The first Sunday of the month marks the time to write another Recipe Swap post. Ever since I became a member of the group almost a year ago, I have been looking forward to these challenges. Each old-fashioned recipe that Christianna from Burwell General Store chooses for us from retro cookbooks she finds at flea markets throws me into a whirlwind of thinking, pondering, imagining, and dissecting. We are not supposed to replicate the recipe as written, but rather to change it, make it our own, adapt it so it reflects our experiences, preferences, tastes, and personalities. Once the idea takes hold and solidifies, there are hundreds of what ifs and how abouts that run through my head as I surrender to my perfectionism and start fretting about the end result.

So far, I’ve managed to pull off every single challenge without any snags and I feel confident. Once I hit Publish, I pat myself on the shoulder and embark on the most enjoyable part of the process: exploring my friends’ blogs and discovering all the variations on the given recipe prompt. There are not two that are alike, and month after month I am amazed at the versatility and creativity of our group.

This month, this Wild Rice Dressing recipe came from another junk-store find, All-Day Singin’ and Dinner on the Ground, which features the best dishes of restaurants found all over the country. This one originated in Pine Tavern in Bend, Oregon. It looked pretty straight-forward, even though I veered off the familiar dressing recipe only a few years ago, nudged by my curiosity and somewhat nomadic culinary tendencies. For years, I made the southern corn bread dressing that Husband brought with him when he migrated north from rural Georgia (I revel in any opportunity that will allow me to mention his place of origin, especially if I can make it juicier and mention that the mountains and river gorge near his great grandmother’s Tallulah Falls home was where they filmed “Deliverance”).

Once I found out that he would not make any attempts at secession, having his traditional family tastes satisfied throughout the years, I spread my wings and experimented with various ingredients and techniques. But this approach misfired this last Thanksgiving when my middle daughter asked me to make the same dressing as I made the previous year. Predictably, she remembered only that it tasted great, without mentioning what it consisted of. I might have stumbled on the future family tradition, but it slipped through my fingers as I did not remember to write it down, even though I have a folder on my desktop devoted solely to grading and commenting on the recipes I tried.

The dressing that accompanied our juicy and plump chicken for Thanksgiving was made with wild rice and we enjoyed it. This time I duly recorded it and alotted it the several stars that it deserved. But I am always searching for new and different,  and this Recipe Swap challenge gave me another opportunity to experiment.

I came home from last month’s visit to Melissa’s Produce in Vernon, California, with a big burlap bag filled with fruits, vegetables, and grains, some familiar, some wrapped in several veils of culinary mystery. One of the baggies contained freekeh (pronounced free-kuh), an ancient grain that left me completely befuddled. It is actually roasted wheat that is harvested when still young and green, and therefore has a lot more vitamins and minerals than regular wheat. Its fiber content also gives it the status of food that’s really, really good for you, and I was more than happy to include it in my legume and grain drawer.

When I decided to pull out the baggie with freekeh and make it the star of my recipe, the rest just fell into place. I knew that earthy and robust mushrooms would pair well with chewy grains, and caramelized onions would bring just enough sweet notes and soft texture to balance the dish. A whisper of wine, a slight crunch of celery, and a nice amount of spices would round out the finish. The only thing that surprised me a bit is that baking it did not seem to change the consistency a whole lot. Next time I will skip that step and serve it as a hearty side dish.

This was a perfect winter fare, served with moist roasted chicken and a garlicky beet salad. Freekeh was easy to cook and reminded me of barley in its texture.  I am happy to have found another ingredient that will at least occasionally make an appearance at our dining table.

FREEKEH, ONION, AND MUSHROOM DRESSING

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked freekeh
• 2 ½ cups cold water
• 2 Tbsp sunflower oil, divided
• 2 medium yellow onions, diced
• 8 oz cremini or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 tsp coarse salt
• ½ tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp poultry seasoning or a mix of sage and thyme (if fresh, double the amount)
• ½ white wine, dry sherry, or dry vermouth
• a big handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Directions:

Place freekeh and water into a heavy pot and heat on high temperature. When it boils, turn to low, cover, and simmer for 50-60 minutes, until there is no more liquid and the grains are soft. Remove from the heat.

In the meantime, heat 1 Tbsp oil on medium-low heat and add onions. Cook for 30-40 minutes, until soft and golden brown. Combine with freekeh.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Heat the remaining oil on medium heat and sauté mushrooms and celery. Season with salt and pepper and cook until soft, 6-8 minutes. Add wine and cook until it evaporates. Mix into freekeh and onions along with parsley. Taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary.

Pour the dressing into a square or round baking dish and bake for 30 minutes. Let it rest for 5 minutes before serving.

You can find my fellow swappers’ recipes just below. And if for some reason the links don’t show, click on the frog.

For a long time, the smell of oranges brought forth memories of mercilessly frigid January nights with bright stars twinkling in clusters and finding their sparkle mirrored in a distorted symmetry of snow crystals underneath. I remember icy winds from the north slapping my cheeks and pinching gloveless fingers while every tiny hair on my face was frozen and covered with a thin layer of ice. January is cruel in Serbia, bringing on its wings unrelenting cold that turns everything to an ice statue. Light and dry snow muffles all the sounds and when you walk, your boots make scrunching noises that break the ominous whining of the trees bending in an effort to release their branches from the deadly embrace of ice.

On those nights the fruit bowl stationed to the right of the kitchen sink contained nothing but citrus. Thin-skinned lemons ended up cut up and squeezed in big cups of hot tea sweetened with honey that awaited us when we returned home from school, our noses running from the cold, our cheeks flushed. Instead of chocolates and candy that visitors usually brought throughout the year, there were bags of oranges from the port town of Jaffa in Israel.

