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

This is one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast! because it is fast and nutritinal.

You will need :

1 egg

2-3 slices of cheese

2-3 slices of ham or Canadian bacon

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper

1 bagel

2-3 slices of tomato

pickles (optional)

1 teaspoon of cooking oil

Beat up an egg and pur into the frying pan. Fry until golden brown on both sides (3 minutes). when fried on both sides put the ham and cheese slices on top and let the cheese melt a little.

Take the bagel put the egg with ham and cheese on one side , cover it with tomato and pickles and top it with another side of bagel.

ENJOY!

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!

This recipe is inspired by classic deviled eggs plus spiced up by the deviled eggs seen on Food network.

It’s my combination of delicious deviled eggs that conquered the hearts of my family members.

I would be happy to see what your favorite deviled eggs recipes are.

You can submit the recipes by creating your profile ans choosing the  button Recipes to submit your recipe.

I will be happy to try your  deviled eggs recipes.

The preparation of the dish is usual.

You will need:

Hard boil the eggs. Then, take out the egg yolks, mash them and then add the shrimps (small, boiled in salt water), yellow mustard and mayo.

Mix everything very well, add pepper and salt.

Fill in your egg whites.

Voila!

Your delicious deviled eggs are ready. Decorate with basil and put in the fridge.

You can try these deviled eggs with Dijon mustard, I had yellow mustard at the time when I invented these and they were just fine.

***Tip from Helen** Deviled eggs should be served cold. So after preparing, put them in the fridge for an hour or two. The deviled eggs should be eaten within 24h.

This is a very simple recipe that was cooked for decades in mountainous part of Ukraine.

It’s cheap, fast to cook and very simple dish, but surprisingly it’s amazingly delicious. Some dishes should be complicated, some are simple. Honestly, even your kids can cook it. Just boil potato for them in advance and… by the time you are home – they have themselves a nice dinner.

So, for the dish as you already know you will need:

Potatoes (I take 3-4 per person)

Any meat (turkey, ham, bacon)

Onion (optional) . I do put onion in it gives different flavor to the dish, If you don’t like the onion – then don’t put it.

Tomato (optional) it should be firm, so that you could slice it))

Herbs (parsley, dill, basil)

Mayo (6-12 teaspoons)

Step 1. Boil potatoes until soft and cooked. You can boil them in the evening so, that the next day you could cook this dish after work in 10 minutes. (I don’t peel potatoes, just wash them very carefully. Potato skin is very useful and has a lot of vitamins)

Step 2.  Cut potatoes in halves lengthwise. Then put you potato halves on the microwaveable dish (or baking dish), season: salt-pepper-oregano, cover each potato half with thin layer of mayo. Then put onion, tomato, meat and cover with cheese. (On each half you should put a slice of onion, a slice of tomato, a slice meat (ham, bacon etc.), a slice of cheese.

*** Tip from Helen: The slices of onion, tomato should be very-very thin. I use deli (turkey, bacon, ham) and cheese that were sliced at the store, the slices are thin. You can use any cheese you like except for American cheese ***

Step 3. When you covered all the potato halves put it to bake (I put it in microwave for 5-10 minutes).

Serve warm, with homemade tomato sauce or without.

These potatoes will taste good even when cold!

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!

 I was searching the internet for some time to find if this dish is prepared on North American continent, the closes I got was a recipe from allrecipes.com by Jana, but based on name I can say that the author is either from Europe of has roots from European countries. Please help me, if you know how this dish is cooked in North America. The potato baked with zucchini (squash), red bell pepper, onion, carrot, garlic and some meat is popular in Eastern Europe. (It’s cooked in Poland and Hungary, in Ukraine and Czech Republic) In each region it has different twist though. Even in my family it’s cooked differently. I like to experiment. I cook it with meatballs and sometimes with meat (beef, pork or chicken); I cook it even with bacon.

The beauty of this recipe that it’s impossible to spoil, seriously, if you aren’t the perfect cook or if you are just short of time (and guests are about to arrive) this dish will just save you.

For the recipe you’ll need:

6 big potatoes

1 red bell pepper

1 white onion

1 mid-sized zucchini

2 mid-sized carrots

2 cloves of garlic

½ cup of dill

1/3 cup of parsley (optional)

3 tablespoons of sour cream or mayo

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of pepper

¾ cup of sliced bacon

¾ cup of shredded cheese

1 cup of water

2 tablespoons of cooking oil.

Now: potatoes, red bell pepper, onion and carrots are the base of this recipe. Everything else – is a mix and match. You can substitute zucchini with squash or eggplant. You can put any meat or sausage in the pots, you can even cook it without any meat. It’s a win-win recipe.

Servings: 6 small pots. One pot for one person (It is one full plate of this summer deliciousness per each person)

Preparation time: 15 minutes.

