Olya’s Simple Dinner in 90 Minutes Recipe

So. The other day I was craving homemade macaroni and cheese. I wanted something really cheesey and also something I could make fast. Somewhere I had seen a recipe of Rachel Ray’s for one of her 30-Minute Meals. Mac and Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli. Perfect – sounds great. A dish I really feel like eating, ready in a decent amount of time. Except that I must have forgotten I am in Moscow. And I am not used to electric stove tops (pictured below – notice the lovely bigger kitchen in our new apt)

I’ll spoil the end of the story for you now. It didn’t take me only 30 minutes to make this dish. It took a little longer…ok, like 3 times longer.

Now, as I have menionted before, some products come in such ridiculous variety, and even though I can read and understand Russian, I somehow can’t figure out which one I need to get.

For instance, yesterday I was trying to find a reasonably priced laundry detergent for colored clothes. I was standing there looking at this aisle of approximately one billion varieties of laundry detergent with my mouth gaping open. I was scanning all the words, but most of them weren’t telling me if it would be ok for color. Everytime I found something that said ‘color’ it was from the more expensive brands. I knew the cheaper brands had to have color options but why couldn’t I find them?! What do all these little pictures mean??! (Why is it that all European things explain everything in little pictures. I never understand the washing instructions on European clothes! My washing machine is not the shape of a triangle!!)

There was a worker in the aisle, organizing or cleaning or something, and I was started to get self conscious and sweaty. I had to have been standing there for at least 15 minutes. What must he think of me? Maybe I should just ask him? OMG…three people have already entered the aisle, found what they needed and left…

So same goes for flour. Which I needed for the Mac and Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli recipe. There is flour recommended for bread, flour for blini, flour with yeast, whole wheat flour…and I forget the rest. But there is a lot. And even though they have a rice that is just called “regular rice” on the bag (for the Americans I guess) there is nothing that says “regular flour”. So I grabbed flour which I believe might have been recommended for bread. Thinking if they have the yeast and the whole wheat flour this could be plain white flour. Right? Wrong. It looked more like whole wheat. But it didn’t say wheat on it. I know that word in Russian. Ugh. So it goes without saying that my roux for the recipe was kind of weird and chalky or some other texture I can’t seem to find the word for:

I have a hard time heating cream or milk on the electric stove top also…or it might just be that the products themselves are different than I am used to. I had to make the roux and fiddle with the milk several separate times which all added up and ruined the ‘quick’ appeal of this recipe. One time I turned away for a second and all the milk came boiling out over the top of the pot and all over the burners. Disastrous.

All in all though the recipe came out ok – except the roux made it taste a little bready, I thought. I used peas instead of broccoli which is a good alternative if your in the mood for one over the other.

Adventures in Russian Grocery Shopping

We recently returned to Moscow after being home for the holidays and I’ve already had my first exhausting trip to the enormous beast of a supermarket, Ashan. Going to Ashan requires mental preparation and a playbook for tackling the aisles (which I fear would take me years to create). It’s also better that you have a whole day free, just in case. As I mentioned before, sometimes the aisles are shut down for re-stocking. Inevitably it will be the aisle you are in. Just before you can grab that bag of pasta (or in my case it was chocolate), you find yourself stuck behind an orange rope wondering if they would notice you running and sliding under it, snatching the bag and running back out – a la Indiana Jones for his hat or something. If only I could be so stealthy. So anyway, if you ever go to Ashan, be sure to factor in an additional 40 minutes of aisle re-stock wait time.

Ashan reminds me almost of Ikea in size, Target in available items to purchase, and a dollar store or Ross in display/the overall look. The one that I go to has electronics, clothes, books, furniture, home goods, cleaning supplies, car stuff, etc on the first floor. The bottom floor is the supermarket. To get from one floor to the other they have flat escalators like this:

The first time I went, as happy as I was to find a good hair straightener for 30 bucks and all the sirok (a Russian calorie bomb of cheesecake-like filling covered in chocolate) I could possibly ever want to eat, I suddenly missed American grocery stores. Even the Shop Rite by our house in Jersey…the Shop Rite I say I can’t stand! The aisles at Shop Rite are equally as packed, but at least there people ask you nicely to move your cart. In Ashan if your cart is in the way they just slam right through it. One minute you are frantically trying to pick a type of rice because the aisle re-stocking police are lurking around the corner and the next minute you are picking yourself off the ground after someone pushed through you. You look up only to see the sweetest most innocent looking grandma. They are the worst.

