Eating Seasonal Just Got Better

Many people today are committed to eating seasonally. This means that they seek out and eat fruits and vegetables that are in season. This makes a lot of sense for a few reasons. First of all, fresh produce that is in season tends to taste better and is more flavorful, since it is generally grown on farms and not in hothouses. As well, seasonal produce tends to have a higher nutrient value, since this type of produce is picked locally and at the peak of freshness. This is in contrast to many out-of-season fruits and vegetables, which are picked too early and ripen during transport.

The problem, of course, is that during the late fall and throughout the winter, many places simply do not provide a wide selection of seasonal fruits and vegetables. Therefore, it can be more difficult to eat healthy during the winter. Not only do our schedules become more hectic but there are also fewer tempting foods and vegetables available at the grocery store. Plus, many types of produce are more expensive during the winter, when they are less readily available and need to be imported.

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Eating Seasonal Just Got Better

Stewed Zucchini with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1kg. small zucchini cut in cubes
• 3 medium tomatoes cut in pieces
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 onion, finely sliced
• 1 tea cup of olive oil
• 1 vegetable cube
• 1 tea cup grated mitzithra cheese
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 3 eggs
• parsley, salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a saucepan. Braise the onion and the zucchini. Add tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients, except the mitzithra cheese and the eggs. Add some water and cook in low heat until the ingredients soften and absorb their juice. Then beat the eggs and the cheese with a mixer. Lower the temperature and pour the egg mixture on top of the zucchini. Cook until the egg thickens. Cover the saucepan and cook for some minutes. Add parsley, salt and pepper for taste. Serve cold.

This is healthy and vegetarian recipe, recommended for the people that want to try at home some new fat burning foods.

Stewed Zucchini with Tomato Sauce

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

• 600g. pumpkin
• 60g. oil
• 2 eggs
• cinnamon
• 1tbsp. sugar
• 2 vanillas
• 500g. sheets of dough

Grate the pumpkin and fry in the oil until tender. Cool and add the 2 egg yokes one by one, cinnamon, the vanilla and beaten egg whites with sugar.

Place a few sheets of dough in the baking tin, sprinkle with oil and place the filling. Repeat this a few times finishing with a sheet of dough. Bake for one hour at medium heat and cut into cubes. Let the Pumpkin Pie cool down and serve sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Pumpkin Pie

Serbian Fisherman's Soup

Ingredients:

• 500g. small greshwater fish
• 1/2l. water
• 2 onions
• 1 paprika
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 200-300g. sterlet or catfish
• 1tbsp. tomato puree's
• 1dl. white wine
• salt and pepper

Fisherman's soup in Serbia is known as riblja čorba and this recipe originates from the Hungarian cuisine. Here are the directions for preparing:

Clean small fish, wash, cut into halves, add chopped onion and garlic, paprika's cut into bigger strips, sprigs of parsley. Pour in cold water and simmer until all is tender. Pass through a sieve, add tomato, salt, pepper, bring to the boil again and then add pieces of sterlet or catfish. Pour in white wine and simmer for another 20 minutes.

Serbian Fisherman's Soup

Thick soup with sweetcorn

Ingredients:

• 3 young corncobs
• 250g. smoked pork ribs
• 1-2 tbsp. vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• peppercorns
• caraway seeds
• marjoram
• 1 bayleaf
• 2 onions and 2 cloves of garlic
• 200g. potatoes
• 1dl. milk
• 2 tbsp. lard

Put the following into 1l. cold water: 1 teaspoon of salt, a few peppercorns, a bayleaf, a pinch of varaway seeds and of marjoram, a peeled and halved onion and peeled cloves of garlic. Water with spices should be cooked 10-15 minutes and then cooled. 

Wash pork ribs well, cut into pieces and put into the cold marinade to stand overnight. Fry chopped onion in lard the following day, add ribs from the marinade. Peel and dice potatoes, husk and crush sweetcorn, add everything to onion and ribs and cook slowly for a while. Pour in milk and strained marinade and simmer until all is tender.

Thick soup with sweetcorn

Macedonian dinner rolls (Kiflichki)

Ingredients:

• 3 1/4 cups bread flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 tsp dry yeast

Mix the yeast in the water. Combine the flour with sugar and salt, then pour the water and make a dough. Add the butter one tablespoon at a time and knead the dough. Leave to rise in a warm place for an hour. Cut the dough in two and roll each piece as thin as possible. Cut 8 triangles from each piece and make rolls.

Arrange rolls on a baking sheet, brush with eggyolk and sprinkle with sesame seeds, flax seeds, caraway seeds, poppy seeds or salt. Put the baking sheet in a lukewarm oven and leave the rolls to rise again for an hour, then bake them at 170°C, around 15-20 minutes.

