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mamushka

Armenian Roasted Vegetables

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A sucker for roasted vegetables, I couldn’t wait to make this recipe by Olia Hercules and her Mamushka cookbook. Fall and winter has us roasting vegetables regularly. I’ve roasted cabbage before and loved it so the combination of these Armenian Roasted Vegetables was quite intriguing to me.

Ensure you cut your vegetables thick as illustrated in the recipe. I’ve noticed while making recipes from this cookbook they use a lot of dill and yogurt in Eastern European Cooking. Our student from Spain has advised the same. Things I would have never known had I never joined the cookbook club. My mom used to cook with dill she grew in her garden. Dilled baby potatoes are one recipe that stands out from childhood. It’s an herb I adore. Serve these veggies along side a roasted chicken, pork loin or beef roast.

Olia also suggests to change things up, try adding some feta before serving.

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Armenian Roasted Vegetables
Author: 
Recipe type: side, dinner, lunch
 
Ingredients
  • half a small head of cabbage, cut into thick wedges
  • 1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced
  • 1 zucchini, thickly sliced
  • 2 celery sticks, thickly sliced
  • 1 small onion, peeled and quartered
  • 1-2 cups cauliflower florets, thickly chopped
  • 1 pepper, cored, seeded and thick slices
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 beefsteak tomato, thickly sliced
  • 1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
  • salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Place all the vegetables except the tomato in a large roasting pan.
  2. Pour the oil over and season well with salt and pepper. Mix everything together with your hands and pop in the oven until the edges of the vegetables start to char, 30 minutes.
  3. Arrange the tomato slices on top, season and place in the oven for another 15 minutes. Sprinkle the chopped dill over, taste for seasoning (adjust if necessary) and serve.

 

Apple Sponge

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There are only so many days in a month and when you have over half a cookbook flagged with recipes to try, the struggle becomes real. Plus kids, activities, events to attend, life in general! But I’m determined and so I made my way through a good handful of recipes from Olia Hercule’s cookbook Mamushka.

The monthly cookbook club I belong to allows you to try any recipe you want and share it to Instagram. There are no other requirements besides check out what others in the club are making. I have found through this process this year there are several recipes I would make again. This being one of them.

This Apple Sponge contains no rising agent. You create height by beating air into the eggs. The cake was moist and using Fall apples harvested at their peak makes it the perfect Autumn dessert. I added salt to the recipe to enhance the flavour but that’s entirely your choice.

Olia’s mom would make this whenever they had a craving for something sweet, calling it biskvit (“a sponge”).

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Apple Sponge
Author: 
 
Ingredients
  • Butter for greasing pan
  • 5 eggs
  • ¾ cup + 2 tbsp superfine sugar
  • 1⅓ cups flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 4 green apples, cored and thinly sliced
  • icing sugar for dusting
  • pinch of salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8x12 inch cake pan with butter.
  2. Beat the eggs and sugar together in a bowl with a handheld mixer for at least 5 minutes (use a timer if necessary) until very thick, pale, and foamy. The amount of air you beat in is essential.
  3. Gently fold the flour and a good pinch of salt into the egg mixture.
  4. Mix the cinnamon with the apples, then tip the apples into the prepared cake pan and pour the cake batter evenly over the apples. Bake until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean, 35 minutes.
  5. Let it cool in the pan. Dust with some icing sugar, cut into squares and serve.

 

 

Yogurt Drop Scones

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Since I was small child I have loved cookbooks. Most likely because my mom had cookbooks I could peek at (Joy of Cooking, Five Roses Cookbook) and secondly because I’d been watching PBS Cooking Shows on Saturdays since the 70’s. When I moved away from home and to Vancouver, I would always fly home for Christmas. It was then my mom always had some cookbook or cooking wares item under the tree for me. My suitcase went home full of inspiration and my cookbook collection slowly increasing in size.

This year I joined in on a cookbook of the month club. I have been enjoying discovering new cookbooks through this club and trying new recipes, several I will make again. The cookbook for September is Mamushka, A Cookbook by Olia Hercules. This book shares recipes from Ukraine & Eastern Europe and is a cookbook I would have never found on my own. I’ve enjoyed several recipes from this book and will be sharing a few on the blog.

Olia’s scones recipe is what we would call small pancakes. This recipe makes a small batch so you will need to double it if you are feeding a family of four. Or a teenager. I’ve never played with Kefir before and was thrilled to find it locally for this recipe. These scones/pancakes were simply delicious and with only five ingredients in this recipe, one I will make again.

Olia calls these one of her most favourite recipes of all time, ones he makes for her son often as her mom did for her.

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Yogurt Drop Scones
Author: 
Recipe type: Breakfast
Serves: 2
 
Ingredients
  • ¾ cup plain yogurt or kefir
  • 1 egg lightly beaten with a pinch of sea salt
  • ¾ cup flour
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 2 tbsp oil
Instructions
  1. Mix all of the ingredients except the oil together in a bowl with a fork. The batter should be a soft dropping consistency.
  2. Brush a frying pan over medium heat lightly with the oil, then drop separate large tablespoonfuls of batter into the pan and cook for 2 minutes on each side. Repeat with the remaining batter and add more oil if necessary. Serve warm with Greek yogurt or jam.