Sirok selection

I’m always nervous that I stick out as a foreigner. Mostly because I smile and get myself stuck between people’s carts as I try to carefully squeeze between them as opposed to through them, but also because I move so slowly. I also wish I could go through the store with more efficient fluidity. Visiting each aisle I need to only once. Instead I go back and forth, returning from one side of the store to the other, going back to the same aisle 3 or 4 times, skittishly dodging little old ladies the whole way.

The different selections of products is unexpected as well. Like half the tomato sauce or spice section is all the same type. But they have almost an entire aisle of different flavors of mayonnaise. It is actually quite fascinating how many flavors of mayonnaise there are. Also, a lot of the milk is not refridgerated, but the mayo is. Milk also comes in insane variety and unfortunatley I am not sure which one I should be drinking.

All the Ashan stores are a few metro stops outside the city center and have reasonable prices compared to those right in the center – which is why I go. Unfortunately because of their distance, and because I am normally there on my own, I can’t buy too much or anything too heavy (like juice or water). I consider riding the metro and walking from the metro home with a backpack, a mini duffle bag and a reusable shopping bag full of groceries my weekly cardio session. For the heavy items or when I just need a couple things, or when I am not in the mental state of mind to tackle Ashan, we visit the city center stores. In the center there are generally two types of markets.

One type is the more ‘gourmet’ looking stores with a pretty good variety of things. You can’t necessarily get everything you need, but it’s still a very pleasant place to shop. Kind of like a little grocery store in New York City. Some have excellent cheese sections or great ready made lunch items. Produce is displayed a little more elegantly (in Ashan you just pick through huge cardboard boxes of produce that looks like it literally came out of the dirt and went right to the store…which I kind of like. Very natural feel…One time I saw  an egg in a carton that had feathers on it). These are more relaxing to me. Almost like when I browse through Whole Foods  at home because I feel like I need therapy after Shop Rite. Or Mollie Stones in California. Which I miss with all my heart.

Inside Ashan

Produce display in Ashan

The Eleseevksy Aliya Parusa Market - the more calming type of store

Meat and Cheese at Aliya Parusa

Then there is the other type of market which is basically like a 7-Eleven or a Krauzers. These are fine when you need something quick like chips (paprika flavor Pringles are the BEST and we haven’t been able to find them in the States), drinks, or candy. The only problem with these is that they always seem to have a scary outside. They just pop up on the corner of a street out of nowhere and you don’t always want to go in:

The very welcoming store front...where you can shop with inmates

The grocery store experience has been really interesting and fun. I love that we have items we like and miss when we are in the States (like the paprika Pringles). Shopping in Moscow builds character and endurance. Every time I go to Ashan I am more and more ready to face the aisles and their obstacles…right down to the very last babushka.

Modified for Moscow

Every Tuesday I have been volunteering at a local church (www.st-tatiana.ru) with a group called Pelmeshke Na Pleshke (http://bezdomnye.org). We put together a simple meal for the homeless and distribute it near a metro stop along with donated clothes, basic meds and documents for work.

While preparing the meals we also share food with each other. People bring soup, leftovers, tea, biscuits etc for everyone. My husband’s namesday (the day the church celebrates your saint) was last Tuesday, so I decided to make a special dessert and share it with the group (since many of the boys are named Andrei as well!).

As it is still lent I chose to make Vegan Peanut Butter Cups from a recipe that my sister-in-law shared with me. I had to modify the recipe to fit available ingredients in their available weight units and of course my kitchen limitations.

Below you will find first the original recipe followed by my revised version.