Source: Sitnoseckano.blogspot.com

Macedonian dinner rolls (Kiflichki)

Balkan wine festivals

B&H

• Wine Fest in Sarajevo

Bulgaria

• Vinaria in Plovdiv

Croatia

• Wine Gourmet Festival in Zagreb
• Wine Festival in Hvar
  

Macedonia

• Vinoskop in Skopje
• Tikveski Grozdober in Kavadarci

Romania

• Romanian Wine Festival in Bucharest
  

Serbia

• In vino festival in Belgrade
• Vinovdan in Krusevac
  

Slovenia

• Slovenian Wine Festival in Ljubljana

Balkan wine festivals

Main dish of mixed vegetables

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs various vegetables (peppers, eggplant, okra, zucchini, potatoes, etc)
• 1/2 cup oil, divided
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup peeled chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• salt and pepper

After cutting off inedible tips of vegetables, wash and slice them into 1-inch squares. Sauté vegetables in half of the oil and remove them from the frying pan. Sauté onion and tomatoes in the remaining oil, and season with parsley, salt, and pepper.

Put everything in a stock pot with a cup of water, cover tightly, and simmer until almost all moisture has cooked away. Serve hot, accompanied by steak, meatballs, or any other main dish. Serves for 4 people

Published in: The Best of Albanian Cooking by Klementina and R. John Hysa

Main dish of mixed vegetables

Balkan beer festivals

Albania

• Festa e birres in Korca

Croatia

• Dani piva in Karlovac
• Rujan fest in Zagreb

Macedonia

• Pivofest in Prilep
• Pivolend in Skopje
• Beer festival in Ohrid

Romania

• Beer festival in Brasov

Serbia

• Beer festival in Belgrade
• Beer festival in Vrnjacka Banja
• Dani piva in Zrenjanin

Slovenia

• BeerFest Slovenia in Ljubljana
• Festival of beer & flowers in Lasko

Balkan beer festivals

Sarma

Ingredients:

• cabbage or grape-vine leaves
• 1 coffee cup with rice
• 2 onion pieces
• 0,5kg. mixed ground meat
• 250g. steamed meat
• oil, pepper, salt and spices

Sarma is a traditional meal in the most of the Balkan countries especially for Christmas Eve. It is a heavy dish and usually eaten in the winter days. Here are the directions how to prepare this meal:

Rinse well the leaves, pour over with hot water and drain. Cut the onion into small pieces and fry it on oil. Add ground meat, red pepper, pepper, salt, spices and rice. Then use the mixture to stuff the pickled cabbage or grape-vine leaves. Line them up in a pot, but first line up pickled cabbage at the bottom of the pot.

Put the steamed meat in between the stuffed cabbage leaves. Then, spill over sarma some hot water and boil it on a silent fire and then put them in the oven to bake.

By the end of the baking you can add some oil and red pepper, which have been fried before. Cover the pieces with pickled cabbage leaves. The whole has to be dry, not very moist. You can serve sarma with sour cream or yogurt.

Sarma

Red mullets with veggie's

Ingredients:

• 6 smaller red mullets
• 40g. flour
• 2,5-3dl. oil
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt and pepper
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion
• 500g. tomatoes
• 500g. courgettes
• 500g. aubergines
• 3dl. white wine

Clean fish, wash, wipe well, roll in flour and fry in heated oil (about 2 dl.). When fried, drip them with lemon juice, add salt, pepper and chopped parsley (1/2 bunch). Peel courgettes, cut into cubes, peel aubergines, cut into cubes, salt and leave to stand about 30 minutes. Then rinse with cold water and drain.

Cook slowly courgettes and aubergines, in heated oil add salt, pepper and chopped parsley (1/2 bunch). Rub a fireproof dish with cut garlic, grease with oil (left over from cooking) place in fried fish, sprinkle with chopped onion. Cover with peeled tomatoes, cut into rounds, then with cooked courgettes and aubergines.

Bake in the oven preheated to 175°C about 30-35 minutes. Pour wine over at times while baking

Red mullets with veggie's

Thick soup with leeks and cheese

Ingredients:

• 500g. leeks
• 50g. butter
• 40g. flour
• 2dl. cold and 8dl. warm water
• 80g. kashkaval
• 2 eggs
• 1dl. thick yoghurt
• salt
• 1tbsp. chopped celery leaf

Trim leeks, wash, cut into thinner rounds, wash again and drain. Heat butter, add leeks, cook slowly until slightly soft, add flour, fry together until brown, pour in cold and then warm water. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes.

Towards the end of cooking add grated or crushed cheese. Beat egg yolks well with thick yoghurt, add some soup, mix and add to the ready soup. Before serving add celery and salt to taste.

Thick soup with leeks and cheese

Aubergine sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe aubergines
• 1 onion
• 1/2dl. oil
• 1/2 lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon honey
• salt and pepper

Peel aubergines, cut into cubes, add salt, leave to stand for a while, then rinse and drain. Peel onion and chop finely. Heat 3 teaspoon of oil, add onion, cook it a little, then add aubergines, pour in some water and simmer covered until tender. Then pass through a sieve, add the rest of oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper.

Mix all well with a mixer. Serce aubergine sauce very cold with roast or fried fish.

