This is an easy one pot stew for lamb or beef. I chose lamb and was not disappointed! Add the greens at the very end just before serving. Serve with an earthy flavored yogurt such as Organic Valley Grassmilk Plain Yogurt
This delish lamb stew recipe comes from the cookbook Taste of Persia by Naomi DuGuid. She was featured on Christopher Kimballs‘ MilkStreetRadio where she shared this recipe. You can find it at:
Recipes.177milkstreet.com
I made this refreshing drink for a bridal shower and everyone loved it! It is tart and refreshing! Sorry I don’t have a photo. It’s a light neutral pink color. It’s very easy and uncomplicated.
Mix this up just before serving. The sparkling water will get flat if it sits too long. Or you can combine the 3 juices. Refrigerate until you’re ready to serve, and then add the sparkling water and fruit when you’re ready to party!
4 cups 100% white grape juice (Welch’s is best!)
1 cup FRESH pink grapefruit juice or more
2 tablespoons FRESH lime juice or more (I used an entire lime)
1 liter sparkling water
Add more of the tart flavors if you like.
Add fresh sliced limes and peeled fresh grapefruit segments and serve in a cool bowl, pitcher or beverage dispenser. I use the peeled grapefruit segments packed in natural unsweetened juice you can find in the produce refrigerated sections.
You can also make an ice ring out of the punch ingredients with some lime and grapefruit slices added.
This is a super fast and easy method for a pure chocolate dessert! It’s a recipe from Food52.com which is a fabulous source for all things food!
3/4 cup water
8 ounces of chocolate you love! I like the chili pepper flavor dark chocolate. Any style that has 70% cacao is good
Whisk the chocolate and water over very low heat until smooth
Place the saucepan over a bowl of ice and beat with a stick blender or whisk
Beat just until thick. Do not over do it!
Voila! I hope you love this as much as we do!
This simple salad can be whipped together in minutes! Oranges are the main feature.
The pink are called Cara Cara and the red are Blood Oranges. There are two types of blood oranges. Here I used the Moro orange which are available December through March. The other blood orange is Tarocco and are available from January through May. The Cara Cara is a cross between two naval oranges and their peak seasons are December and April. I bought them in February.
The mixed spring greens are beautiful and easy. I have found really fresh greens at Aldi, the European discount grocery store.
Edamame is very popular. I used the shelled version which is called mukimame. It’s all soybeans. The Target brand Archer Farms makes a frozen version I like!
High quality olive oil and white wine vinegar are essential for this delish dressing. I use champagne balsamic vinegar or a white balsamic vinegar from a local oil and vinegar shop. Mercato di O & V
Here’s what you need: Serves 4
4 cups mixed spring greens
2 Cara Cara oranges
2 blood oranges
1 cup shelled soybeans, also called edamame (mukimame)
1/4 cup high quality extra virgin olive oil
1/8 cup white balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon or less black pepper
Here’s how to do it:
Caesar Salad is very common in today’s menus. Really it’s too common! This recipe is adapted from the 1961 Antoinette Pope School Cookbook. It was a cooking school in Chicago where my mom took classes in the 1940s and 1950s.
I’ve omitted the anchovies and the coddled egg. Everything else is the same. They gave you a choice with the garlic too. Either rub it in the bowl and discard it or leave it in the bowl to blend in with the dressing. Instead I minced the garlic and salt and then added it to the dressing.
The original recipe uses oil, no specific type. I like sunflower oil. It is very mild and allows the flavor of the dressing ingredients to blossom! Definitely don’t use olive oil.
Serves 8-10
4 medium cloves garlic
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup sunflower oil (not olive oil)
1/4 cup good quality white wine vinegar or white balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for sprinkling on the salad if you want
2 pounds romaine lettuce
1 cup small croutons or more
16 oz grilled chicken breast or more, optional
Rinse and drain the lettuce. Place on paper towels and then roll it up. Keep it in the frig until ready to eat!
We’ve followed this recipe dozens of times! Can you tell? I hope you enjoy it too!
Borscht is an Eastern European soup and comes in many variations. My family is from the Minsk area in Belarus. This version is my recipe adapted from my grandmother’s who was born there. She immigrated to the US in 1911 when she was 16 years old.
Above is a beet soup made with grated beets and no greens and below is a beet soup with julienne sliced beets and the greens. Same recipe, but different beet preparation.