Mother would place a bowl of oranges in front of Deda-Ljubo and he would unfold the Swiss-army knife that he meticulously sharpened every morning and cut through the skin, sending the heady aroma all over the room and making us appear from our hidden corners, ready to bite into juicy fruit. Those oranges were sweet, with very few seeds, and thin white pith. It might have been just a mirage of childhood, but I have been searching in vain for those oranges ever since.

In the late seventies, grapefruits became fashionable, and I learned to love their bitter-sweet taste. And then the mandarins from Montenegro appeared, easy to peel, soft, and bursting with fresh flavor. But it was not until I arrived to California that I felt as if I were thrown smack in the middle of a citrus family reunion. There were huge pomelos with thick skin hiding pinkish flesh, round and sweet Meyer lemons perfect for preserving, Ojai pixie tangerines whose short season made them sought out and coveted by aficionados, tiny kumquats that once brought me a decisive victory in Scrabble!, and more orange varieties than I could number on my fingers.

A few weeks back a group of food bloggers from the area had a chance to tour Melissa’s Produce warehouse in Vernon, California. We had an amazing vegetarian spread for lunch, featuring all the seasonal produce Melissa’s proudly carries and distributes throughout the country, and not one omnivore in the bunch complained for the lack of animal protein. We donned dorky hair nets and strolled around the warehouse, observing and learning, listening to every word our charming and knowledgeable host Robert Schueller uttered. And then he challenged us to identify ten ingredients he placed on a table, promising a prize for the most right guesses. After I managed to guess only three and with a great effort, I humbly admitted to myself that my knowledge of the world of produce is extremely superficial.

I found out that I have not met even a half of the cousins at the citrus family reunion: there was sweet cocktail grapefruit completely void of bitterness; juicy Cara Cara orange; Satsuma mandarin; hydra-shaped Buddha’s hand; wrinkly-skinned desert gold mandarin; easy to peel honey tangerine; kaffir limes with their brain-looking skin; Kishu mandarins fresh off the boat from Korea; and finger lime hiding a myriad of opalescent beads with a stunning burst of flavor in its nondescript green pod (at 50 cents a piece, these “legumes” can march along truffles and caviar as the world’s most expensive food per ounce).

It is an understatement when I declare that I was thoroughly overwhelmed. My head was spinning from all the shades of yellow, orange, and green, while the aroma was filling the spacious and modern kitchen that we all wished would miraculously transport to our own homes. I felt humbled by the nature’s bounty and grateful for a chance to experience the abundance that is offered to a human being in a developed country. And when I left, my burlap bag filled with different products found at Melissa’s, I vowed to look at the world of produce with different eyes and from a different perspective.

February is the month that brings us blood oranges. A few days ago I found some at our local Persian store and I plopped several of them in my basket. To me, they are the sexiest citrus fruit, promising lusciousness with its red-speckled skin. Once you slice through, the flesh appears in different hues of magenta, red, and maroon, glistening with juice. These oranges offer not only beautifully shaded cross-sections, but also the juices both abundant and sweet.

I don’t have a habit of eating salads as meals, but as I was plating my greens and layering them with beets, segments of blood oranges, toasted pine nuts, crumbled feta cheese, slivers of thinly sliced onions, and slices of cucumbers, all sprinkled with a zesty tarragon vinaigrette, I could not wait to sample this colorful dish and savor the flavors in every forkful. It was as satisfying as I thought it would be.

I scraped the last of the arugula off the plate as I was finishing a Skype conversation with my sister in Frankfurt, Germany, who was getting ready to go to bed, already grumpy at the thought of riding her bike to work at seriously sub zero temperatures. January is at its fiercest in some parts of Europe and the concrete is crackling under the attack of ice. The sun is out in all its splendor, but its rays do not reach the Earth and its glow is completely void of warmth. But I know that somewhere in my sister’s kitchen there is a bowl of citrus, each round piece of fruit ready to ward off the frigid fingers of January and bring sunshine into dreary and grey days.

SALAD WITH BLOOD ORANGES AND ROASTED BEETS

This salad is very versatile and the ingredients can be varied. You can use goat cheese instead of feta, red onions instead of scallions, pecans or walnuts, even hazelnuts instead of pine nuts, and golden beets would add a nice contrast of color.

Ingredients:

• a few big handfuls of mixed salad greens, torn into pieces if too large
• 1 blood orange, peeled, separated into segments, white skin removed
• 1 medium beet, roasted and cut into pieces*
• 1 chunk of feta cheese (2×2 inches), crumbled
• 2 Tbsp pine nuts, toasted**
• 3-4 scallions, diced
• 1 small cucumber, sliced thinly

Dressing:

• 2 Tbsp Tarragon vinegar (you can use any flavorful vinegar you like)
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
• ½ tsp dried Italian seasoning or Herbes de Provence
• ¼ cup good quality olive oil

**place the pine nuts into a non-stick pan and toast for 2-3 minutes on medium heat, shaking the pan occasionally until golden brown

Directions:

Place the lettuces on a plate and top with orange segments, beet chunks, cucumber slices, crumbled cheese, scallions, and toasted pine nuts.

Pour all the dressing ingredients into a glass jar, put the lid on it tightly and shake for 20-30 seconds until combined. Pour over the salad and serve.

Last year at this time I wrote about my dad and a recipe for Ligurian Fish Stew.

When he was in Medical School, Father had a Chinese roommate. This was back in the 50s, and Tzu-Ke-Lee attended the University of Belgrade on a Chinese scholarship studying Serbian language and culture. Even now, in his old age, Father can charm a linguist without being proficient in any language except Serbian, and in his twenties he could communicate with extraterrestrials successfully. That they were both young men was obviously plenty for a friendship to be born.