Alicia Silverstone’s Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup Earth Balance butter
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter (preferably unsweetened and unsalted)
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs or 10 graham cracker squares
1/4 cup maple sugar or other granulated sweetener
1 cup grain-sweetened, nondairy chocolate or carob chips
1/4 cup soy, rice, or nut milk
1/4 cup chopped pecans, almonds, or peanuts

PREPARATION
1. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. (If You Care makes unbleached liners made from recycled paper.) Set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.
3. Stir in the peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs, and maple sugar and mix well.
4. Remove the mixture from the heat. Evenly divide the mixture, approximately 2 tablespoons per cup, among the muffin cups.
5. Combine the chocolate and milk in another pan. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate has melted.
6. Spoon the chocolate evenly over the peanut butter mixture.
7. Top with chopped nuts.
8. Place in the refrigerator to set for at least 2 hours before serving.

Olya’s American-Moscovian Chocolate Peanut Butter Bites (Double the original recipe)

INGREDIENTS

*an eyeballed and estimated 216 grams ‘Kazhdei Den” margarine – based on the google search “how many grams are there in a cup of margarine?”
*24 tablespoons – because all I have is a set of measuring spoons I brought from home and I’m hoping that it’s 16 tablespoons for one cup of any ingredients – ALGOOD Peanut Butter. This is only available at the enormous grocery store Ashan because no one eats peanut butter in Moscow. Note to self: don’t forget to post about grocery stores
*24 tablespoons ‘K Posty’ Lenten Tea Cookie crumbs or a little less than one pack
*8 tablespoons sugar in the raw – conveniently the exact amount leftover over in this apartment from the previous guest. Not sure if it was up for grabs, but I completely forgot to buy some and was NOT about to make ANOTHER trip to the store. For further explanation, see next ingredient
*350 grams Russian Gorki/Tyomni (Bitter/Dark) Chocolate – not the chocolate pictured. Why, you ask? Because when they restock aisles at Ashan they yell and scream, kick everyone out of the aisle and close it. This happened as I was browsing chocolate. Too bad ‘K Posty’ doesn’t have a chocolate line to accompany their lenten cookies so that my choice could have been simpler and easier to find. I tried as long as possible to pretend I couldn’t hear or understand the aisle police, but the fear of being arrested or deported for dilly-dallying in the chocolate aisle of a grocery store made it impossible to read Russian ingredients quickly and thoroughly. I ended up grabbing 400 grams of whatever chocolate I was holding at the moment. When it came time to top the peanut butter mixture with melted chocolate I reread the ingredients in peace and realized I bought a brand with milk fat! So back to the store I went (one closer and more expensive) and had to buy only 350 grams of a bitter chocolate that was in fact vegan. I managed to forget the sugar again and was NOT about to go out for a third grocery store trip. What happened to the original chocolate? …We are still eating it. Can’t let it be wasted – another lent loophole!
*7-8 tablespoons olive oil – a recommendation from my sister in law. Also because I have yet to see soy milk here
*I forgot to buy any nuts for topping

PREPARATION

1. Crush the cookies with a potato masher. After most of the cookies are crushed, use a colander over a bowl to sift out the pieces that are still too big and crush them again.

2. Line a baking dish with foil. (Have not seen cupcake paper liners, let alone eco-friendly ones) Set aside.

3. Melt the margarine in a small saucepan over medium heat.
4. Stir in the peanut butter, cookie crumbs, and sugar and mix well.

5. Remove the mixture from the heat. Spread the mixture into the baking dish and put it in the fridge.
6. Melt the chocolate in an improvised double boiler and stir in the oil.

7. Spoon the chocolate evenly over the peanut butter mixture.
8. Place in the refrigerator to set for at least 2 hours before serving. Cut into bars and share the joy.

I presented the bites to the volunteers. They were a hit! A new guy, named Andrei (surprise, surprise), asked someone else what they were made of. “Peanut butter,” they answered. He then replied (without knowing where I am from), “Hm…only Americans eat peanut butter”