Sometimes things come together. Sometimes it takes a while until they do. As you know we are visiting Russia for our Bloggers Around the World challenge this month.
Usually what you have to do - that is if you don't have any kind of particular knowledge in that kind of cuisine - is do some research on that cuisine, in this instance, Russian cuisine. Well, as I told you, what comes to my mind in connection with Russian cuisine, is borscht or you may want to call it borshch. Anyway, I even have to do research for that. Still there are variations. Some put meat in it, some add cabbage and ...
... today we are having none of that. Since this going to be vegetarian, of course there will be no meat, but there won't be any cabbage either, although some believe that it is an essential ingredient in borscht.
But have a look ...
What do you say?
Of what use is it to have a food blog? ... eh ... I mean, of what a use is it to have a food blog, cooking and writing lovely recipes and no-one is going to try them (at least not that you know of)?
Are the things just nice to look at or are they really delicious and easy to reproduce or at least made to satisfaction?
It's time to find out ...
You know and I know it as well, that you don't have as much time as you would like to have to read through all the interesting blog posts around and read also new blogs. At times I read only those catching my interest already with the title.
The next step: trying things you read on other blogs. While I wouldn't limit it to those, the recipes I tried - on the average - where mostly those that contain chocolate in some form. Tricky!
There were times I even managed to try a recipe that I have just read. So, it's like going from computer to kitchen and go for it. That's good.
Sometimes, though, things are not that easy. A recipe I would have tried right away was the Chocolate Guinness Cake, JibberJabberUK wrote about.
When I first read it, I was short of one ingredient. So the cake would have looked like that ...
Looking like that wouldn't be a problem in itself, but I wanted to go for the whole thing.
Due to this, I first had to get some cream cheese. Obviously, without it the cake wouldn't be complete.
Some people to whom I talked about a chocolate Guinness cake shrank back at the thought of beer in a cake. However, for those experimenting regularly in the kitchen and not being afraid of trying new things, you know that it works perfectly and gives a rich intense chocolate flavour. I liked that.
Now back to the baking. As I was shopping for food one day, I remembered I need cream cheese. So I bought a pack.
Finally I was getting ready to do the cake. Proper planning and shopping would have been better. I didn't have the yogurt mentioned in the recipe. What now? I replaced it with milk that got a splash of lemon. I thought that might do the trick. I didn't notice anything negative afterwards.
The other fact hitting me was, that while I got some cream cheese, it was just a little bit of half what I needed. Consequently the cake ended up like this ...
I got a bit of icing training, but somehow it should have been more. No matter how it looked like now, it was absolutely worth trying that recipe. So, why don't you head over to JibberJabberUK and try it, too.
As we have come nearly to the close of this post I add it to the April Bookmarked Recipes over at Tinned Tomatoes.
For sure there will be more recipes worth trying ...
Do you like simple recipes? Those that bring you great taste and joy without much effort? Another point to consider maybe, having usually all the needed ingredients at hand all the time.
That was something I discovered while reading around on other food blogs. I came across the post of Sprung at Last with the name 'French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese'. That title already intrigued me, because I very much like French onion soup and, of course, cheese. Sounds perfect!
So I had to have a go. You can read about the recipe in the original post, although you may already be able to discern it by simply looking at the following picture.
I said it was simple. That's life! The things in this life bringing you the most joy are usually small things: beautiful flowers, a stunning sunset, listening to the sound of the sea at the sea, a smile, watching playful puppies or kittens, someone saying 'thank you', commendation from persons really meaning it, sunshine on your skin and the list could go on and on and on.
On top of it, those things don't cost much. You need no money for them (only for the simple meal, though, you need a bit money to get the ingredients).
Therefore, think again about it! You have the power to make someone happy with just a little effort.
As for the bread for this Onion Soup Sandwich, I baked it myself already some days before that. It's not to hard either to do your own bread. It's mainly flour, water, yeast and salt. You don't even need to add any artificial substances to it. Just saying!
Well, I want to contribute this post to a lovely monthly challenge that Jacqueline is doing at Tinned Tomatoes: Bookmarked Recipes.
Maybe you like to enjoy a simple meal with French onion soup and cheese on a sandwich or ... just go out there and make someone happy ...
I have to make a confession. Yes, honestly, I have a problem ... it might even be serious.
It's not life-threatening ... at least not that I know.
To relief the tension a bit I have to say, it has to do with chocolate. I have been busy reading along in blog-world and the posts I read really make me worry. At least they could if I would give in to every urge of immediately running to the kitchen and reproduce the recipe I've just read about.
Well, in one incident I even just did that. It was one evening. I was sitting in front of the computer, feeling quite depressed actually. Therefore following this urge was not a curse at that point, but rather a blessing.
So to whom do I have to be grateful then? It's Choclette and her Chocolate Log Blog. She brought me this.
Apple ricotta cheesecake ... that was it that immediately caught my attention.
Somehow I failed to take some better pictures of it.
I still had some ricotta lingering in my fridge, so I had to go for it. Just lately a neighbour had told me I could take apples from their garden. So it was just perfect.
The recipe you find on the Chocolate Log Blog anyway. Everything went well. I even got a kind of ripple effect as you can glean from the picture. Right, well, there was one thing, I really couldn't cut it into individual pieces, but hey, I could just go for it and spoon it from the tin. After a day in the fridge, though, cutting into pieces was possible ... but I didn't care anymore.
Things are not all that bad. When I say bad, of course, I don't mean bad as in the sense of bad, but just bad. Hm, you know ... hips don't lie.
Why so? There was another lovely recipe from another lovely lady from another lovely blog. This recipe didn't contain any chocolate, but green leaves, fruits and some goats cheese.
On top of it, it was so simple it was put together in no time. What you see is what you get. I wish I could have that at other times in life as well (maybe at work).
Who helped this time?
It was Karen from Lavender and Lovage with her Fresh Fig and Goat's Cheese Salad with Walnuts. As you see on the picture, though, something must have gone wrong. Why I didn't use walnuts, I don't know. I have no problems with them. I even have a large amount of them at home.
That has to remain then another unsolved mystery.
Towards the end, things get dangerous again, but very very dangerous, indeed.
Because of this I like to link to the responsible person twice.
Let me get into detail.
That very person I am talking about is Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes. She got me with her Chocolate Tiffin. Why very very dangerous then?
If you have a look at the recipe, you will not fail to notice the usage of 400 g of chocolate.
That's what it looked like. I didn't have all dark chocolate available. This recipe nearly killed half of my choclate supplies (I had to stock up again today).
Just a few days before I tried that recipe. I was talking about cooking to a friend of mine, particularly about a kind of tiramisu I once did. What she was saying about it, didn't fit, but I think it would rather fit to this recipe, because there are certain similarities.
What is he talking about?
Well, there is a German recipe that is called Kalter Hund (cold dog), which is done with butter cookies and choclate. After I finished the chocolate tiffin recipe and had a bite of it later, it just reminded me of that.
Anyway, it tastes very lovely. So I need to be careful as nobody is nearby to help me with that. At least not now.
So far about all that. I still have to try an apple cake, a sea salted caramel cake, some mint cupcakes and some chocolate fondant with balsamic blueberries. Due to this I might be set for the month in the sweet department.
Wish me good luck ... or something like that!
Now we are nearly at the conclusion. This post is an entry for Bookmarked Recipes, the October edition.
It's a very special one, not only because of it being a triple feature, but also because it is kind of reciprocal ... you will figure it out. Or maybe you have to make a confession as well. Do you?
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