Tzu-Ke-Lee introduced Father to the tradition of drinking real tea while still piping hot, and in turn got initiated into some unavoidable Serbian rituals: drinking slivovitz (plum brandy) along with Turkish coffee, and devouring various smoked porcine products. The gentle Chinese youth spent every holiday with Father and his parents, getting an in-depth experience of family life in Yugoslavia, which for the most part consisted of Njanja trying her best to fatten up her emaciated guest and Father playing practical jokes, fully taking advantage of the cultural gap.

Tzu was serious and committed, but Father managed to drag him away from his books occasionally and take him out on the town. He went along without missing a smile, and spent hours with Father’s friends, downing shots of slivovitz, learning to jitterbug, and flirting with beautiful girls dressed in sleeveless shirts tied just above their belly buttons. But come morning, when all the rest of the bunch moaned in pain unable to face the morning sun, Tzu was already hitting the books, his porcelain teapot gurgling with steaming hot tea and several cups ready to be filled.

He graduated in record time and started to prepare for his return to China. He spent his last weekend in Yugoslavia with Father and his family in our home town of Čačak where everyone knew him and treated him like a member of the family. The women cried, the men patted him on the shoulders, trying not to show the sparkle of tears in their eyes. Back in Belgrade the farewell party was somewhat solemn. There was still slivovitz and the jitterbug, and flirty pretty girls showed up in droves. Promises were made, addresses exchanged, but everyone knew that China was on the other end of the world, as attainable as the Moon. It was a real goodbye and no one expected to hear from Tzu-Ke-Lee again.

Father continued his studies, intermittently interrupted by wild drunken bashes in which he invariably found himself entwined with another pretty girl with sparkly eyes. On many mornings after, he longed for a cup of strong steaming tea and the gentle smile of his departed roommate and wondered if Tzu thought about his days at the University of Belgrade and the friends he had to leave behind.

And somewhere in Beijing, Tzu-Ke-Lee kept on studying, stealing moments to reminisce about the time he spent in Serbia. A letter from China traveled for months before it reached my grandparents’ house in Čačak. The whole neighborhood gathered at the house while Njanja read the lines aloud. For the moment the gentle Chinese was back among them, smiling and bowing, and everyone felt touched by his kind words.

Throughout the years he kept on writing. Father told us stories about their escapades, vowing every time that he would write back, complaining that he is not good with pen and paper (and that was not just an excuse; the postcards that he sent sounded the same no matter if he wrote to his best friend or Mother, exactly the same when he wrote from his trip to Paris, as from a neighboring town). But he never wrote back.

Back in the 70s, Tzu-Ke-Lee accompanied a Chinese delegation as an official interpreter. He called Father from Belgrade, and in a few hours he was in Čačak, embracing his old roommate and meeting his young family. I don’t remember much of that day, but I cannot forget that weird looking, but smiling face and gentle eyes hiding behind dark-rimmed glasses. A few letters and a few years later, Tzu started working for Radio Beijing. Father still promised to write back, but never did.

I was already on my final year of college when he told me that, a while back, Tzu-Ke-Lee had invited me to be a guest at their family home in Beijing. The meticulous Chinese planned every detail of my stay there. I would travel to Russia and take the Trans-Siberian railroad from Moscow to Vladivostok, and on to Ulan-Bator in Mongolia and Beijing. He knew that I had a passion for languages and promised me a place at the University to study Chinese for two years. But by the time I found out, my life was taking a different turn. I spent a summer in the U.S. and my heart remained imprisoned in the wilderness of the Colorado Rockies. If I had known about the offer when the letter first arrived, I would have jumped up and down to make it happen. But after several years it became an empty dream never to be fulfilled.

Father has never written back to Tzu-Ke-Lee. But I am on very friendly terms with the pen and paper and today I wrote an e-mail to the editor of Radio Beijing. I know that it is a shot in the dark. I do not even know if I spelled Tzu’s name properly. But I am hoping that someone in that big town knows this man who was like a member of my family back when Father was just a young punk. I would like him to know that a lot of people still remember him and tell stories with a teary eye.

I sent greetings to Tzu-Ke-Lee and his family, wishing them health, prosperity, and happiness in the Lunar New Year. I told my girls all the stories I remembered about this gentle, kind man and recruited their help in preparing a Chinese meal. I am sure that there are a few teenagers somewhere in Beijing who listen wide-eyed about their Grandfather’s adventures. And you know what? China is not that far away any more.

CHINESE TEA EGGS

I read several recipes and came up with this one. You can add citrus peel, vinegar, and fennel seeds if you prefer.

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• ½ cup soy sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 star anise
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 6-7 black peppercorns
• 2-3 whole cloves
• 1 tsp black tea

Directions:

Place the eggs in a pot and cover with cold water. Heat to boil and cook for 3-4 minutes. Drain the water. In the mean time heat the remaining ingredients to boil and add the eggs. Turn the heat on low and simmer for 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and keep the eggs in the tea marinade overnight in the refrigerator (next time I will boil the eggs longer in the marinade to achieve more dramatic color contrast).

CHINESE SCALLION PANCAKES

I followed the recipe from my friend and chef Cheryl from Black Girl Chef’s Whites and I know that this is not the last time I made these. My whole family loved the pancakes and they were pretty easy to make.

They tip-toe into the kitchen stealthily, whispering to one another, trying to open the cabinets without making a sound. They cast furtive glances in my direction while they move the bags and boxes aside, afraid that the rustling will attract my attention. Failing to excavate anything desirable from the pantry they move to the refrigerator and conduct an extremely detailed inventory of its shelves. I can hear sighs of disappointment when their quest ends without the expected result and they start to slowly retreat to their room, crestfallen, but resigned.

I sit patiently and wait for them to reappear armed with the sweetest smiles and hastily put-together speech in an attempt to cajole me to change my schedule and divert some of my time to making them a treat. I pretend that I am annoyed at their most inconvenient request, testing their determination and persuasion skills. I take advantage of the moment to ensure that their room will be picked up and free of clutter before I even think of dragging the hand-held mixer out. I have learned that they will promise everything but the most precious toys and trinkets in exchange for something sweet, and I do not hesitate to negotiate.