Aubergine sauce

Bosnian tufahije

Ingredients:

• 6 cooking apples
• 200g. walnuts, finely chopped
• 100g. sultanas
• 500g. sugar
• 200g. whipping cream

Tufahije is a Balkan dessert made of walnut-stuffed apples stewed in water with sugar, very popular in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tufahije were introduced during the Ottoman rule, the dessert probably originating from Persia. Here are the directions for preparing:

Peel and core the apples and than mix the walnuts and sultanas. Arrange apples on a baking dish and fill with the walnut mixture. Dissolve the sugar in 1l. water and pour over the apples. Bake until the apples are soft but not soggy! Serve cold with whipped cream.

Source: recipes.wikia.com

Photo: recipes.wikia.com

Bosnian tufahije

Romanian thick fish soup

Ingredients:

• 2 onions
• 1-1,5dl. water
• 2 carrots
• 1 parsley root
• 1 parsnip
• 1 celery root
• 1-2 bayleaves
• peppercorns
• salt
• 1-1,5kg. freshwater fish
• 30g. oil
• 30g. flour
• 1 teaspoon red paprika pepper
• 1dl. sour cream
• 1 egg yolk
• juice of 1 lemon

Pour water into a deeper pot. Peel onion, cut into slices. Scrape carrot, parsley, parsnip and celery, cut lengthways and put into cold water together with bayleaf, some salt and a few peppercorns. Heat and simmer until vegetables and tender. Then strain soup and heat it again.

Cut cleaned fish into bigger pieces and simmer in strained soup until tender. Heat oil, add flour, fry until slightly brown, add red paprika pepper, pour some cold water and then somesoup. Mix all and pour into the soup with cooked fish. If necessary add more salt and pepper and simmer for a short while. Add cooked and chopped roots to the soup.

Before serving, beat egg yolk with sour cream in the soup dish, add lemon juice and stirring all the time pour into the soup. With this thick fish soup can be served croutons.

Related recipes:

• Romanian cabbage soup with bacon
• Thick soup with squash
• Thick soup with young nettles

Romanian thick fish soup

Karadjordje steak

Ingredients:

• 500g. of pork steaks
• 150g. of kajmak
• 2 eggs
• flour
• bread crumbs
• salt
• toothpicks

Beat the steaks with hammer until they are thin and soft. Cover one side of steaks with "kajmak". Rool the meat like a pancake and fasten it with toothpick. First, dip the steaks into flour, then dip them into mixed eggs and, finally, roll them into bread crumbs.

Fry the steaks in the heated oil until they get brown-yellow colour. You can add some fried potatoes and tartar sauce ass add-on. Serve with red wine.

Source: balkanrecipes.awardspace.com

Karadjordje steak

Leeks Pie

Ingredients:

• 1kg. soft flour, type 400
• 1/2l. warm water
• a pinch of salt
• 1-2 tablespoons oil
• 1 margarine at room temperature

Put 700 gr of flour in a bowl and mix with the salt, oil and enough warm water to make a dough. transfer to a floured surface and kned, adding water or flour, until it's smooth and soft.

For the dough into a ball, flour its surface, cover with a tea towell and leave for 20 minutes.

Cut the ball in 4 and roll each part with a rolling pin to 1-2 mm thick and spread with 50 g of margarine. With a knife, cut the crust in spiral shape, so you have a long band, 4 cm wide. Take the outer end and coil it into a ball. Flour the surface of the ball, put it on a plate, then in a plastic bag, and in the freezer. Do the same with the other 3 parts.

Warm a little oil and a little margarine and sprinkle the baking sheet. Roll the balls once again, one by one, in rectangular shape, 1-2 mm thick. The first one should be a little bigger than the baking sheet. Put the crust in the baking sheet and sprinkle with the oil and margarine. Roll the second ball and put it over the first, then put the filling. Roll the third crust a litlle bigger than the baking sheet and put it over the filling, creasing it a little. Sprinkle with oil and margarine. Roll the fourt crust, put it over the third, creased, and sprinkle with oil and margarine. Roll the ends of the first crust and sprinkle with oil.

Bake in a preheated oven at 250°C, around 20 minutes, then 5 more minutes at 200°C.

For the leeks filling, fry 8 finelly chopped leeks in oil on low heat, adding a little water and a little milk every few minutes, until the leeks are softened. Add salt and remove from heat. When cooled, add 3 eggs. The filling can be made a day ahead, then mix with the eggs before pouring in the pie.

Source: Sitnoseckano.blogspot.com

Leeks Pie

Tulumbe

Ingredients:
For the dough:

• 1/2l. water
• 2dl. oil
• 1/2kg. flour
• 5-6 eggs
• 1/2 lemon
• 2 sachets vanilla sugar or 1 vanilla-bean
• oil for frying

For the syrup:

• 800g. sugar
• juice of 1 lemon

Heat water and add oil. Bring to the boil, add vanilla and blend in flour, mixing all the time. Simmer until the mixture is smooth, slightly "sticking" to the bottom of the pan. Cool a little, then add eggs one by one. After adding each egg, work well and leave to stand for a while every time.

When ready, put the dough into the confectioner's pipe with a broader star-like nozzle. Heat oil. When hot enough, press out pieces of dough about 5-7cm long. Fry on all sides until nicely brown.

Cook sugar, water and lemon juice for 10-15 minutes and then cool. Pour cooled syrup over warm cakes. Serve cold.

Photo: Wikipedia

Tulumbe