Author Archives for milkandbun

About milkandbun

Russian girl with passion for food. :)

Purple peppers and chickpeas!

August 29, 2013
milkandbun
3 comments
beautiful, bell pepper, blog, Blogging, capsicum, chickpea, cooking, dinner, feta, food, food photo, fresh, healthy, healthy eating, lunch, My Life, photography, photos, recipe, recipes, salad, yummy

This summer I’ve been making lots of salads.

It’s still extremely hot in Dubai and one more salad has been done:)

I found these beautiful capsicums at a store, grown by farmers in the Netherlands. They’re absolutely marvellous, aren’t they?

Never seen such deep purple, blackish color of bell peppers. 🙂 They are green inside and have got the same taste as green ones.

So, about the salad. One of the main ingredients are capsicums, as you could guess 😉

I promise, the salad won’t leave you hungry. Chickpeas in it are high in protein! Usually I make it ahead (before fitness class, for example, after I’m so hungry!) so it has plenty of time to marinate.

We need:

1 can chickpeas (drained)
2 big capsicums
100 g feta cheese
juice of ½ lemon + zest of ¼ lemon
extra virgin olive oil (for frying and dressing)
2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme (or dried one is good as well)
1 tsp cumin
fresh mint or/and parsley

Heat the olive oil with thyme and cumin just for 1 minute, add shredded capsicums, toss and stir-fry until they become soft. My purple peppers turned into greenish color 😀

In a large bowl, combine chickpeas, capsicums, feta cheese and lemon zest. Toss to combine. Pour 2 tbsp olive olive and lemon juice over the mixture.

Add some fresh mint and parsley; season to taste with grounded black pepper.

You can serve it immediately, but I heartily recommend to leave it for 30-60 minutes to marinate.

Enjoy!

Russian cold soup-Sveckolnik

Sveckolnik [sve’koljnik] – Russian summer cold soup, which goes really well during the summer heat. The name comes from the word “sveckla”, which denotes beetroot.

When AC and even hundreds of ice cream don’t help you against hot, this light soup refreshes and cools you.

The main ingredient is a raw beetroot, it’s high in vitamins, minerals and fiber that can effect the digestive system in a positive ways.

Raw beets are one of the top vegetables for nutritious raw eating, according to Bastyr University.

You can include this light soup in your balanced diet and it takes only few minutes to prepare it.

Ingredients:

beetroot – 2 small

cucumbers – 3-4

eggs – 1-2 per plate

a bunch of spring onion

a small bunch of dill

1 garlic clove

buttermilk 400 ml

water 200 ml

salt, sugar to taste

sour cream (optional)

Better to choose small young beets. And you can substitute raw beets with boiled, if you like.

Shred beets and cucumbers, put them in a deep plate.

Boil eggs for 10 minutes, let cool and cut them into chunks.

Slice green onions, put it in a cup and add some salt. With teaspoon begin to grind the salt into onions.

Add crushed garlic and mix.

Combine together beets, cucumbers, eggs, onions and dill. Add a pinch of sugar.

For the liquid part buttermilk is mixed with cold drinking water, the volume and thickness of it totally depends on your taste.

If you can find “salted lassi” (yougurt drink)-use it, no need to dilute with water; in Arabian countries it’s called “laban up”, in Russia – “tan”, “sivorotka” .

Pour the buttermilk over dry ingredients and mix well. Sprinkle some dill.

Enjoy! 🙂

You can serve it with a dollop of sour cream and rye bread.

Layered salad with chicken and prunes

August 5, 2013
milkandbun
7 comments
blog, Blogging, chicken, cooking, dinner, DIY, eggs, food, food photo, lunch, photography, recipe, Russian, Russian recipe, salad, side dish

In Russia you can find large variety of salads, especially with mayonnaise dressing. Such salads are little bit heavy and could nourish you easy, especially during winter time.

Despite the fact that they’re tasty, better to cut down mayo dressings and replace it with sour cream or yogurt.

The below wonderful salad could be served not only for a family dinner, but for any festive occasion. It consists of simple ingredients, tastes good and deserves to be in your cooking book 🙂

Ingredients

2 medium chicken fillet
12 prunes (dried plums)
200 g mushrooms (champignons)
1 onion
2 eggs
2 cucumbers
1 tbsp olive oil

Dressing

150 g sour cream
1 tsp plain mustard
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt, pepper

Put the prunes in a cup and cover with hot water, let stand for 30 minutes. Remove stones and cut prunes into pieces.

Boil the chicken, let cool, then cut it into small cubes.

Boil the eggs for 10 minutes. Shred the cucumbers and cooled eggs.

Cut the onion and mushrooms, fry together with 1 tbsp olive oil until golden-brown; set to cool.

Mix ingredients for the dressing.

Layers

Prunes
Chicken fillets
Spread 1/2 dressing
Mushrooms with onion
Spread 1/4 dressing
Eggs
Spread the remaining 1/4 dressing over eggs
Cucumber

Done! Let the salad stand for 1 hour and you can enjoy! 🙂

Happy Birthday, milkandbun!

July 29, 2013
milkandbun
7 comments
blog, Blogging, food, food photo, My Life, writing

I started my little blog a year ago, some reasons joined up together and voilà:

-the love of photography and baking;

-my old paper notebook, which pages began to came out;

-forgotten recipes;

-and thought, that many people around the world still don’t know what Russians cook and eat. 🙂

I’ve been learning from blogging every day! I’ve learned more about food styling, found wonderful blogs and their hosts and tried out hundreds recipes (and even more are waiting)!

I want to thank everyone, who read me or just stumble across, your interest helps my blog grow. 🙂

I hope you enjoy milkandbun! 😀

Red spinach

Hi guys! 🙂Have you ever tried red spinach? First time I tried it in Dubai. Unfortunately, I never seen it in Russia before. It has mild earthy and green flavor, very similar to green spinach. I use leaves in salads or garnish, adding nice color to any dish!

Today for the lunch is baked crusted creme dory fillet and carrot-spinach salad.