I enjoy assuming the role of a drill sergeant to my hapless grunts as I send them on the mission to collect the necessary tools and ingredients. In the meantime, I print the recipe and divide the roles. There is inevitably a dissent as they bicker and argue over the coveted task of cracking the eggs and holding the mixer, but in the end they surrender, knowing it is a very small price to pay for the chance to lick the whisks and bowls clean.

They take turns measuring flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, and vanilla, admonishing one another and competing in accuracy and expertise. They know how to weigh the ingredients on a scale, and they always break the eggs in a ramekin first to check for errant shells. I monitor their progress from afar, allowing them to garner confidence and train their hands to wield the cooking utensils skillfully. I close my eyes if an egg ends on the floor or if a cup of flour mistakenly gets splattered all over the counter. I count in my head as they take minutes for a step that I could accomplish in a second, but I do not intervene.

They take turns shaping rounds of dough with an ice cream scoop and placing them on a cookie sheet. As the bottom of the mixing bowl starts to appear, they start sending imploring looks my way until I relent and let them eat some of the dough raw. While the cookies are dispatched to the oven, they finish licking the bowl and the beaters and without too much fuss place all the used utensils in the sink. They return to their room giggling, their cheeks flushed from the excitement, eyes sparkling with the satisfaction of achievement.

I sigh in relief, luxuriating in the ensuing moments of peace and quiet, as endorphins work their miracle in stopping them from bickering and whining. Every couple of minutes a sentinel would appear in the kitchen inquiring about the progress, seduced by the smell of melting chocolate blending with vanilla and butter, as the cookies slowly spread and turn golden. I get them out of the oven and let them cool for a bit before I carefully place them on baking racks in neat rows. They wait impatiently, having poured milk and laid the place mats on the table, their hands clutching small plates in anticipation of the first cookie.

They inspect them with scrutiny while they cool, trying to select the biggest specimens loaded with the most chocolate chips, their fingers slowly creeping to the chosen ones, afraid that the other one would get to them first. When I say Go! their hands flit to the cookies and snatch them off the rack in a second. For a moment they look into each other’s plates making sure that they ended up with the right cookie before they run to the dining room table and take the first, delicious bite of a still warm, soft cookie.

I return to my interrupted schedule with a smile plastered all over my face, listening to them giggle and describe the subtle undertones of vanilla and the barely perceptible, but complementing bursts of sea salt crystals. They might think they have won this battle, but I know that our little game will bring me hours of contentment.

When they finish, they place their plates and glasses in the sink and skip to their room, stealth completely gone from their steps. They will emerge from time to time to take another look at the cookies and to conspire about the best place to hide them before the Cookie Monster returns home from work and depletes their stash. But for now they are happy, working out their sugar rush with paper dolls and puppet shows, while I bask in the illusion of a quiet idyll.

CHEWY CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES

I cannot remember where I found this recipe, but I have been making these cookies for at least ten years. Husband, AKA Cookie Monster, has managed to convince me that they are the epitome of an all-American perfectly chewy chocolate chip cookie and I remain loyal.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 1 stick (4 oz,115 gr) cold butter, cut into small cubes
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 slightly beaten egg
• 7 oz (200gr) chocolate chunks (I prefer dark, good quality chocolate with high percentage of cacao, but this time all I had at hand were semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Directions:

Sift flour and baking soda, and mix in salt. Using hand held mixer (I am still waiting for a fairy godmother to bring me a ruby red Kitchen Aid stand-up mixer) combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar at low speed. Mix for 3 minutes. Add vanilla and egg and stir until combined. Slowly add flour mix and stir until it just comes together. Mix in the chocolate chips or chunks using a wooden spoon.

Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350F.

Scoop rounds of dough with and ice cream scoop and place them on 2 cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, leaving about 2 inches in between each cookie. Place the cookie sheets on the first and third shelf and bake for 10-14 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies) until just barely brown around the edges. Rotate the cookie sheets after 6 minutes.

Let the cookies cool of on the sheets for a couple of minutes before removing them to the cooling racks.

Last year post: Les Miserobbed (and a delightful recipe for Braised Lamb Shanks)

There are smells wafting from the kitchen window that can steal my soul during one breath and never release it: hazelnuts toasting in the oven; onions warming up in a sautee pan, slowly surrendering their sharpness and becoming sweet; garlic clove rubbed against the craggy surface of a brushetta; rows of red peppers roasting on the charcoal grill; specks of vanilla peppering the hot smoothness of Crème Anglaise; smoky bacon dancing in the skillet, hiding glistening drops in the curls of its edges…

But only one is capable of bringing tears to my eyes and enveloping me in imaginary soft and fuzzy blankets, making me feel content, comforted, and absolutely safe: the smell of bread baking in the oven. It is not alluring, nor seductive; it is not exotic, nor is it elusive; it is primal and rustic, inviting me into a warm cave offering shelter from blustery winds that plaster ice crystals on my eyelashes.

Warm-from-the-oven bread is one of my favorite foods. I prefer it smeared with lightly salted butter, milky kajmak, or home-rendered lard topped with salt, paprika, and thinly sliced onions. When I bite into the firm crust, I find myself running after the cows with my cousins, one hand clutching a book, the other firmly gripping a big, crunchy piece of bread that came out of the wood-oven minutes before.

Every time I sink my teeth into a slice, I wonder how something so basic can elicit so much pleasure. But with all its simplicity, I did not have the courage to make my own loaf for many years. I was comfortable with cooking, allowing my creativity to teach me how to improvise, eager to learn new methods and techniques, and willing to experiment with various cuisines and ingredients. But bread baking scared me. Even though many assured me that I need only try, I was mystified and convinced that nothing as miraculous as bread can come out of my kitchen.

