Foodie Friday: Lovely Slavic Things to Make with Tinned Salmon

I'm not a huge fan of fish.  At least not the stinky whole-head variety.  That said, I don't mind white fish like flounder or haddock or branzino, and my dad is an avid fisherman when he can get to a lake, so we sometimes had fresh water fish in the summer when I was a kid.  I also grew up eating canned tuna in various forms (casserole, salad, etc) and really like that, but sadly developed an allergy as an adult and can no longer eat it.  *sniff, sniff*  I challenged it unsuccessfully with my allergist sometime in 2012, but perhaps I could try again in the next couple of years.  When I lived in Russia, one of my favorite things to get at a kiosk for lunch was "crabovie salat" (kрабовый cалат), which is fake crab legs (pollack, usually), white rice, mayo, corn, and pickles.  I sometimes made it myself at home too.  Delish!!

My tolerance for other fish has dropped along with my tuna allergy (no shrimp or tilapia, or pretty much any fish I haven't had prior experience with, because I'm careful), so my fish consumption has dropped and I've not had a crabovie salat for years.  As a practical matter, that means fish days in our house are pretty much either breaded or battered frozen white fish in some form or another, or salmon.

Now, I like salmon a lot, but my kids do too, and fresh fillets make for an extravagantly expensive meal for our family.  I do have a recipe for salmon patties that I've adapted into a hash for fish days that uses tinned, but that was the extent of my canned fish repertoire.  And by the way, most of the tinned salmon I was able to find locally was also eye-wateringly expensive. 

Until now!  

The Apostles' Fast (which ends on Sunday) has a LOT of fish days.  Like, a lot.  This week alone there were four if you count Sunday.  I've been experimenting with different Russian recipes for fasting times particularly, and decided to have a go at a few with fish this week.  I was able to find tinned salmon in a 12-can flat for a really good price on amazon a few months ago and have been getting a flat every couple of months since my recipes tend to use several cans at a time. Everything I made this week went over reasonably well with my unpredictable eaters, and even my potato-hater loved the fish cakes (since I didn't tell her they had potatoes...sneaky, sneaky).

In the interest of sharing the wealth, I thought I'd share my "recipes" here.  These are really just loose adaptations of other people's recipes, which are in turn adaptations of national cuisine that everyone's mother or grandmother had their own recipe for, so keep that in mind.  The main thing to remember about Russian recipes is to use enough salt to flavor the dish (which I'm coming to understand is more than you think if you are mostly cooking from scratch) and to have a bit of sour in the mix, usually in the form of dill, but sometimes vinegar, pickles, or lemon juice.

Ukha (Yха)
Admittedly, this one is more like "shchi with salmon" (щи c лососем) but everyone liked it, and I'll take that.

Ingredients:
Mirepoix (or roughly 1 cup each onion, celery, and carrot, diced or grated)
2 cans salmon, well drained (add 1-2 more cans for additional heft); don't flake finely, leave it a bit chunky
10 oz. shredded cabbage (a bag of coleslaw mix works well for this)
8 cups no-chicken or vegetable broth (I like Better than Bouillon)
2 bay leaves
2 potatoes peeled and diced
ketchup or tomato paste
pepper
dill (fresh or dried)
olive oil or margarine

In a heavy bottomed pot like a Dutch oven, saute mirepoix in margarine or olive oil on medium low heat until sweating and softened, about 10-15 minutes.  Add cabbage and stir to coat in oil, then add salmon, stock, bay leaves, and potatoes.  Bring to a boil and then lower heat to a rolling simmer until potatoes are cooked, about 20 minutes.  Squeeze a bit of ketchup or tomato paste (1-2 T.) over the top and stir through.  Season with pepper and dill (I just sprinkle across the top of the pot, and then add dill to each bowl when served but your mileage may vary).   If having dairy, a dollop of sour cream adds heft.  Sprinkle with dill at table.

Fish Cakes
This is a mash-up of two recipes I found, and I only measured the salt and pepper, so I'm guessing a bit on the quantities of spice.

