Homemade Hot Cocoa.

I'm a big lover of hot chocolate and whenever I get a strong sugar craving I'm apt to make this. It's very, very good, if a bit involved. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 3 1/2 cups milk
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 Cup Half and Half
  

I normally skip the half and half, as we never need it for anything else.

• Instructions
• Combine the cocoa, sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan. Blend in the boiling water. Bring this mixture to an easy boil while you stir. Simmer and stir for about 2 minutes. Watch that it doesn't scorch. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of milk and heat until very hot, but do not boil! Remove from heat and add vanilla. Divide between 4 mugs. Add the cream to the mugs of cocoa to cool it to drinking temperature.

Now I always up the vanilla amount, normally at least a tablespoon to two tablespoons. This would also be fantastic with Bailey's Irish Cream.

Tsatsiki

Aka Snezhanka salad. It's named after this Snezhanka. You will need a cheesecloth for this one ;), though Google says a clean dishcloth will do the same job.

Ingredients:

3 cups yogurt
1 cup diced cucumber
1 cup diced walnuts
1 clove garlic, minced
salt, red pepper, lemon juice to taste

Directions:

Line a bowl with a piece of cheesecloth.
Put yogurt on cheesecloth.
Tie cheesecloth in a pouch and leave it hanging above the bowl to drain.

The rule is 1 hour of straining per cup of yogurt, though it depends on the quality of yogurt.
3 cups of yogurt yield 1 1/2 to 2 cups of strained yogurt, again, depending on the quality of yogurt.

Properly strained yogurt for this purpose has a consistency between that of sour cream and that of cream cheese. You have to be able to eat it with a fork.

* Reserve the drained liquid - I use it in my breads, as it has vitamins and minerals.

Remove yogurt from cheesecloth.
Add cucumber, diced walnuts, garlic and spices to taste. Stir carefully.
Serve chilled.

Sarma

Aka dolma. I realize that most people won't ever make them by hand but I had leftover vine leaves and I figured that as long as I am making them, I am going to make pictures.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup rice
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 pound (500 g) ground (minced) meat
diced raisins, optional
diced mushrooms, optional
salt, pepper, thyme to taste
~ 50 pickled vine/grape leaves

You may skip the meat and make them vegetarian.
You can also substitute pickled cabbage leaves for the vine leaves, but the taste will be different.

Edited to add: in the US you can find cabbage or vine leaves in most Eastern European or Middle Eastern grocery stores, or in the ethnic food section of big chain grocery stores like Safeway. They come in a glass jar and are usually in the pickles section.

Directions:

In a skillet heat olive oil.
Saute onion, raisins and mushrooms.
Add ground meat and cook until it divides into crumbs and is no longer pink.
Add rice.
Cook for 5 more min until rice gets translucent.
Remove from heat, add spices.

Apologies for the poor quality pictures that follow - my kitchen is dark and I was trying not to smear any oil, rice or pickle juice on my camera.

Assembly:

Drain vine leaves.
Put leaf with the stem facing toward you. Cut stem if it's still there.
Put a teaspoon of rice and meat mix in the middle of the lower part of the leaf right above the stem.





Wrap it like a burrito:
1. Take the side of the leaf that's toward you and roll it forward once, so it flips over the filling.
2. Tug in the left and right sides of the leaf towards the middle.
3. Roll forward.







Here is the major caveat: you want the sarma to to be tightly rolled, so it doesn't unwrap when rice cooks and expands *but* you also want the rice to have the space to expand, so it shouldn't be too tight.

Sarma rolling is an art, which I don't claim to have mastered. I am happy when the majority of my leaves are not torn by the expanding rice :).

Repeat the whole rolling procedure about 50 more times :) until you run out of either filling or leaves.

Arrange sarmas, loose end down, in a slow-cooker pot.
Cover with a plate or prop them with something else that is moderately heavy and won't allow them to float and unwrap.



Pour enough water to cover them.
Drop half a teaspoon of filling in water.
Cover and cook on low until the filling you dropped in the water is cooked.

You may put them in a regular pot and simmer for about 2 hours but you run the risk of either the top layer being undercooked or the bottom layer being overcooked. The crockpot provides a more even temperature.


You can serve them warm or cold. They go well with yogurt and they freeze well.

Raffaello Cake

Recipe by natalyna. This is a light sponge cake with a deliciously rich icing that makes a nice alternative to chocolate or whipping cream icings.

