft. Boil an egg until cooked.

Step 2: Peel a potato and a  carrot. Shell an egg(s)

Step 3 : Chop in small chunks potato, carrot, sausage (or any meat you plan to incorporate in a dish), egg. Finely chop the onion (1/4 of it)

Chop cornichons and pickled pepper, mix everything.

Step 4: Add salt,pepper and canned peas. Dress with mayo , you can add some dill you you like.

Serve cold.

***Tip from Helen*** The meat may also be substituted with mushrooms. canned in water or fried mushrooms, the taste will be different. Pickled peppers aren’t a must.For dressing you may combine mayo and sour cream or mayo and  ranch dressing. Don’t make the dressing too sour though.***

This pizza is a “sister” of my “delicious 30 minute pizza.” It’s cooked from scratch in 30-35 minutes and I just Love this combination of veggies. You can use your combination, but this one is good for me!

The dough is the same:

2.5 cups of sifted flour

1 cup of hot water

0.25 oz. dry yeast

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of sugar

Filling:

1 zucchini;

1/2 small can of mushrooms;

½ carrot (medium);

½ red bell pepper (medium);

¼ of onion (medium);

½ lb. cheese (shredded);

1 teaspoon of tomato sauce

1 teaspoon of mayo

 Pinch of salt, pepper and oregano.

Sift the flour; add sugar, salt and yeast. Pour in hot water and olive oil, Mix well.

Put in the oven for 10-15 minutes (the oven shouldn’t be turned on)

Put on the shelf below the dough a bowl with hot water.

Chop the veggies:  zucchini should be midsized, slice the mushrooms or use canned, finely chop the onion, red bell pepper and garlic. (Garlic should be very well chopped, almost in crumbs)

Take out your dough. Divide into two parts. From this amount of dough you can get 2 pizzas and 5-6 hot pockets with apples or anything you like. (Read about the hot pockets- in my next post!)

Roll out one part of the dough cut it to the size of your pizza form.

Put it in your pizza form and cover the dough with mayo and tomato sauce. Spread it evenly over the dough, season with salt, pepper and sprinkle oregano on top. Put the half of your shredded cheese on top of the tomato-mayo layer, and then add your veggies one by one.

Set to bake in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. (The oven should be preheated to 375F)

Before taking the pizza out cover the pie with another cheese layer.

Take out in 3-5 minutes.

Enjoy!

Normally when we cook pizza we think it should take an hour, I saw some recipes where cooking pizza took 4 hours. I bet it comes out as a delicous masterpiece, but… guess what… we normally don’t have 4 hours to fix the pizza. It’s good, when we have 30 minutes. That’s why I decided to share my recipe of fast pizza  with bacon, ham nad vegetables. The stuffing can be pretty much any… the dough here, that’s what important to know how to cook.

For the dough you will need:

2.5 cups of flour,

2 tablespoons of olive oil (vegetable will also be good),

0.25 oz dry yeast,

1 teaspoon of baking powder ,

1 cup of hot water,

1 teaspoon of salt and

1 teaspoon of sugar.

Mix flour, yeast, baking powder,salt & sugar.Add warm water and vegetable oil(olive oil). make a dough.

Put it in a stove for 5-10 min (put the bowl with hot water under the dough).

Cut everything you want for you stuffing :

I did ham, bacon, onion,red bell pepper,corn,tomato, 2 cheeses.

 Roll out the dough. Should be 1/4 inch thin. Add: tomato sauce+oregano+salt+black pepper->cheese (1 type) -. then all the ingredients. preheat the oven at 375F. Bake the pizza for 15 min.

Take it out add the second cheese -> bake for additional 5-7 min. DONE!

 This amount of dough should make you 3 pizzas. (or 1 pizza and a bread loaf).

Remember: you can’t store the dough in fridge so you have to use it in 1-2 days…

Enjoy!

Tomato and avocado salad:

This salad is my #1 summer salad. I can eat it every day 3 times a day.

It’s very fast and simple to cook and as we all know avocado is very good for your health, so I try to eat it as much as possible. Read more

Tomato, Onion and Lemon basil vinaigrette:

Fast salad for dinner or lunch.

Minimum ingredients and maximum delight:-)

Will taste best with mashed potato and meat, or rice and fish. Something not s picy and not sour. Read more

Simple fast salad with romaine, tomato and pickles 

This salad is sweet and sour combines rich sweetness of tomato and balances it with sour pickles. Add some herbs to give it more rich flavor and you can either mix it with mayo or olive oil, will be very delicious anyway. Read more

Cabbage and honey smoked turkey with cornichones

Stuffed cucumber salad with apples , red pepper and cherry tomatoes

These two salads may be cooked separately and not be stuffing for a cucumber.  Cabbage and honey smoked turkey with cornichones is a delicous combination and works great as the independent salad, or as the stuffing for the cucumber salald of 1927.

Stuffed cucumber salad with apples and red pepper may be an independent salad as well.  The key to this salad is steamed red pepper that enhances the flavor of apples and tomatoes. Add some meat to the salad (as ham, turkey) and it will be more nutritious. Read more