Ingredients:
2 potatoes, peeled, diced, and boiled until soft, then drained of water.
2 cans salmon, well drained and flaked into a bowl
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1/4-1/2 tsp dried dill (or 2x the amount fresh, chopped finely)
1/4 tsp dried mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp onion powder
2 small shakes cayenne pepper (optional; my kids didn't love the spice, so I'll leave it out next time)
1 tsp (or so) lemon juice

Mash the potatoes with a fork and add to the salmon along with the spices and bread crumbs.  The result should be fairly sticky and thick.  Using a cookie scoop or two spoons, divide mixture into small balls (about 1/4 cup of mix), shape and flatten with your hands.  In a heavy fry pan (cast iron is ideal) spray cooking oil and heat until oil sizzles with a flick of water (like for pancakes).  Reduce heat to medium and place about six cakes in a pan (or five, however many fit with a bit of room around the edges) and cover for 3 minutes.  Turn cakes over and cook covered for another 3 minutes.  They should be golden brown.  Turn onto a plate and then repeat until all patties are cooked.  Serve with rice or grechka.  For dairy eaters, they are very nice with a dollop of sour cream or a bit of mayo.  Vegan mayo with dill added would also work.

 

Fish Pie--Kulebyaka (Кулебяка)
This dish has a lot of iterations, mostly based on the crust type--some people use puff pastry, some people use a short crust or pie crust, some people make pirog dough, similar to pizza dough.  This iteration uses pie crust, but I will probably try it with pirog dough at some point too.  It was a brilliant way to use up leftover grechka, but rice works too.  I mostly used this recipe as a guide (sans eggs), but Anya Von Bremzen's recipe in Please to the Table was also helpful.  It could benefit from a little bit of liquid binder to hold the contents together a bit better.

3 (ish) cups cooked rice or grechka
4 cans salmon, well drained
4 pie crusts (for pirog dough, use my cabbage pirog recipe as a guide for use)
1 small can mushrooms, well drained (fresh work well too, just cook them until liquid comes out and is reabsorbed and they are browned
1 medium onion, loosely diced and cooked to deep brown in 3 T. olive oil or margarine, with a sprinkle of salt
generous sprinkle of dill, fresh or dried
lemon (maybe 1 tsp?)
more salt

Preheat to 400.  After onion has cooked, add salmon and grechka and mushrooms and mix, adding lemon and dill and more salt to the mix.  Divide the mixture between both pie crusts and pack tightly.  Cover with pie crust and crimp edges and poke holes to allow steam to escape.  Place pies on cookie sheets lined with parchment in case of drips.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until crust is nicely browned.  Cut and serve.

Makes two pies, about 16 small slices.  There were two slices left after my family of six had finished.

And if you are thinking it looks like a lot of brown food, you would be correct!  Because actually, most home cooking looks like that.  Cooking at home is a good thing, but it isn't always pretty or photograph-worthy.  Or especially fast.  (This article made me feel so much better about my culinary efforts--I'm not a 12-person professional kitchen with a full-time staff working 12 hour shifts!)  Annd while my photos are amateur (and always will be), even the best photographs cannot disguise that some of the best-tasting food, and the most nourishing, made at home, is not going to be especially visually appealing.  Sometime I'll write a post on the history of pottage...

Gastronomy of Lent

I know it is a little strange to be posting about Lenten recipes during Holy Week, but food has occupied an inordinate amount of my week for quite a while now--meal planning, grocery buying, cooking, and washing dishes for four growing children and two adults take up a fair bit of time.  

*This post is a bit long, but the photos and recipes are about half way down*

 

I had grown weary of the grind of it, as my kids all had an insane growth spurt in the past year, and I just could not keep up with the food.  Pounds and pounds and pounds of produce and all the other things that make up home cooking and eating.  Imagine making the equivalent of Thanksgiving dinner night after night after night for months.

I'm not an elaborate or fussy cook.  I don't care about a pretty plate, or nice dishes, or whatever.  I only recently started serving food on the table instead of from the stove because the children were finally old enough to handle it.  (The stove is less than four feet from said table, but still).  Most of the time I serve the food in whatever it was cooked in.  

Because I'm classy like that.  

(Real reason: no dishwasher, so I'm washing everything by hand, day in and day out; I cannot see the point of creating extra washing for myself except on special occasions).

