NELLIE and NALYSNIKI

Mom told me that, in 1931, my Aunt Nellie went to school, but the year after that the school was closed because there wasn’t any money in the treasury.  So Nellie was sent out to work when she was only eleven or twelve years old.  

Nellie always went home for Christmas except for one year.  That time she cried and cried and said she was for sure coming home for Easter.  Ukrainian Easter coincided with English Easter that year and Nellie did come home.

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We never had nalysnyky while I was growing up – probably because they do demand fussy effort and more time than a busy farmwife has at her disposal.  Once retired, however, Mom started making them. 

Marilyn said: Aunty Florence said Baba always did up the cottage crepes! Mom never did them for this [Christmas Eve] dinner. 

NALYSNIKI

Pancake batter:

½ cup milk

½ cup water

1 egg

1 cup flour

1/8 tsp salt

·        Beat the egg in a medium mixing bowl.

·        Beat in milk, water, and salt.

·        Beat in flour.

·        Let rest in fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350.

Filling:

1 pound fat free creamy cottage cheese

2 small eggs

2 tbsp flour

1 tsp grated lemon zest

¼ tsp salt (scant)

2 tbsp sugar

Raisins (optional)

Topping:

½ cup sour cream

Sugar

Cinnamon

Preparation:

·        Beat eggs.

·        Mix in cottage cheese, flour, lemon zest, salt, and sugar.

·        Pour into casserole and cook in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes until set.

Raise oven heat to 400. 

Cook pancakes:

·        Heat non-stick pan over middle heat until hot.

·        Brush lightly with a few drops of oil.

·        Drop a large spoonful of batter onto pan and immediately tip pan to swirl it into a 5 to 6 inch circle.

·        Check before flipping to see that the pancake is well-browned.

·        Stack pancakes.

Butter a casserole dish.

·        Put warm filling on the pancakes and place rolled pancakes in the casserole with the seam down.

·        Spread sour cream on top and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  (Or sprinkle with toasted, slivered almonds.)

·        Bake for 10 minutes.  Serve hot.

Alternative Method:  In Poland, instead of being heated in the oven, the nalesniki are browned lightly on top of the stove in butter. 

(Jean Karsavina writing for Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, Vol. 17) The result is attractive and tastes crispy good.    

Nicole, James and I, however, preferred the Ukrainian method:  nalysniki heated in the oven are soft and tender.   

NICHOLAS and UKRAINIAN PICKLED MUSHROOMS

 Happy Birthday, Nicholas!

Do you remember visiting us for a week in Saskatoon?

All grown up!

Your talented mom always covers a table with appetizers whenever we visit so here’s a recipe I think your family might enjoy:

Savella Stechishin’s Pickled Mushrooms (Marinovani Hryby) :  an appetizer (zakuska).  They're also great as a side for perogies.

1 pound mushrooms (if you can’t get small ones, cut them in half)

1 small onion (one comment I got was there were too many onions)

½ to 2/3 cup vinegar (I used 2/3 cup but I think that’s too much)

½ cup water

5 pepper corns

½ Bay leaf

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp cooking oil (optional:  I didn’t put it in and don’t see the point)

·        Combine vinegar,  ½ cup water, pepper, bay leaf, salt, and sugar.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Strain and cool.

·        Cover mushrooms with 6 cups boiling water and 2 ½ teaspoons salt.  Cook for 15 minutes.

·        Drain and cool.

·        Slice the onion finely.

·        Put mushrooms and onions in a sealer.

·        Cover with cooled vinegar.  Refrigerate overnight and serve.

  

Begin! the Merry Month of May and Bohdan Zahny's POUND CAKE

May 1, 2013

From Manitoba, Crystal writes: "Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh"................
(i think ya get where i'm going with this)

Nasty weather and the flu . . . Well, I hope your family is feeling better, Crystal, and up to their usual shenanigans.

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                                              April 2013

It’s a lovely day here and Vesper is all better and ready to boogie.   

  

            And I’m ready to cook.  Something Ukrainian. 

So I’ve hauled out Bohdan Zahny’s The Best of Ukrainian Cuisine and I’m going to try his Papushnik (Pound Cake).  The only problem is the recipe doesn’t include any leavening agent and yet it wants me to put the dough in a warm place to rise until doubled?????  Here are the ingredients!