Yeast seemed whimsical and impulsive, and I did not know if I would be able to wake it up from its slumber and make it play. Flour was confusing in all its different denotations and types, which were not at all the same in Europe and the USA. It appeared to me that too many variables would make it impossible to achieve success. The time for kneading, proofing, and resting, the temperature of the kitchen and the oven, the altitude, the consistency of the dough, the amount of pressure applied while kneading and when deflating, all conspiring against me.

But one glorious day, my perfectionism decided to go on sabbatical. Taking advantage of the moment, I dragged out a 10 pound bag of 5 Roses flour that Mother preferred while in the US, tied my colorful apron around my waist, and courageously took the first step. I did not have to use the recipe; Mother’s words were embedded in my mind like a mantra and I plunged in with calculated movements, dissolving yeast in warm water with a bit of sugar to feed it; adding flour, salt, and more water; kneading for a long time, remembering Mother’s advice and admonitions; covering the dough with a clean kitchen towel and placing it on the stove.

By that time the doubts slowly started creeping up, but bolstered by my new energy and zeal, I brushed them all off. Even if my bread resembled a brick coming out of the oven, I decided not to fret, to just dump it into a trash can and start making another loaf. But when I peeked under the kitchen towel, my first-born dough was beautiful, round and soft, and doubled in size.

My first bread was not as good as Mother’s, but it was the first of many, some of them beautiful, some of them disastrous. I never looked back, placing another slash on the board of my accomplishments.

January 7th marks Christian Orthodox Christmas*. No matter what food is served, there has to be pork roast and homemade bread. I remembered with nostalgia the square, many-layered bread  that Njanja made every Christmas. It was brushed with egg yolk and pierced all over the top with a fork, and somewhere in its soft middle there was a coin, promising luck to the person that found it.

I wanted to make Mother’s bread, which is shaped like a rose, and decided to combine the two, adding and subtracting, adjusting the amounts, and enjoying the process of creation. No matter how many times I made bread, I am still mesmerized when I see the beautiful loaf when it comes out of the oven. And for the first time in our new home I sent the smell of freshly baked bread out to all my neighbors, hoping that it would bring them comfort and peace.

*Our church has not accepted the Gregorian calendar and all the religious holidays are observed two weeks later.

ROSE SHAPED BREAD (POGAČA RUŽIČARA)

Ingredients:

• 1 inch piece of fresh yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 200 ml warm milk
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 100 ml plain yogurt or buttermilk
• 1 tsp coarse salt
• 2 Tbsp butter at room temperature
• 650gr all purpose flour (a bit more for dusting the counter)
• 120 gr (1 stick) butter at room temperature
• 1 egg, slightly beaten

Directions:

Dissolve yeast and sugar in milk. When it blooms, whisk in eggs, yogurt, salt, and butter and stir until combined. Add most of the flour and knead in the bowl. Turn over to the lightly dusted counter and continue kneading, adding more flour as needed, to get an elastic, shiny, slightly soft, but not sticky dough. Place in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and keep on room temperature until the dough doubles, about 1 hour.

Punch the dough on floured surface and flatten into a rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Spread 2 tablespoons of butter over one half of the rectangle and cover the buttered side with the unbuttered one. Spread 1 tablespoon of butter over one half of the folded dough, and cover it with the unbuttered part, forming a square. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes. Flatten it again into a rectangle and repeat. Let it rest another 10-15 minutes.

Flatten into a rectangle and spread the remaining 2 Tablespoons of butter over the whole dough. Roll into a tight roulade, placing the seam down. With a sharp knife cut slices 1 to 1 ½ inches wide and place cut side down into a round pan. Brush with beaten egg and let it rest on room temperature for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350F. Bake your bread until golden brown and nicely risen, for 40-50 minutes. Allow it to rest in the pan before removing it to a baking rack.

I am sending my Rose Shaped Bread over to April Harris of 21st Century Housewife for her Gallery of Favorites and to Susan for Yeastspotting

Last year at about this time I wrote about my beautiful oldest daughter and a recipe for Saffron Rice.

It’s time for another monthly Recipe Swap, the first of the year. Christianna from Burwell General Store started it more than a year ago, getting the idea from All-Day Singin’ and Dinner on the Ground, an old cookbook and hymnal she unearthed at a flea market. Every month a group of food bloggers gets the assignment with a challenge not only to reproduce the recipe, but to change it and make it their own. The recipes are short, not very detailed, and obviously aimed at experienced home cooks.

In December, we switched books and made our first recipe from  ‘The Second Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes From Famous Eating Places“, yet another book Christianna  found at a flea market.  This month the task was to remake Zabaglione, an Italian custard dessert that was a staple at the Imperial House restaurant in Chicago.

I love Italian food, Italian music (just peek into my iTunes library, there are hundreds and hundreds of canzone), and above all, the Italian language (my University of Belgrade diploma is the proof), but when it comes to desserts, I tend to favor the Central European and Middle Eastern-influenced delicacies of my childhood. It has nothing to do with geography, but  rather with those immeasurable specks of Mother’s love that magically found their way into every morsel.

I did not even hesitate or attempt to second-guess my decision after I read the ingredients: I knew that I would be making Šnenokle (Snow Dumplings), a light and creamy, egg-based dessert also known as Iles Flottante for the connoisseurs of French cuisine. It is one of the few sweets that ended up in my black leather bound notebook that traveled with me through college and bravely crossed the ocean to help me adjust to my new home in the U.S.

We always had eggs and milk in the house, and this was a go-to dessert for emergencies. To this day, I have not encountered a soul, except for my first husband’s sister, who did now swoon over this simple, but elegant dish. I know that we counted the hours after the hot, pale yellow cream was placed in the fridge, eagerly awaiting its final appearance at the kitchen table. Mother sometimes placed buttery cookies on the bottom of the dish and with time they became one with the cream, adding just right amount of texture and flavor.