I'm a plain decent cook with a Midwestern food background and a family that doesn't particularly go in for casseroles, which are calorie dense, crowd and budget friendly, and kitchen efficient.  Combined with the rhythm of the Orthodox fasting discipline, which entails a vegan menu for about 2/3 of the year.  It is enough to make a body crazy.

Did I mention that half my family will not or cannot eat beans?  And one of my children refuses to eat potatoes in any form whatsoever?  And two of them will only eat sweet potatoes with ketchup under some duress?  (I shouldn't complain--my kids really do eat a lot of fruit and vegetables without complaint, and are big fans of lentil soup, but their palette is narrow).  One logistical challenge of my house is that root vegetables barely keep a week in a cool dark place because it is so damp here, and I don't have fridge space to keep them cold for weeks. 

Sometime in February, desperation set in, as I contemplated the coming Lent with the weeks and weeks of vegan food that at least half the family refused to eat on a regular basis.  My own food limitations mean that almost all vegan protein is right out.  Too much grain or fiber makes me really sick, so I'm not able to keep the discipline with the others, and often not able to eat what I make for everyone else.  So there's that.  

A dear friend mentioned a cookbook that she has used with her family for some time, with some modifications.  I bought a used copy and had a flip through it and despaired for all the fiber and beans and other things I was certain my children would eschew immediately.  But I was determined to get away from processed vegan protein products, which are largely soy-based (and thus intolerable for me) and also very expensive for the size of our family.  My fasting repertoire had grown overly reliant on them.

Nevertheless, when I started stocking my Lenten pantry (with a little extra here and there for the coming lockdown), I decided I was going to make things with cabbage and beets and legumes and the kids were going to try them.  For some bizarre reason, I tolerate both vegetables reasonably well if cooked to a fairly soft state, and I have a weakness for Slavic soups and pirogs (similar to hand pies and sold as street food in Russia). 
 

To my utter surprise, almost everything new that I made this Lent went over reasonably well with the kids.   

Now it may be a quirk of the circumstances: the kids were aware of everything going on in the world, of my efforts to ration/inability to restock, and therefore not be wasteful about food, but I'm hoping this is a new chapter for us.  I still can't keep a full discipline, and not everything new I made is something I can have myself, but there are enough things I can eat to remove some of the burden of having to prepare a second thing for myself most of the time (or to over rely on toast and cereal, which can be problematic). 

I take no credit for any of these recipes except the Taco Pasta, but just note my modifications either to make them vegan or to suit preferences.  Most of these things I made several times.

She ain't pretty, but the tikka malasa was a big hit, and, even better, didn't make my house stink of curry (bleck).

The non-Slavic thing I made was chickpea tikka masala--almost everyone liked that.  I made it twice (and plan to make it tonight) and my modifications were to use dried ginger instead of fresh, tomato sauce instead of diced tomatoes since my kids didn't love the chunkiness of the first iteration, and to use just a dash or two of cayenne pepper to hold down the heat level.  (I find three flicks of the wrist are about enough for most dishes with my family).  I also used an immersion blender to make it smooth and three cans of chickpeas instead of two.

First iteration of shchi

This shchi recipe was a big hit with all my kids, and they specifically requested I make it because they remembered having it at a Russian friend's house once.  I made it twice; the first time I made it exactly like the recipe notes, but we discovered it is not fun to bite into whole peppercorns and the kids don't like diced tomatoes.  So the next time I just sprinkled some ground pepper and added a couple squeezes of ketchup to get the flavor without the chunks.  An 8 oz can of crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce would probably have the same effect.  Or even a good dollop of tomato paste.  

Second iteration of shchi.  Funny story.  My husband asked me before bedtime one night if I could eat shchi (щи), but the first letter is difficult for him to pronounce and I heard "sheep".  It was so out of context that I stared at him for a moment and said, "Do I eat sheep?  Not if I can help it." He laughed and tried again to say the word which then just sounded like "she".  I laughed and said the word for him to hear, and he tried again, but without success. We ended laughing.

I also used a cole slaw mix (just shredded cabbage and carrots) to save time plus no-chicken stock, but the second time I had a whole cabbage head courtesy of a friend, and just cut it as finely as possible.  The kids said they liked the second version better.  I highly recommend serving with fresh or dried dill as garnish.  If you aren't fasting from dairy, it is very good with a dollop of sour cream.