2 lbs flour

½ qt. milk

6 eggs

1 stick butter

½ lb sugar

¼ tsp vanilla

1/3 cup icing sugar

Salt to taste

WELL!    

So I’ve decided to actually follow the recipe, but I’m going to cut it in half so that if it doesn’t work (as I truly suspect) at least I won’t have wasted so much stuff.  J

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(Bohdan did not say what kind of baking pan would hold his full-size recipe!)

11:30 AM:  I’m leaving it to rise in a slightly warmed oven for 2 hours. 

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Meanwhile, in Laredo:

Kepler thinks it's rotten that his mom has to leave him and  go to work.

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So, did the cake rise?

Of course not.

What will I do with it?

Bake it anyway and use it to make Bread Pudding. J

SOUP . . . to the rescue!

Dad, 1964

Of course, everyone knows that chicken soup is POWERFUL MEDICINE.  

Marilyn wrote:   I have dreams of homemade noodle soup made from real chickens and homemade kisto!! What I'd give for a bowl of home made chicken .. the real kind!!" 

But, if you Google garlic and colds, you’ll find lots of information about how garlic is another ferocious ally.

Me, 1957

Once, when I was in grade 4 or 5, my dad brought me some garlic in hot milk.  I really didn’t want to drink it, but I loved my dad so down it went and . . . up it came.

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Enter, for my family, Paula Peck’s GARLIC SOUP with CROUTONS!

First, prepare the croutons:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

3 to 4 slices of bread

·        Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

·        Cut bread into cubes.

·        Heat oil and butter in a frying pan over high heat.

·        Brown the bread cubes, stirring constantly.

·        Bake the cubes for 25 minutes.

Now, prepare the soup:

1 cup peeled garlic

1 tbsp finely chopped onion

1 tbsp olive oil

2/3 cup drained canned tomatoes

4 cups chicken soup stock (or a 900 ml carton – because colds strike without

                                                  warning)

¼ tsp pepper

Salt to taste

1.      Finely chop the garlic.

2.     Gently sauté garlic and onion in olive oil until softened.

3.     Blend the tomatoes in a food processor.

4.     Add pepper and tomatoes to the garlic in the sauce pan and cook for 3 more minutes.

5.     Add stock and simmer for 15 minutes.   Taste for salt.

Spoon up a delicious, steaming bowlful . . .  and feel better!

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Now Vesper's under the weather.  She needs to keep well-hydrated but only took a couple of laps of water.
Then I put out a bowl of Chicken Broth.
Down it went!

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And some advice for those rough patches that even Chicken soup won’t cure . . .

A friend, who worked as a Life Skills Coach, once told me, “Ask yourself – is this problem still going to be a big deal 5 years from now.  If it isn’t, it’s not worth stressing about now.”   

Baking BROWNIES, brewing coffee, and . . .

A man was shot dead night before last in my neighborhood.  Only the tape on the outer perimeter of the crime scene was being removed yesterday morning.  How does this affect us?   One woman in the elevator put it this way, “It’s just a bunch of gang bangers.”  Another woman, though, said she wouldn’t be using the neighborhood gym anymore – “Too many gangs use it.”

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As for me,  it’s no different than seeing it on the news.  I never used the gym anyway.  I didn’t see or hear anything so I'm getting on with things . . . like making a  costume for Kepler. 

                                         

                      

Diana was over and really liked these Brownies -- the way she put it:  "At last a Brownie worth eating!"  In fact, she wants the recipe, so here it is for all of you.  It’s from an old Purity Cookbook, a gift from my mother.

 BROWNIES

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

½ cup shortening, divided

½ cup flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp vanilla

Chocolate icing

1.      Preheat oven to 350.

2.     Butter an 8 inch square pan.

3.     Melt chocolate with ¼ cup shortening over low heat and set aside.

4.     In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

5.     Cream ¼ cup shortening with sugar.

6.     Beat in 2 eggs.

7.     Stir in the melted chocolate, nuts, and vanilla.

8.     Stir in the flour.

9.     Put batter into baking pan.

10.                         Bake for 30 minutes.  The center will still be sticky.

11.                          When cool, spread chocolate icing on top.

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P.S.  Marilyn likes this recipe too.  She says hers comes from the OLD, OLD, OLD Blue Ribbon cookbook.