Cooking time: 45 min -1 h (depending on your oven)

Preparation:

Peel potato, carrot, garlic and onion. Take the seeds out of pepper.

Wash all the veggies: carrot, onion, zucchini, potatoes, garlic and dill (parsley).

Shred the carrot, chop the onion and pepper, cut in mid-sized pieces potato, zucchini, chop the herbs

Set ½ of onion and carrot aside

Mix everything else: onion and potato, zucchini and carrot, herbs. Add salt and pepper.

Slice the bacon. (If you put the other meat: pork, chicken, beef- prepare it).

Take your baking pots: put bacon (or other meat on the bottom), then add your veggies.

Remember you set aside the onion and some carrot. Take it and braise it for 5 minutes in a frying pan. In 5 minutes add some sour cream / or mayo/ and add 1 cup of water, pinch of salt and pepper, braise for 2-3 min.

Pour the sauce you just cooked into the baking pots. (If you want to add the meatballs instead of bacon or any other meat put them on top of the veggies)

Preheat the oven at 375F. Set your pots to bake for 30-45 minutes. (Occasionally check the potato if it’s ready and check if there’s enough water in your pots).

15 minutes before taking the pots out- finely chop the garlic and put a little bit of garlic in each pot. When you turn the oven off add the cheese on top of your baked dish and close the lids let the cheese melt.

Be careful when taking the pots out as they are hot.

I serve the dish directly in the pots, but give the guests a spoon and a plate, if the guest wishes to eat from the plat and not the pot.

***Tip from Helen*** You can cook this dish in a baking dish, but I like separate small baking pots more, they are just more authentic and fun!

Enjoy your summer delicious baked veggies!

This salad recipe is good with crab meat (as well as imitated crab meat) and shrimps (or you can use both), corn adds sweetness to the salad, rice works as the base of this salad. You can cook it without rice if you wish, but I prefer it with rice, and herbs (dill and parsley, or just dill) are important.

This recipe appeared in my menu, when we lived in Russian Far East near China. I love to cook this salad on a day to day basis or for a dinner party. (Just serve the salad in puff pastry baskets).

The ingredients for this salad are simple and may be found in every pantry.

1 cup of rice

3/4 cup of canned corn

1 cup of chopped crab meat (or imitated crab meat flakes made of fish)

1 carrot

2 eggs

1/2 white onion

1/2 cup of dill

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of black pepper

4 tablespoons of mayo

Wash and boil carrot, in separate pot wash and boil rice, in separate pot boil eggs (until hard boiled). Rice has to be boiled but not too soft and over cooked. Carrot has to be cooked, but not overcooked.

When the rice is cooked, drain it and rinse with cold water.

Eggs: when cooked (in 6-8 min) put in cold water to cool off.

Carrot drain and let it cool down.

Peel and finely chop the onion (1/2 of it)

Drain and rinse the corn (3/4 of a cup)

Peel and finely chop the carrot.

When rice cooled off, mix it with carrot,onion and corn.

Shell and cut  the eggs, wash and chop the dill.

Crab meat: now here you can use: the real crab meat, the imitated crab meat flakes or even shrimps. (I was using imitated crab meat) cut the crab meat in mid-sized pieces and add to your salad.

Add salt, pepper to your salad and mix all the ingredients well.

Add mayonnaise before serving. Enjoy!

This is a recipe of salad from 1927, very extraordinary in implementation I would say.

You all remember this newspaper menu of the 1927 family that I posted on my Facebook page: 

I decided to experiment with the filling , as we don’t really eat celery in my family.

The result was astonishing, my fiancee, who doesn’t eat cucumbers ate this salad and really liked it!

I took one cucumber and  pared it  as it was said in the newspaper. Then I invented my fillings:

For cucumber 1:

Finely chopped cabbage

Honey Smoked Turkey

Pickled cornichons

Lemon basil

Dill

Cucumber 2:

Cherry tomatoes

Red apple

Red bell pepper (boiled for 2-3 min)

Dill

Lemon basil

Salad for Cucumber 1:

Finely chop the cabbage, cut in thin strips the turkey, slice pickled cornichons and finely chop the dill (use half for the other salad). Add the mayo, mix well. Put the salad into the cucumber 1 and decorate with the lemon basil.

Salad for Cucumber 2

Put the red bell pepper in boiling water for 2-3 min, then drain and cool it off.

Cut in the apple in quarters (I used ¼ of the apple, take out the apple seeds, slice the apple, then cut in cubes)

Clean the seeds of the red bell pepper, (I used the half of it) slice, and then cut the pepper in cubes.

Cut the cherry tomatoes in halves. Mix: cherry tomatoes, apples, pepper, dill and add mayo.

Put the salad in cucumber 2 and decorate with lemon basil.

Enjoy!