This borscht recipe had slightly mixed reception both times I made it, but everyone ate it without complaint (having a good bread option on the side was helpful).  I used 2 cans of drained beets to save on mess and work, and just kind of chunked them up in the pan with a knife.  No-chicken stock.  I also combined steps and did the mirapoix in the pot first, adding the beets second because they were already cooked, and the first time I made this, it was so much work to clean up the extra pots and pans.  I used a prechopped mirapoix and added the bell pepper.  I also recommend serving with fresh or dried dill as garnish, and a dollop of sour cream if not fasting from dairy.  

This can also be made non-fasting by using beef or chicken stock and using cooked shredded or diced beef or cooked shredded or diced chicken.

My pirog method is pretty lazy, and I adapted to make it vegan, so I've detailed it below, but look at the link to see how to wrap the dough. 

(Lazy) Savory Cabbage-Apple Pirog (adapted from Natasha's Kitchen)

2 cans pizza dough

1 package cole slaw mix (shredded cabbage and carrot)--about 3-4 cups total

1 large onion sliced finely (diced is okay too)

1-2 large apples, cored, diced small, skin on

1/2 tsp minced garlic (or to taste)

salt/pepper to taste

oil for sauteeing

Preheat oven to 425 or whatever pizza dough recommends.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large skillet, add 2 or so tablespoons of a neutral oil (or olive if you like) and add onion, cabbage and carrot, keeping onion to one side of the pan.  Allow to brown on medium heat, stirring every so often to keep from burning.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Combine cabbage and onion in pan and move to one side and add apples (my kids preferred two).  Saute until softened and then mix thoroughly in the pan.  

The filling makes an excellent side dish as well.

Take parchment liners from baking sheets and place on counter, and open first tube of dough.  Spread out evenly with your fingers, and then use a smooth glass or rolling pin to stretch dough further, to get to a 1/4" or less thickness.  Divide the cabbage mixture in half, and place half in the center of the dough, spreading it evenly and leaving a 2" edge all the way around the dough (see recipe in link for visual).  Pull the edges toward the center starting at the corners and make an oblong pocket with a star shape in the center.  Pinch seams to seal, and press dough lightly to distribute filling evenly.  Carefully transfer filled dough on the parchment to the baking sheet.  Repeat for the other dough and rest of cabbage mixture, and bake about 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from parchment and cut into rough wedges and serve.  Can be reheated in a toaster oven later.

You can change the filling to whatever you like: potatoes or mushrooms, straight apples, ground meat or chicken or make a variety. 

Taco Pasta

1 box whole wheat rotini

1-2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 package meatless crumbles (optional; if using, reduce black beans to one can) 

oil for fry pan

1 bell pepper, diced

1 onion (red is nice if you have it, but white is fine too), diced
10 oz. baby spinach (fresh)

1/4 cup frozen white corn (this is approximate)

1/3 cup sliced black olives (a 2 oz. can is fine)

1 packet taco seasoning

approx. 1/4 cup mild salsa (I like Tostitos)

Cook pasta according to directions.  While that is going, saute pepper and onion in a fry pan with some oil until nicely browned.  Push to the side and saute the spinach until wilted. When the pasta is drained, return to pot, and add corn, olives, taco seasoning, meatless crumbles if using, and salsa.  Mix thoroughly and add sauteed vegetables.  Serve with salsa and/or guac.  Makes a fairly robust recipe; our family can easily eat it twice.

This wasn't a new recipe, but I haven't made Grechka with Mushroom Gravy and Roasted Vegetables for a few years, and this time, everyone liked it!  Mods to make it vegan are to use margarine in place of butter and oatmilk in place of dairy milk.  I also used a food chopper to pulverize the cooked mushrooms so the kids wouldn't recognize them (worked a treat!)

There were a couple of old stew recipes using black beans pureed to hide them that sort of worked, and I'll probably add those into the larger rotation again as well.  

Image via

 Whew!  I've been meaning to type this up for a while, but...things.  And perhaps today is a good day to post it, as it is the day we mark the establishment of the Mystical Supper and the Eucharist, God's food for body and soul.