As simple as this dessert is, it took years for me to stop worrying about the outcome and become comfortable making it on the spur of the moment. Creme Anglaise can be finicky, and I spent hours panicking over its consistency and tendency to curdle at at whatever whim. In our house, the eggs and milk are always available. As my girls love the rich taste of the cream and pillowy and light texture of the egg white clouds swimming in the sea of yellow, I try to indulge them from time to time.

We are having a guest tonight for dinner: Husband’s Vietnamese colleague is visiting us for the first time, and I decided to put some sparkle to my dessert, to give it some more panache and make it shine. I made caramel sauce and decorated the bowls with caramel swirls, while the girls buzzed around me frenetically, hoping I’d have some remaining pieces of amber sugar. Now I sit and wait, but I am smiling in contentment, not afraid of the outcome.

ILES FLOTTANTE (ŠNENOKLE) 

Ingredients:

• 6 large eggs, separated
• 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1l (1 quart) milk
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form on high speed. Add sugar and mix until the meringue is firm and shiny. In the meantime scald the milk on medium heat until it starts to ripple. Turn the heat to medium-low. Using a larger spoon scoop up some meringue and place it in the milk carefully. Work in stages, turning the meringue after a minute or two. Take them out with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl, or several individual smaller dishes. Place the bowl into the refrigerator.

After all the egg whites are gone, strain the milk and heat it up again. Whip the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla until pale yellow and shiny. Pour small amount of milk into eggs to temper them, and them pour all of the egg mixture into the hot milk. Stir on low heat until it thickens and coats the back of the wooden spoon.

Pour the cream on top of the egg whites and place back into the refrigerator.

My fellow bloggers who participate in Recipe Swap are extremely talented and creative people. Stop by their blogs and check out their renditions of this month’s challenge.

I am sitting at our card table that’s pretending to be a desk surrounded by a pile of CDs waiting to be downloaded into the music library and liberated from their covers in order to make room. My black yoga pants are folded up three or four times and reach just beyond my knees. They are also a bit wet at the folds and I relish the feel of cold air gripping my shins and keeping me alert.

This is not a technique I employ for breaking a writer’s block or enticing inspiration or the free flow of creativity; we went to the beach and I walked in the surf of the majestic Pacific ocean. It was already dark for a few hours when Husband and I started our short trek downhill. We walked and jogged for half an hour on the strand, deciding to make our way back following the edge of the water. Shoes and socks came off and we ran across cold sand towards the ocean, wriggling our toes in the foam. I was squealing in delight every time a wave would break around my feet, excited to be playing chicken with the tide.

Husband kept at a higher ground, not willing to abandon his beloved iPhone to the touch of salty water, enjoying the feel of packed sand right at the point where the waves hug the sand, reaching further and further every second. I jumped in and out of the surf, trying to avoid the seaweed, ignoring the fact that water is definitely splashing well above the folds of my pants. I inhaled the briny ocean air while staring at the pale moon playing hide-and-go-seek with transparent, billowy clouds. We have lived in Southern California for more than three years, and we spent many leisurely hours visiting Laguna Beach; but it took less than a week of incessant crashing of the waves and salt in the air to wake me up and make me unbelievably happy.

I like that I can walk to a major grocery store in about five minutes in one direction and Trader Joe’s in another, but I can’t describe the feeling that overwhelms me every time I catch a glimpse of the truly blue waters of the Pacific while I am pushing my cart through the entrance. Whenever we traveled to the seaside when we were children, the most exciting moment was spotting a wedge of blue behind a curve in the steep, serpentine road weaving through the mountains. Those moments were an annual happening, and therefore cherished and nurtured through the gloomy and gray months of Serbian winter. Every time the Pacific winks at me, it startles me and makes me catch my breath in awe.

I know that long walks will strengthen the tired muscles in my legs; the sun will bring out the rare golden strands in my hair and attempt to hide more numerous silver ones; the warm air will caress my skin and make it shiny; and gorgeous blue skies that run to meet the ocean somewhere behind the horizon line will clear my mind of worrying thoughts. I don’t have to make New Year resolutions; I only have to surrender to the beauty that meets my eye behind every corner.

***

I enjoy cooking in my spacious, bright, new kitchen. The floor is set in Spanish tiles and the cupboards are painted white. There is a lot of storage room, but I have to keep a stool behind the fridge to reach the higher shelves. I baked some cookies for our managers, an older couple who live on the first floor and received a nice, big jar of strawberry butter as a “thank you”. Our next-door neighbor is a feisty widow in her seventies who waves to me through my kitchen window every time she passes by with her bike and tells me that the smells of my cooking are making her constantly hungry. I know I am going to like it here. And I know that many plates will leave my kitchen destined for our neighbors’ tables, because we need to make friends.

One of the lightest and tastiest desserts that I know is also unbelievably simple and fast to make. It was not a sweet that Mother would make for guests, but rather a spur-of-the moment kids-need-an-after-school-snack thing. It is light, with very little fat, studded with dried fruit and nuts, very similar to angel food cake as it uses only egg whites. In Serbia we call it Komisbrot, the name I am certain originated somewhere in the German-speaking part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I made Eggs Benedict for my family a few days ago and had leftover egg whites. I usually freeze my egg whites and write the number on the baggie as I keep on adding them, but this time I decided to make Komisbrot instead.

KOMISBROT (ANGEL FOOD CAKE WITH NUTS AND DRIED FRUIT)

The recipe does not ask for specific number of egg whites, as they are measured by volume, along with the other ingredients. I happened to have 6 egg whites, which amounted to about 1 cup.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chilled egg whites
• a pinch of salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup various dried fruit and nuts, chopped (I used cranberries, white raisins, pecans, and walnuts)
• zest of 1 lemon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease and flour a bread pan.