I have made many variations of beet soup, also known as borsht. Borsht is a soup mixture of vegetables including beets, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes and possibly other veggies. The bright color of beets gets muted when cooked with other vegetables, so I like to make this beet soup with only beets, tomatoes and some onion in a vegetable broth with added spices. It’s really so simple.
And the big surprise is that my beet soup tastes delish hot or cold! Cold soup in the summer is so refreshing!
We had dinner in Chicago at the Russian Tea Time Restaurant. It’s much more than a tea room. Their menu is full of hearty Eastern European fare! Their borsht was a beautiful red of grated beets and carrots which inspired me to develop this recipe for Beet Soup!
Here are your ingredients
Beet stems, leaves and beets
Beet greens can be added to the soup, quickly sautéed or made into a salad. My Beet Green Salad recipe link is below
https://ninainthekitchen.com/?s=Beet+salad&submit=Search
If you add the stems and leaves, double the seasonings! If you add the stems and leaves you’ll make about 8 quarts. If you don’t it will be closer to 5 quarts
8 medium to large beets
12 cups vegetable or chicken stock, low salt if possible if using store bought stock. Stock is better than broth. Better Than Bouillon brand is good too. Homemade is best.
2 – 28 oz cans tomatoes, broken in pieces by hand
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
5 large bay leaves
8 large cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
10 whole allspice or more
10 whole coriander seeds or more
10 whole black peppercorns
1/4-1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes. This adds a fair amount of heat. Use less if you don’t want it hot.
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 small bunch fresh dill, it’s about 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill weed
Salt as needed. If you use a salty stock or bouillon you probably won’t need much salt if any
Here is the beet soup made with julienne strips of beets and the greens
This beet soup is made with julienne strips of beets and the greens.
Empty bowls of beet soup offer a beautiful color that’s even pleasing to look at!
I store my Beet Soup and many other leftovers in quart and pint size canning jars. It’s easy to see what’s in them and they’re reusable for decades! Aren’t they pretty?
Voila!
I love to make borsht or beet soup, but I don’t always want to add the beet greens to the soup. And greens still attached to the root vegetable are so very fresh! Beet greens are a great source of calcium which we need to treat and prevent osteoporosis. And they are full of antioxidants!
This is quick and simple. Serve it cold as a salad or hot as a vegetable. Both are prepared the same.
Beet greens quickly cool down in ice water
If you let this sit in the frig, some of the red color will bleed. You can add this to the serving plate if you want more red color.
Ohthatstasty.com posted this recipe on Pinterest. It’s delish, practically no carbs and low cal if you eat only one serving! Making small shooters or 1/2 cup size containers is what keeps the calories down. I also use Greek cream cheese and yogurt instead of cream cheese. It has more of a tang and fewer calories and fat.
I slightly changed the recipe by adding more lime juice, less Splenda, and no vanilla.I also omitted the food coloring. The lime zest and juice add a hint of green that reminds me of Florida and their Key Lime Pies!
I have a Ninja food chopper which pulverizes the pecans! No added butter needed for this crust. A few seconds in the Ninja and its smaller vessel and your crust is ready to be layered in your serving containers. Use a larger amount of pecans if you’d like more crust
8 oz Greek cream cheese and yogurt
Zest of 1 lime (reserve 1-2 short strips of rind to garnish the final topping)
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (this may take 2 limes)
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
My family has been making this since the 1970’s. It’s an adaption from the Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing mix that was really big then. Everyone always loves it! My son in law Joe Wodark thinks I should market my Ranch Dressing 😉
The ingredients for this dressing are in many of the foods I grew up with. My grand parents were from Russia. They used a lot of buttermilk, sour cream, garlic, dill
This can be a salad dressing or a dip for vegetables. Use more buttermilk for a thinner salad dressing and less for a thicker dip. You can add more or less garlic and dill too, depending on your preference. I like to use a clear glass canning jar for this. It’s easy to store in the frig. Use a spoon to pour over your salads.
2 cups Hellmann’s Mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried dill weed
1 cup buttermilk
Cucumbers are abundant all year. It’s a nice cool crunchy salad anytime.
4 cucumbers, peeled and sliced
2-4 green onions, sliced
1/2 cup light or regular Hellmanns mayonnaise
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried dill weed, optional
nina in the kitchen 
