Veggi-tales

The Russian summer is short, but the days are long.  Fruit and vegetables grow and mature while you are looking at them.  The zucchini pictured above is big enough to feed two people for nearly a week –five days, to be exact.

What I really love are Russian carrots.  There’s a strong possibility that carrots which are home-grown anywhere taste entirely different from the farm factory type.  What you need to do is leave carrots in the ground until after the first frost, then harvest them and eat them as quickly as you can.  Crisp and sweet.  Ah!

When I get home I’m going to see if my Russian recipes with carrots turn out as good with American carrots.   

CARROT PUDDING

2 cups grated carrots, sautéed in butter

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 lb tvorog or farmer’s cheese

¼ cup white raisins

Salt and sugar to taste

Sour cream to top the pudding

Mix the first ingredients and place in a buttered casserole.  Top with sour cream.  Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes and then let cool.

The recipe may need some tweaking.  How much sugar?  Enough to make this dish into a dessert.  What about tvorog?  It seems to be available only at Russian markets, and “farmer’s cheese” may be known by other terms.  My version of tvorog is strained yogurt. 

Now, there are lots of recipes for carrot pudding.  The Eipcurious app on my iPad just found a few with wildly different ingredients.  I may experiment.

WINTER SALAD

1 lb carrots, grated

1 lb onion rings

1 lb pepper rings

1 lb tomatoes, quartered

1 T salt

1/3 cup oil

1/3 c. sugar

Vinegar to taste

50 grams of water

There are many variations of this salad, some of which use thinly sliced cabbage, and lemon juice instead of vinegar, and dill, bay leaf, and parsley.  Usually the vegetables are layered in a glass container, the dressing ingredients heated together and then poured on top.  It may be refrigerated for a few days before eating, or canned in glass jars.

CARROT MARMALADE

1 lb. carrots, grated

1 – 2 onions, diced

1 tomato, diced

Salt to taste

Saute in oil.  Serve as a side dish.  One of my favorites! I hope it works with American carrots!