Beat your egg whites with salt on high speed until stiff peaks form. Add the sugar and mix to combine. Stir in the flour, fruit, nuts, and lemon zest. Pour into the prepared pan and flatten the surface. Bake for thirty minutes (if the knife pierced through the middle comes out clean, it is done).

Let it cool in pan for 10 minutes and turn over to the bakers rack to cool completely. Cut into slices and serve.

Memories of Summer

I look back and make a promise: my camera will become my best friend. This stolen moment goes to Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook and her Black&White Wednesdays event that showcases gorgeous photography from many talented food bloggers.

New Year’s Eve in the part of the world I grew up in was the biggest night of the year. Bigger than your birthday, bigger than Christmas, bigger than the Day of the Republic. It was the night when girls in jeans transformed into princesses and gawky boys became dapper gentlemen dressed in designer suits and ties. It was the night of stiletto heels daring the icy streets, while the pale arms twisted around their date’s cloth covered elbows for necessary support. It was the night when no one minded snowflakes dancing around in the halos of the streetlamps and when the excitement ran as high as before a debutante’s ball.

While everyone searched for their assigned seats in the restaurant, the band played easy listening music. The waiters in starched white shirts and black vests circled around offering aperitifs. The girls reached for them with shaky hands and the boys pretended to be suave and snatched them off the trays briskly. When the dining room filled up, the platters with appetizers were placed on the tables and the band switched to slow, ballroom music. The first couples on the dance floor braved the scrutiny of hundreds of eyes and gingerly followed the melody, locking eyes for encouragement.

In no time the dance floor was a sea of undulating bodies displaying every move learned at a dance class the previous Fall. When the entrees arrived, the music switched to rock, and the more familiar rhythm allowed everyone to loosen up and embrace the moves with abandon. An occasional reach for the wine glass, a stolen bite easily devoured, while the dance floor became ever more crowded.

As midnight approached, the ties were straightened, the hair was puffed up and the dresses pressed down, awaiting the inevitable celebratory photo shoots. The waiters passed the flutes filled with champagne, and the bubbles matched the sparkle in young, excited eyes. The countdown, the darkened room, the glint of glass, the anticipation of something monumental. When the hands on the clock met and marked the beginning of another year, the champagne glasses touched each other, the lips touched each other, the arms entwined, while the band eased into the first notes of the traditional Viennese waltz, The Blue Danube.

For several minutes, while the waltz lasted, every girl felt like a Cinderella embraced by her prince and whisked off into a fairy tale, and every boy saw himself as a prince, completely capable of winning a woman of his dreams. The first moments of the new year were indeed magical, bringing on its wings the promises of wishes fulfilled.

As the rigorous notes of Strauss ebbed, the band played slow tunes, allowing the couples to rest, but still stay together. As more food appeared and more alcohol was poured, laughter became bolder and touches more daring. With the renewed energy the music shifted to Serbian folk tunes and the dance floor again filled with young bodies holding hands, forming a chain that kept weaving around and around following an ever increasing beat. More music, more dancing, more wine, smiles plastered on faces by default, the palpable energy of the young, hour after hour, in an incessant flow, until the dawn, when the band gave up and called it a night.

The feet were sore in high heels, the mascara smudged, the ties askew and untied, but the eyes continued to sparkle while the batches of young people exited the restaurant and dared the freezing streets swarmed by lacy snowflakes. The early morning resonated in stifled giggles and hushed up laughter. The arms went unabashedly around the shoulders and waists, strengthened by the night left behind, buoyed by the hope of youth, still reeling from the wine and adrenaline brought on by the night of excitement.

But every night has its end. Deposited at the gate, the girls made shushing faces as they entered their homes, sending air kisses to the disheveled boys. Tomorrow morning they would awake, rubbing their tired eyes, just before noon, ready to jump up and scurry downstairs to listen to the Vienna Boys’ Choir and watch beautiful dancers gliding effortlessly across the shiny floors of an imperial Viennese ball room, ushering in the New Year with more Strauss.

We did not have a traditional New Year’s Day breakfast meal when I was a teen in Serbia. The only thing I remember of January 1st was the Viennese concert at noon, and I made sure not to miss it, no matter how late I arrived home from my Cinderella night. But I know that the first breakfast of the year needs to be special, indulgent, and a bit sinful, a hint of days to come.

If you have a carton of eggnog in your fridge (and I cannot imagine anyone not having it in late December), use some of it to make the French toast for the New Year’s. It is just indulgent and rich enough to make me smile and imagine for a moment that I am eighteen again, luxuriating at the kitchen table, while rubbing my tired feet and humming a waltz.

Happy New Year!

EGGNOG FRENCH TOAST

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• ½ eggnog
• 2 Tbsp bourbon
• a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp butter (optional)
• 8 pieces of stale French bread
• powder sugar

Directions:

Whisk the eggs, eggnog, bourbon, and nutmeg until well blended. Heat the griddle on medium heat and add butter if it is not non-stick. Dip the bread into the mixture on both sides and place onto the griddle, four pieces at the time. When nicely brown, flip to the other side and let it brown.

Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Before I left for college and departed my parents’ nest for good, unaware that the flight away would be final, my family moved three times, which would make us pretty nomadic in Serbian terms. Upon graduating from Medical school, Father started working in Novi Pazar, the city that paid his tuition and reserved his services as the young MD for three years. I was born in March, delivered by an old Muslim midwife who managed the delivery ward with unrelenting confidence on the tail of decades of experience.

We moved to Čačak (pronounced chah-chahk) in June to join Njanja and Deda-Ljubo, Father’s parents. My sister and my brother were born within the next four years and most memories of our early childhood are tied to that stately yellow house with wrought iron gates, the shed that always smelled of smoked meats, a huge mulberry tree with a swing, Deda’s beloved roses, and Njanja’s lush hydrangea bushes.

