Vinaigrettik with a pickle!

Salat Vinaigrette-- something I was very skeptical of as a child. I did not like beets. They were red and squirmy!

But then I grew up, and now, here I am, recreating recipes from memory (and a few google searches just to make sure I had the basics down).

Let me break it down for you:

4 small beets
4 small potatoes (I think I had yukon gold? They were buttery and sweet and delicious.)
1 pickle (I used a persian cucumber I pickled myself. See recipe below)
1/2 med red onion
approx 1 tbsp olive oil
approx 1/2 tbsp chopped dill

Steam your beets and potatoes. Dice them up into semi-small pieces. Usually smaller is better, but it depends on your liking level of laziness.
Toss them into a bowl.
Add in diced pickle.
Dice the onion, and throw that in.
Add the olive oil and chopped dill, and mix everything together gently. It will all be pink! This includes your hands, if that's what you like to mix gently with. Be careful not to mush when you mix.



Pickles! (And pickled tomatoes!)

These were so unbelievably easy. Everything is surprising me so well!

I based my attempt on this

What I used:
6tbsp apple cider vinegar (as per my friend Maddy's recommendation)
3c water
3tbsp salt
many cloves of garlic
lots of fresh dill
tomatoes and cucumbers

Dissolve together the water, vinegar, and salt. Then throw in the dill and garlic. Then lower in your tomatoes. Splish splash. After a few days in the refrigerator, taste one! You will note that the tomatoes have cracks in them. Gorgeous. I can't imagine anything more beautiful, frankly. But beware--they spurt! All over your keyboard, in fact.

Then, when the brine is tomato-free, you can slice up some cucumbers and throw them in to pickle. A few days later, you have perfect Vinaigrette-making material.



I really liked the apple cider vinegar note of the pickles when in the Vinaigrette. The salad is a bit sweet because of the beets, so my sweeter potatoes and pickles seemed to mesh really well. I don't want to toot my own horn, but that may have been my favorite Salat Vinaigrette, of ever. That may also be because I haven't had any in a long time..

Maybe someday soon I'll make Salat Olivier for you too!

Til then, byebye

-Anna

Blinchiki

Splash together some whole wheat flour, buttermilk, egg, olive oil, sugar, salt. Fry them up, little by litle--you have yourself nice, firm little blini. Then throw some fresh dark cherries in a saucepan with some water, cinnamon, golden brown sugar, and cornstarch--and simmer til thick and deep red. Drench a stack of a few blini with the syrup, then top with dark chocolate shavings. You've got yourself an Annariginal!



If you lay down some peanut butter first (chunky, always chunky), you get a nice oozing look to the dish.




This is what happens when Amanda's got me craving cherries.

I like that the chocolate shavings melt a bit. It gives it just the right amount of cohesion as a quick and appealing dish.


-Anna

Dad how do I spell pierozhok?

I made up (and consequently forgot) the recipe for these cabbage pierogi. But this was my second time making them (first was with Amanda) ! So there will be thirds and fourths and fifths, and maybe on the sixth I will write down the recipe.

Til then, here is the email my dad said in response to that last picture:

Very Tasty,
Thank you for delicious supper
Kiss you,
Dad