Drinking Gin in a Ditch (TM)

I am reading Madeline L'Engle's Irrational Season right now and I have Thoughts about it that I want to write here, but, you guys.  Seriously.  I've had kids home sick since January 6.  It is January 29 today.  That is almost a solid month of sickness.  The unfortunate side effect of having four children and three with chronic lung disease is that it can take a LONG time to cycle through whatever is currently going around.  

This year's plague du jour is a FIVE DAY FEVER.  Followed by another week of a pretty awful cough.  Together with terrible behavior and poor sleep.  With maybe a stomach bug thrown in for kicks and giggles. Times four children and one husband (who avoided the fever, but got the stomach bug variety around Theophany).  Did I mention that our dryer died at the beginning of the month and I was only able to get it repaired late last week?  And our basement is unheated and stuff took three days to dry?  

So my brain is scattered, I'm tired and barely holding it all together and staying upright (thanks in large part to elderberry syrup, more on that below).  I've been saving my mental energy for the snatches of time when I can work on the book.  

I decided that I need a gin in a ditch sweater.  Like NEED it.  I don't want to knit it (or wait the months that it will take me to do so), I don't want to pay a fortune for it, and I don't want some acrylic nightmare.  I wasn't particularly optimistic, given this combination of factors, but I found one this morning on ThredUp for seven whole dollars.  And I had enough credits on account to cover it, so bonus.  And it is almost 100% cotton, so there's that.  I'm hoping it fits the way I want it to.  

On to other things.  I made butternut squash soup again for lunch yesterday--so good! and also Sweet Potato Chocolate Chili for dinner.  I am very picky about chili--I really only like my mom's version--and this one  stacks up quite well!  I made it a couple of times in the fall and everyone really liked it.  It seemed really strange when I made it the first time, like it wasn't going to be chili at all, but definitely is.  (The spice quantities seemed really off to me, but trust the recipe).  

My mods were to use no-chicken broth (although I think beer would be really interesting!), 2 pounds of ground beef instead of 2.5--this is a HUGE pot of chili--and it is totally fine to pan fry the sweet potatoes instead of oven-roasting.  I've done it both ways, and they are both fine.  I also reduced the chili powder to 1 T. and will probably reduce the red pepper flakes by half next time for my kids' sake.  It is great with a big dollop of sour cream.

I've been baking this morning.  Boo's namesday is this weekend, and he wanted to bring a treat to share with his class on Friday.  It being a fast-free week, he requested chocolate chip cookies, so I made a batch of them and put them in the freezer.  

We are also having the house blessed on Friday night, and I wanted to have something to serve, so I made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

I know it sounds weird, but they are really good.  Kind of a cakey-sort of cookie, but very tasty.  I got the recipe from a co-worker years and years ago.  I forgot how big a batch the recipe makes, so I have a lot, but we might have another family joining us, so I think it will be fine either way.  Birdie wanted to take some in-progress shots (the kids are all suddenly fascinated with my camera).

I put them in the freezer as well, so they would keep to the end of the week.  I also have to bring a teacher gift for Boo's teacher this week, so she might be getting some homemade cookies too!  I have to make a layer cake for Boo's namesday as well, but I ran out of white sugar this morning, so I'll probably do that tomorrow so I can freeze the layers before trying to frost them.  He was specific about wanting layers and cream in between. 😋

I forgot to write about an annual tradition in our area; the Orthodox Clergy Brotherhood gets together on the Sunday after old calendar Theophany and blesses the river (Wikipedia has this feast incorrectly listed with Epiphany; these are two distinct feasts between the Eastern and Western Christian traditions.  Theophany is the baptism of the Lord; Epiphany is the appearance of the magi.  They are Not The Same.  Climbing down from soapbox now).  

The service is held pretty close to our house, but this is the first year we managed to make it.  The weather was uncharacteristically nice that day!  There were more people than I expected who showed up to watch the priests throw four huge ice crosses into the river.  

Anda 1, anda 2, anda 3!  The crosses were impressively big.  I'm really glad we made it.  A lot of the people there are the same ones who come out for the Pan-Orthodox Lenten Vespers, so it was nice to be together again.  How can it be Publican and Pharisee week already??