Ingredients:

For the cake:
6 eggs
7/8 cup (180 g) sugar
1 1/4 cup (160 g) all-purpose/plain flour

For the icing:
14 oz (400 g) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup + 2 tablespoons (9 oz, 250 g) butter, softened
1 1/2 cup (100 g) shredded/flaked coconut

Edited to add: there is no chemical leavener (baking soda or baking powder) in sponge cake. My book says that all the raising is done by the denaturation of egg protein (thus the huge amount of eggs required) and the expansion of the air trapped in during the mixing. That is why it's very important to follow the mixing and baking instructions exactly, including sifting of the flour.

It does rise, but don't expect it to double in size.

Directions:

For the cake:
Preheat oven to 325 F (165 C).
Separate egg whites from yolks.
In a small bowl beat egg whites until peaks form.
In a large bowl beat yolks with sugar until they form a pale yellow foam.

* From this point on, mix with a wooden spoon only.

Little by little incorporate beaten whites into egg yolk mixture.
Sift flour (do sift it!) and add it little by little to egg mixture.
Butter and flour a 9-inch pie form/24 cm pie dish.
Pour batter in pie dish.
Place pie dish at the lowest part of the oven that you can.
Bake at 325 F (165 C) for 30 to 40 min or until it's golden in color and springs back to touch.
Avoid opening the oven door for the first 20 minutes of baking.
Cool on a wire rack.
Cut cooled cake into three layers.
I used a 12-inch pie dish instead of a 9-inch one, and the cake was wider and shorter, so I only cut it into two layers.

For the icing:
Beat softened butter and condensed milk until smooth.
Add coconut flakes and stir. You may add a bit more coconut if you feel that the icing is too runny.
Leave in fridge for about an hour to stiffen.

I find that cake, and sponge cakes in general, a bit dry but husband likes it as is. If it's too dry for your taste, you can drizzle the layers with milk or juice before icing them.

Glue layers with icing, ice top and sides.

A slice:

Cabbage Crockpot Dinner

Cabbage (both fresh and sauerkraut) is big in Bulgaria and though it's allegedly easy to cook, I've never been able to replicate my mom's cabbage dishes. Then I found this recipe that I've adapted for my own use. The original recipe has potatoes, which we didn't like in combination with cabbage, so I've skipped them since.

Ingredients:
For 1.5 quart/1.4 liter crockpot

4 cups* (about 470 g) cut/shredded cabbage
1 medium onion, chopped
1 3/4 teaspoons salt**
1/4 teaspoon pepper
5 oz (150 ml) broth
1 pound (450 g) fully cooked sausage***, cut into serving size pieces

Edited to add: the sausage is of this type, sans the grill marks :).

* About 3 cups, or enough to fill a 1.5 qt crockpot to the brim (cabbage cooks down).
** Cabbage takes in spices very well, and it's really easy to make it poisonously salty! So try it with this amount of salt first and then decide if you need more.
*** It seems that the sausage leaks some of its oil and spices onto the cabbage, so if you substitute tofu, it might be a bit bland.

Directions:

Cut cabbage. Chop onion.
Put cabbage and onion into crockpot.
Arrange pieces of sausage on top.
Stir spices into broth. Pour on top of the cabbage.
Cover and cook on low until cabbage is tender, about 6 hours.

Makes about 3 servings.

Slow-cooker/Crock-Pot Recipes?

I just got my refund check and decided to splurge on a slow-cooker. Does anyone have any recommendations? Also: Any recommendations for bread? The stuff we've been making hasn't been exactly tasty.

Spinach, Tomatoes and Chickpeas

I'm a big lover of "frying pan" dishes - dishes where you just dump various items into a frying pan with olive oil and garlic, then simmer. They're particularly good when you haven't a lot in your kitchen and you really want food. (We never have prepared foods in the ho use)

This one turned out quite good, so I thought I'd share it.

Ingredients:

• Chickpeas/Garbanzo Beans - A cup to a cup and a half. You can use a can (15.5 ounces is the normal amount in the US).
• Spinach - Four or five handfuls, six if you have small hands. This isn't an exact measurement, but keep in mind that spinach shrinks when it's cooked. It may look like a huge amount when you place it in fresh, but it will quickly change. If you want to measure then use four cups.
• 2 tbs. olive oil
• 1 Can (15.5 ounces) of diced tomatoes.
• three or four garlic cloves
• 3 tsp. of oregano or curry, if you prefer that
  

Instructions:

• Heat olive oil in large frying pan, add in garlic. Simmer until garlic is fragrant.
  
• Add in the tomatoes and garbanzo beans (if you're using raw make sure they're cooked first), then the spinach.
• Stir well, sautée for 10 minutes or until spinach is wilted throughly.

It's very good and filling, plus you can't get get simpler than this.