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.

Easy sweet and sour marinade for the turkey, chicken or pork chops. You will never buy marinade after you try this recipe. it’s so simple, flavorful and everything is under yourcontrol: the amount of herbs and garlic, the sweetness, the sourness…Enjoy!

1 cup of olive oil (good for one 12 lb hen turkey)

½ cup of fresh lemon  basil  leaves;

½ cup of fresh chives;

½ cup of parsley (optional)

2  oranges

2 lemons

2 cloves of garlic (large, optional)

1 tablespoon of dry oregano

1 tablespoon of  dry paprika

1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning (optional)

1 tablespoon of cumin

2 tablespoons of white wine and herbs mix (optional).

Mix olive oil and lemon and orange juice. Whisk in dry herbs and freshly chopped chives, lemon basil and parsley.

Let the marinade stand for 15-20 minutes.

Then marinade your turkey or chicken by at first rubbing in the mix and then pouring it on top of the bird and turning it in the marinade couple times.

Don’t forget to turn your bird every 4-5 hours, this way the meat will absorb more juices.

Don’t use not boiled marinade in other dishes as it may be dangerous.

If you want to incorporate the rest of the marinade in the other dishes boil it first.

This recipe is really amazing and fast to cook, considering the fact that button mushrooms contain 17 different vitamins, the benefits from this dish increase dramatically.

This dish has a long history in my house, it was cooked without cheese and grapes, but I decided to add the sweet twist to it. THe bitterness of cheese and buttin mushrooms combined with sweetness ofgrapes and lemon basil make the combination very rich and the taste pallette wider.

Recipe serves: 2  

Cooking time:20 minutes

Preparation time :10 minutes

For the recipe you will need:

8 big button mushrooms

1/2 lbs of minced pork meat

1/4 of white onion peeled and finely chopped

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of black pepper

8 leaves of lemon basil

grapes

2 pieces of provolone sliced cheese.

Step 1: Take the button mushrooms stalks away. Clean the mushroom from the inside peel the skin (optional), wash carefully.

Step 2: Chop the onion, mix with minced pork and seson very well.

Step 3: Take the washedbutton mushroom caps, put them near you, form the meatball out of the meat, put the meatball inside the button mushtoom cap.

Step4: Repeat with all 8 mushroom caps, set on a baking dish and set to bake at 350F for 17 minutes.

****Helen’s cooking tip*** Don’t forget to add water into the baking dish (1/2 cup)***

Step 5: While the mushrooms are baking take the cheese slices cut them in quarters and set aside. Take the seedless grapes,  cut it in slices and set aside. Wash the lemon basil leaves.

Step 6: In 17 minutes take your button mushrooms out of the oven, sover with cheese and set to bake for 3 more minutes.

Step 7: In 3 minutes, take the mushrooms out and decorate with sliced grapes and lemon basil.

Serve warm.

Enjoy!

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 very popular in European countries: in Austria it’s called schnitzel,  in the US it’s called a cutlet. We cook cutlets with beef and pork, even with fish and chicken. The main thing the fillet/ or loin has to be thin.

It’s a great dish for a weekday dinner, 5-10 minutes to cook if the meat is ready to work with (not frozen)

For the family of 4 you will need:

1 lb of thin sliced beef

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons of flour 

1 egg

 Wash  and tenderize the meat with meat tenderizer.

***Tip from Helen*** Cover the meat with the clear wrap and then use the smooth shaped side of the ”hammer” to tenderize the meat.***

Season the meat with salt and pepper, cut into medium sized slices 6-7 inch long and 2-4 inch wide. (Or if your meat was cut before then leave as it is)

Pour the flour in a disposable plate.

In a separate deep dish beat the egg. (you may add 1 tablespoon of water for it to be beaten better and evenly). Season the egg mix with salt and pepper.

Run the cutlet through the flour, then egg and then put on a hot frying pan (add the cooking oil just before putting your cutlets to fry).

Fry the cutlets on each side until golden brown.

Serve warm with mashed potato, rice or grilled vegetables.

Enjoy!

         This recipe is my Mom’s recipe; she invented it when we lived in Russian Far East. She had that awesome spiral potato cutter, so she was cutting potato and using it in two dishes, spirally cut potatoes from  the middle of potato were fried (Yummm) and the rest of the potato, (it looked like an empty potato when it was cut) was stuffed with minced meat.

       I was looking for this spiral cutter for quite some time, at last I found it on Ebay, so I hope to get it by mail soon:-)

       When preparing this dish, I was cutting potatoes without it. In order to get the potato shells, where you can put meat you have to cut out the potato inside, thus it will look like an empty shell. It’s a hard work, I shall say. So if you have this spiral potato cutter or if you will decide to be brave and cook this dish without it, this recipe is for you:

Ingredients:

12 medium potatoes

½ lb. minced beef (or pork)

1 medium carrot

1 egg

1 medium onion

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

2 tablespoons of sour cream

Serves: 3 people

Step 1: Peel the potatoes

Step 2: Cut out the potato from inside, so that it would look like an empty shell. (It’s better to have spiral potato cutter) see the picture.

Step 3: Prepare your minced meat. Peel, wash and chop the onion, peel, shred and add carrots, add the egg, onion ( ½ of the onion you chopped) and season well.

Step 4:  Stuff the potato.

Step 5: Put the potato in a saucepan, add some water (1/3 of the saucepan, so that your potato wouldn’t drown). Simmer for 20 minutes.

Step 5: Braise your onion with sour-cream and add to the saucepan with potato.

Step 6: Simmer everything for 10 more minutes.

***Note from Helen*** Notice I don’t season the potato before stuffing it, because I like food with less salt. If you like your food to be very well salted, add salt when simmering your potato and/or season the raw potato before stuffing it.***

Serve the dish warm. I like to serve it with steamed broccoli and covered with cheese.

Enjoy!

It’s a very nice, comfort dish. It takes some effort to cook it, but if you have the potato cutter - life is easier. Plus you can stuff this potato with cottage cheese and herbs it should be nice. tell me what you think?

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!

 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 my invention: apples give the chicken sweetness and honey flavor, strawberry adds bit of acidity to this combination.

You can have this this dish ready literally in 55 minutes. Preparation takes 15 minutes, cooking about 40 – depending on if you marinated you chicken in advance or just before cooking.

4 servings

4 chicken thighs (chicken drumstick will be good as well)

2 medium onions

2 apples

½ cup of strawberries

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

1/3 cup of lemon basil

2 tablespoons of mayo.

Prepare the marinade: mix salt, pepper, mayo and onion rings, throw in the chicken thighs. Leave for 5-10 min (depending on how much time you have, if you are short on time, just start baking your chicken immediately).

Preheat your oven at 350 F. Put the chicken to bake for 40-55 minutes.

Bake for 20 min on one side, then for for 20 min on the other side.

15 minutes before taking the chicken out: wash and peel the apples, slice the strawberry. When turning the chicken thighs around, put under them: apples and on top the strawberry. Bake for another 15 minutes. Check with the toothpick for the readiness, there should be juice in your chicken but it shouldn’t be too juicy (because this will mean that the chicken is raw, mind the color of the juice out of your chicken, it should be transparent)

If you want to serve your chicken with potato, just wash the potato, don’t peel it, cut in rings and put baking together with the chicken. The potato will be golden brown and crispy.

Enjoy!