Oh, I almost forgot!  The elderberry syrup.  Now, I should state for the record that I am an herbal supplement skeptic.  I think a lot of it is snake oil in sheep's clothing, and have observed a close family relative rely on dubious supplements instead of taking the prescribed medication from her doctor (this relative has pretty severe GERD, and thinks a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar a day will take care of things.  Um...no.  Just...no.)  

So I was a bit hesitant when a sweet lady at our church mentioned elderberry syrup to me when I was struggling to kick a chest cold in December.  Any long time readers on the blog will know that I am particularly susceptible to chest infections and it is hard for me to kick them once lodged in my lungs.  I talked with a few other friends who swear by herbals, and was convinced to at least give it a try.  

Whelp, elderberry syrup is the real deal, based on a month or more of use.  I kicked the chest cold shortly after starting it, and I've so far avoided being seriously felled by the plague going around the house by taking 2 tsp a day.  I do have a sore throat and I feel tired all the time, but I'm not ready to drop like I should be.  But I'm more or less upright all day, so that is something!!  I think I have some mineral deficiencies that might be contributing to the fatigue (my hair loss is truly impressive right now), so I've added a B-vitamin complex into my day.  

And as long as we're talking about All The Random Things, I highly recommend this youtube channel.  It is an amazing collection of lesser known medieval music.  My favorite is the Gregorian Deum Verum (8 minutes of gloriousness), followed closely by the Hymn of the Templars.  I've also been listening to the Thomas Tallis and William Lawes stations on Pandora a lot lately.  Although today is a Bach day.

So that's me.  Over and out.

Holiday Happenings

Christ is Born!  Glorify Him!

We celebrated Nativity on Sunday and it was a COLD day!  The high was about 10 that day, and I was very grateful that our car started in the morning when it was still less than 8 degrees!  My original plan for a Christmas dress failed (as usual--this seems to be an annual theme for me) but the flannel dress I ended up wearing was much warmer anyway.

On Saturday (Christmas Eve) I did a bunch of cooking to get ahead of the holiday busyness, and I also made another batch of Butternut Apple soup.  I made it a few weeks ago and loved it as part of my own food repertoire.  

My mods were to use no-chicken broth because of my allergies, and I also added a hearty splash of heavy cream, although you could use coconut milk to make it vegan for fasting seasons.  The first time I made this, I used regular apples, but the second time I used Granny Smiths, and I can say that the first variety was fine, but the Granny Smiths are really lovely--they add a wonderful bit of tartness to it.  The soup is lovely with bacon or sausage in or on it.

I took the girls to the Slavonic church down the street for Compline on Christmas Eve.  I always love how they decorate that church for Christmas--the big life-size icon of the Holy Family is a particular favorite of mine.  There is a relic in the bottom of the area that is set up to look like the church in Bethlehem, so I think it might be from the Holy Land.

The relic under the icon:

Christ is Born!  The girls were kind of wild and barely made it through Compline, but at least we got to a bit of the service that night.

After they were in bed, I put all the baby Jesus figures into my Nativity sets.

And then we drove an hour in the morning to our regular parish for the festal Liturgy.

It was a full house!

I got a flannel nightgown from my parents for Christmas and it is The Best Thing Ever.  I'm terribly cold at night and this thing is like wearing a neck-ankle blanket with long sleeves.  I still wear leggings and wool socks with a wool sweater over it, but man.  It's great.  We also put a mattress gel foam topper on our 13-year-old mattress yesterday to see if we can beg a few more years out of it (getting a king size mattress up and down three flights of stairs in a row house is No Joke and we are not in a hurry to undertake that hassle or expense any time soon).  It certainly makes our bed tall!  I'm not sure whether it makes a difference to how the mattress feels, although I do think I slept a bit better last night.  Fewer pressure points on my hips and such, so perhaps it was a good purchase.  It certainly wasn't worse, so that's something.

It's a longish story how this came about, but the kids had a half day yesterday because of an ice storm (between 2 snow days last week and a half day yesterday, I'm getting absolutely nothing done), and Boo and Birdie both wanted to learn to sew.  So I got out some felt I had and made a template and they both made little stuffed birds.  It was kind of a great project for them as it didn't require precision and the felt was very forgiving in terms of being able to back a needle out to correct stitches.  This is Boo's:

They both want to make more, but I think it will have to keep until the weekend.