  

D is for Delightful DOGS, Delicious DOUGHNUTS, and DOVBUSH

The Icebreaker in Surrey

Since I’ve been walking Vesper I’ve met sooo many new people and dogs.   Tonight’s encounter with a hugely rotund, friendly bulldog who absolutely wanted me to pat her still has me smiling. 

The Vamp in Laredo

On walks, I was stopped more than once by people who were interested in having Maybelle meet their Dog.  There was even an offer to buy her.

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“No, no, thou never didst me good

nor ever will, I know”

Isabella Whitney was not thinking of DOUGHNUTS when she wrote those lines in 1573, but still they perfectly express my obsession.  Open a box of those crispy treats in front of me and I’m lost:

French Crullers, Glazed Old Fashioneds, Glazed Sour Creams, Lemon Jellies, Apple Fritters . . . ahhhh. 

But my favourite is a whipped cream filled Ghostbuster.  If you are ever spot a Robin’s Doughnuts, zip in and have one.  You’ll thank me later. J

 

In the States, I can’t resist a fresh, hot Honey doughnut at a Krispy Kreme.  And there’s a little stand on the white sandy shores in the Florida Panhandle that makes incredible doughnuts – I chose a Key Lime AND a Red Velvet!

Recent experiences in Texas didn’t disappoint either:  http://eleanorstadnyk.blogspot.ca/2013/03/travels-with-kepler.html

Of course, Mom used to make and freeze dozens of doughnuts for late evening snacks. In June, 1982, she wrote:
When I baked the doughnuts I thought I would have for all summer but they are all gone.  Will have to do them next week when I get the flour. 

But the only doughnuts I make are Indian GULAB JAMON which are small and round and swimming in a rosewater-sugar syrup.  I didn’t actually like them the first time I had them in India, but, like all other doughnuts, they are addictive!

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Ukraine in the 1700’s:  Oleska Dovbush and “his band of merry Hutsuls” hid in the Carpathian Mountains, robbed the rich, and gave to the poor.  A Polish army couldn’t catch him, but he was betrayed by his mistress, executed, dismembered, and distributed about the villages as a warning to other opryshki (outlaws). 

[from Lonely Planet]

 

                         

COTTAGE PUDDING and FIRST HOUSE in CANADA

Family History Continued:  JOHN and ANNE LESCHYSHYN 

At first, John and Anne squatted on government land east of Rossburn, but later they bought that quarter of land.

 Their house probably resembled the one we saw in an outdoor museum in Ukraine.

Mom said the entry to their house was divided, with one side being the pantry.  The other side had a long bench.

 In the main room of the house there were beds, including a Ukrainian bed that was a seat during the day.  At night, the lid was taken off revealing the mattress and covers.   One bed was made up during the day with a white bedspread and a lot of pillows embroidered at the closed end.  When the bed was made up, the embroideries faced the room.  (Anne didn’t like embroidering and didn’t care about the embroidered things.  She left them in the attic when this first house was later turned into a granary.  No one knows what happened to them.)

Behind the homemade table, there was a big bench, about 6 or 8 feet long.  It had arms.  Some people only had benches, but John and Anne also had chairs.

The children sat near the stove to be warm when they were studying or whatever. 

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Mom used to make a dessert she called COTTAGE PUDDING.  It was a white cake swimming in a wonderful, sweet, spicy sauce.

 Any white cake recipe will do, but Mom’s sauce recipe is UNIQUE!  "Hope you have luck," she wrote.

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MARY STADNYK’S COTTAGE PUDDING SAUCE

2 cups white sugar

½ tsp cloves

½ tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp flour (or 1 tbsp cornstarch “or so”)

½ cup cold water

1 cup boiling water

1 tbsp butter

Boil water in a kettle.

Mix sugar, spices, salt, and flour in a saucepan.

Whisk in ½ cup cold water.

Start heating on the stove and gradually whisk in 1 cup of boiling water.

Continue stirring until mixture thickens. 

Add 1 tbsp butter.

Serve hot (or reheated the same day) over plain white cake with vanilla ice cream.  (Diana prefers to serve it with cake and whipped cream.)

*Very Important:  This sauce is very good, but only on the day it is made.