This stuffing “lives” in my family for decades. I remember my grandmother cooking it since I was a little child.

Preparation time: 5 minutes.

Cooking tome: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

4 apples (peeled and cored)

1/2 of white onion

1 carrot

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of pepper

1 pinch of cumin

1 pinch of oregano

8 prunes

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 tablespoons of prepared honey mustard

Step 1. Peel carrot, apples and onion.

Step 2. Cut the apples in quarters and cut the core with seeds.

Step 3. Shred the carrot and  Finely chop the onions.

Step 4. Wash the prunes.

Step 5. preheat the frying pan at max heat. Then turn it to medium, add the olive oil, put the apple quarters, cover with shredded carrots and onion. Braise for 5 minutes at medium heat.

Step 5. in 5 minutes add the salt, peppel and spices. mix everything, add the mustard and braise for another 3 minutes.

Step 6. 2 minutes before turning the heat off add your prunes, mix everything and braise for another 2 minutes.

Done!

This stuffing may be used for any bird. It will be good with duck and chicken and with turkey. It may be cooked overnight or the day when you plan to roast your bird. Just  remember to not use too much stuffing in your bird!

Have a great holiday and  a great time with your family!

 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

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.***

Tortilla is a unique ingredient: every dish you incorporate it in is simple, easy to cook , yet very delicious.

These 3 recipes are my favorites when I am on the run and the family needs to have a snack.

Fried tortillas with beef

It’s good to take with you if you decide to go camping or travel by car at the long distances.

You can also cook this dish with fruit, berries, I sometimes use bacon and cheese, whatever you want.

For this dish you will need

Meat ( in my case beef) for 4 tortillas I used ½ pound

1 small onion

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper Read full recipe 

Apple hot pockets:

Apple hot pockets are a great fall breakfast for a weekday. with Tortillas you can cook them in minutes in the evening and reheat in the morning.

For the recipe you will need:

4 medium apples;

4 tortillas;

2 tablespoons of sugar;

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil Read more 

 Burrito with sausage, cheese, tomato and basil.

Burritos should be spicy and meaty, but as my family loves burritos and doesn’t loce them too spicy I decided to invent mine.

(Honetly there’s nothing to invent) Just throw in together the delicious vinnagraitte of saucage, tomato, cheese and onion with herbs. Read more

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!

This recipe was overlooked at Restaurant impossible TV program, I added my personal touches to it and it came out great. To define great I will explain: my fiancé, who doesn’t like chicken, was consuming it, as if it was his favorite sausage, not a chicken…

I used cornmeal here, because I love adding it to my pies and muffins, but have never added to my main dishes.

So here it goes:

3 boneless chicken breasts

½ cup of all-purpose flour

½ cup if corn meal

1 teaspoon of salt (better sea salt)

1 teaspoon of black pepper (fresh ground)

3-4 teaspoons of vegetable oil.

Wash the chicken , cut in halves lengthwise (mine were huge), then cut in halves (or three parts) crosswise.

Season very well: salt, pepper. Pepper should be fresh and I used a lot of it. You can add paprika (smoked), I didn’t , as I didn’t have the smoked paprika at home.

Let the chicken stay for 4-5 minutes.

Mix flour and corn meal. Before frying your chicken, put it in flour-cornmeal mix and then fry it.

Preheat frying pan, add the vegetable oil and fry it until golden brown, you can turn it two –three times until you will reach the necessary color. Serve warm (although they are good when cold as well). Taste BEST with mashed potato!

Enjoy!