We also celebrated Piglet's 10th birthday yesterday (his actual birthday was Saturday, but he was tied up with church all day and wanted to celebrate with non-fasting food this year, so we pushed off to yesterday).  He requested chili (the regular one, not the keto one I've been making all fall; everyone likes both) and cornbread, and salad.  And a chocolate fudge cake for dessert.

I had made the cake layers last week and froze them and planned to frost them yesterday sometime in the afternoon, but with having to pick the kids up mid-day and then the epic sewing project, I kind of got sidetracked, and suddenly it was 4:00 p.m. and I had frozen cake and no frosting or filling made.  Eek!  (At least the chili was done and just needed to be heated!)  I did a quick defrost by sticking the cakes in a 170 degree oven for 10 minutes (worked great! but the layers are very thin, so your mileage may vary if you try this).  I whipped the cream and added raspberry jam to the cakes and stuck them together while I made the frosting.  The frosting for this cake was a kind of tempered chocolate ganache and took way longer than expected.  (She doesn't say to temper the chocolate, but you kind of have to; the chocolate chips don't totally melt if you just add the warm butter/milk/sugar to them and let it sit.  You have to put the bowl over a pot of steaming water to get the frosting smooth.  I then put it in the fridge during the stirring/setting part to help it set faster).  The frosting was pretty soft when I put it on, so it isn't the prettiest looking cake, but it was very tasty!

Word to the wise: if you are a volume eater, and like big portions, this is not the cake for you.  It is super rich and anything more than a small slice will probably make you sick!  I do think putting whipped cream between the layers instead of additional frosting kind of cut the sweetness a bit (in a good way).  If I make this again, I might use bittersweet chocolate chips to bring the sweet level down a bit.  I'm also perplexed about the thinness of the cake layers--I made it exactly according to the recipe, but it seemed like the cake batter was written for two six inch layers, not two eight inch layers.  But a one inch layer of whipped cream and jam gave the cake some height.  :)

Ponchik is home with a cough today (she's been coughing in a kind of sickly way since Saturday) and asked to stay home from school, which is unlike her, so I think she must really need a quiet day at home.  It's a good thing she is in preschool!

I did get a tiny bit of writing done yesterday, in between an appointment and picking up the kids early, but today is my husband's namesday, and Ponchik is home, so I'm probably not going to get much done.  I'm about 75% of the way through that sweater I'm knitting, so I'll probably just focus on that today.  I'm resigned to this month not being particularly productive in terms of writing.  On the upside, I got another idea for a different story/series that I started working with one day last week and I'm excited to have something new to work on when I need some space from my original story.

Yarn Along: Second Week of Lent

~knitting~

So I did it--I frogged the Lena T.  I knew I probably wouldn't want to wear it, and I also wasn't enjoying the knitting, which meant it would be hard for me to make myself finish it.  Miles and miles of stockinette in the round in fingering weight yarn.  Nosir.

Instead, I bought Cecily Glowik McDonald's Gemini pattern (and incidentally became kind of obsessed with her pattern designs) and cast that on instead.  The gauge was the same as the Lena, so at least I didn't have to reswatch the yarn.  I thought that the Gemini was a really versatile pattern, since it can be worn backward or forward, as a cardigan or pullover, and that the lace panel was a really nice detail.  It is a small enough section, and she has the lace pattern written out as well as charted, so I think I'm doing okay with it so far.  The pattern is written for wool, so I'm hoping that the linen will look okay when finished.  The yarn is a really pretty deep coral color that will go with a lot of my spring and summer clothes.

I also cast on my Chinook scarf out of daffodil yellow CotLin yarn from KnitPicks.  The pattern is very easy, and while I have to look at the pattern every line, I've nearly got it memorized and am getting to where I can almost read which line I'm on in the knitting.  A very satisfying knit, so far.  I like that you can knit as much as you want, since the directions say, "knit until you've used half your yarn, then start decreases".  I have two balls, and want to use up both balls of yarn, so that should work out great!