When I was eleven, Father got an apartment from the hospital (in socialist times, that was the only way the new family could disengage from the parents and start from the beginning), located only a block away from the yellow house. Our building was brand new, pink with white balconies, architecturally daring and modern, with straight lines and stuccoed walls. Mother finally had a kitchen big enough to spread her culinary wings and she made it into a cozy, warm spot, all orange and brown. It overlooked the city park and was bathed in the soft northern light.

I loved that apartment, but I was at an awkward age when we lived there, and I will always associate it with the anxiety, paranoia, and teen angst that engulfed me and threatened to destroy me at times. My cheerful polka-dotted pull-down curtains were always drawn; my window was always shut for fear of “the people” hearing what I had to say; I prepared for hours every time I had to leave the house and when I was outside, I would look straight ahead of me and rush, rush, rush to the store, convinced that everyone around was just staring at me, laughing, and whispering.

I was in high school for a few months when we moved again, only two blocks from our apartment, a block away from the yellow house. The yellow house was doomed, marked for demolition by the urban planners. In its place there was going to rise a skyscraper, and my grandparents had to move. The city offered several houses in exchange, and they picked the one that Mother and Father still  live in. But the transition was not swift, nor easy, as a smaller house had to be erected in the place of the summer kitchen for Njanja and Deda, and the ceilings in the big house were lowered to make a second floor a possibility. Mother was the main engineer, architect, and designer, along with being the cook who fed the numerous crews who worked on the house for months.

In the end, it was perfect. The three of us had command of the second floor, my brother in one room, my sister and I in another. There was a huge balcony, a big open living room, a bathroom, a dark room for photography, and a storage room. We loved it, even though we did not understand at the time how fortunate we were. Understandably, every party was held at the house, and it became the hub of activity. To this day, many people remember the days and nights spent at our place, with Mother providing the victuals and Father taxiing the guests home.

I went away to college and came back every two weeks, unable to break the ties with my hometown and my family. That house continued to be the pillar of my security and even now I call it ” my home”, even though it has not been my home for twenty five years. There are memories engraved in every inch of its walls, in every tile, in every corner of our multi-angled, wood-covered second floor ceiling. I spent some of the best days of my life in the house, and it resonates with my friends’ laughter, with my sister’s giggling, with my brother’s 80s music, and my boyfriend’s whispers. The house moved on, gaining new memories and new sounds, but for me, it remained cemented in an age that makes me feel happy and strong.

I moved fifteen times since I arrived to America in August of 1986. My sister rolls her eyes when she tells me that there are no lines left in her address book for me anymore. I laugh it off, knowing that she’ll adjust. When we moved from Ohio to California in August of 2008, it was out of desperation and hope. We landed in Orange County because we had Ohioan friends living next door and nobody else. We left our beautiful house on the lake to come and live in a tiny apartment surrounded by hills and people who like to spit on the sidewalk. The girls declared that they hated California. And we were scrambling to prove them wrong.

It took three whole years of me working at a yucky diner and Husband taking whatever work he could find until he finally found a writing job that would enable us to make a leap forward and move away. We are still holding our breaths, but we think we are home. After a couple of weeks of grueling work, back pains, and total exasperation, we are at peace. We found a place we can call home and our girls are going to like California.

This morning Husband and I walked to the beach. It took us fifteen minutes to get to the Strand and we were in awe of the beauty that surrounded us. We know we can be happy here, once we are free of the boxes. Our spirits are high, our energy is spiking, and our hope is at a new high. We are ushering the New Year in completely loving our new digs and anticipating a future that can only be awesome for us.

It gets harder and harder every time we move. We are growing older and the physical exertion cannot be ignored. I know that we will move again. But we know that the next move will put us into a place of our choice that the girls can call home for decades to come. This interim place is making us happy and letting us breathe with full lungs, adding the ocean air as a bonus.

For the new beginnings and the promises of New Year I have a festive dish that adorns many a Serbian celebratory table. It is a savory roulade made with spinach dough, cheese filling, and roasted red peppers.

FESTIVE SPINACH ROULADE

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 6 eggs
• 6 Tbsp flour
• 6 Tbsp milk
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 500gr (1lb) blanched spinach squeezed of water, chopped (you can use two packages of frozen spinach)

Filling:

• 250gr (1 cup, ½ lb) crumbled feta (or cottage cheese)
• 4 Tbsp sour cream
• 2-3 Tbsp cream cheese
• 1 tsp salt (if the cheese is not too salty like feta)
• 1-2 roasted red peppers, peeled and seeded

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Separate the eggs and whip the egg whites into a stiff meringue. Add the yolks, and mix well. Add the milk and mix until combined. Sprinkle with salt and add the flour and baking powder. It should look like the cake batter.

Stir in the spinach until it is combined thoroughly and pour into a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. (If your pan is bigger, the roulade will be thinner and more decorative). Spread the batter evenly with a spoon and shake the pan a few times to get rid of the bubbles.

Bake for twenty minutes, like you would a cake batter. When done, roll the dough into a roulade using the parchment paper and let cool. In the meantime prepare the filling.

Crumble the cheese and combine it with sour cream, cream cheese, and the salt, if necessary. Spread the cheese mixture on top of the green dough and lay pieces of roasted red pepper on top. Roll tightly with the parchment paper and place in the refrigerator to chill for a few hours.

When chilled properly, remove from the fridge and slice into ½ inch thick pieces. Place on a platter and serve.

I brought Spinach Roulade to our monthly Food Bloggers LA (FBLA) meeting hosted by Erika of In Erika’s Kitchen. For the round-up of all the wonderful recipes visit Dorothy’s website at Shockingly Delicious.

Last year at this time I wrote The Night We Came Home with a great recipe for Mulled Wine.