I was making really good progress on the Yellow Brick Road cardigan (I'm working the body now) but decided to set it aside for the Gemini as I won't need it until at least the late fall or early winter, and I might have a shot at wearing the Gemini this year if I work at it now.  The YBR cardigan is going so quickly, I think I should be able to finish it in fairly good time.  I just learned magic loop, so I might try that on the sleeves instead of my normal flat knitted and seamed sleeve.

~reading~

Lots of Lenten/spiritual reading, obviously.  I've been reading both Fr. Men and Fr. Schmemann in the evenings.

~cooking~

Lots of vegan food!  Well, sort of, this being only the second week of Lent, and we don't have a lot of cooked food in the first week (by Saturday, Piglet said he didn't care what we had for dinner that night so long as it was cooked; he was completely over sandwiches for lunch *and* dinner by that point). 

I've been wanting soups since my mouth is still a bit sore, and I decided to make this soup this morning, sans the lamb meatballs, of course.  My mods were to use butternut squash instead of kabocha, to use olive oil in place of coconut, and to use no-chicken broth.

It is amazing and hearty.

I also made a creamy mushroom leek soup last night for myself that was wonderful. Mods to make it vegan were to omit the bacon (obvs), use olive oil to saute the leeks, add a dash of vegetarian bacon bits, and vegetable broth instead of beef.  It was so good and so hearty with the full fat coconut milk.  The thyme really added a nice flavor.  I would caution, if you make this and use better than boullion for your broth, don't add salt to the pot.  I found it came out pretty seasoned and I could have skipped the sprinkle of salt on the leeks during the saute.

I have split pea soup going in the crock pot for another day this week, so the house smells kind of interesting today.  I might make a vegan banana bread too, I dunno.  I can't really eat regular bread because it gets stuck, and crackers are generally not a great idea for me, but cakey-type breads sometimes go down okay, and it is nice to have something to eat with soup.

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!

Foodie Friday: Some Wins for the Nativity Fast

I've made a few things this fasting season that I thought turned out rather well, and thought I would share them here.  I normally try to share one recipe per post, but I'm feeling a bit lazy, so you get two today.  The first is a vegan take on white chili and the second is my iteration of winter cobbler.

Vegan White Chili

serves 6

1 package Gardein Teriyaki Chick'n Strips (remove sauce packet and save for another day); could also use cubed tofu or seitan

1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 can shoepeg corn, drained

1 small can diced green chilis

2 cups no-chicken broth (I like Better Than Boullion's No Chicken base)

(optional: 1/3 cup quick cooking barley)

Saute gardein slightly in a saucepan or thaw completely in order to chop into bite size pieces.  Add all ingredients to a sauce pan or slow cooker.  Heat completely in the saucepan for about 20 minutes or put on high in the slow cooker for about 2 hours (longer if using the barley).

Winter Cobbler

serves 4-6

 I forgot to get a picture of the pie before we dug into it.  Bad blogger.  Oops.

1 vegan pie crust*

2 packages Gardein Teriyaki Chick'n Strips, thawed or flash sauteed in a pan, reserve the sauce packets.  If using seitan, have about 1/4-1/3 cup teriyaki sauce on hand (this recipe is good)

Matchstick carrots (a good handful)

Frozen sweet corn (a good handful)

2 potatoes, skinned and cubed

1 bell pepper, diced small

Scallion, sliced, green parts only

1 small apple, sliced very thinly into slices

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 425.  In a large skillet, add 1-2 T. olive oil, and saute peppers and potatoes with 1/2 tsp. salt and a good sprinkling of black pepper until potatoes are fork tender (about 15 minutes on medium-high).  Cut the Gardein into bite size pieces.  In a glass pie dish, layer the carrots, corn, gardein, potatoes, peppers, apples, and scallions.  Top with teriyaki sauce packets, drizzled evenly over the top.  Do not stir.  Place pie crust over the top and slice vents into the top.  Bake for 25 minutes or until crust is golden brown.  I recommend placing the pie plate on top of a baking sheet in case of a bubble-over.

*I've been in the habit of making this dish with two pie crusts, one on top and one on the bottom, but the bottom one tends to get mushy and doughy because of the sauce, so I think I will omit it in the future.  I've made this with just a top crust in the past and it works just as well.