Homemade Mushroom Soup

This is anothe tasty soup for the cold winter days:

Recipe:

500gr mushrooms (cleaned and sliced)

1 large onion chopped

700ml vegetable or chicken broth (or water + 1-2 cubes bullion)

1 clove garlic minced

2 tablespons of flour

100gr double cream (sour cream or yougurt)

oil or butter

salt, pepper

In a medium pan add oil (or melt the butter) and fry the onion until golden (translucent), add the mushrooms and cook them until they become soft, brownish and let the liquid out of them. Mushrooms tend to soak the oil so add more oil if needed. Add the garlic and the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the broth or water with bullion and simmer for 10-15 minutes. After that blend the soup with blender (or hand blender or food processor, whatever you have). Add the soup in the same pot, season with salt and pepper and add the cream.

You can serve the soup with more cream, croutons or whatever you like.

Enjoy this simple and delicious soup:-)

Vegetable Cream Soup With Noodles

Nice hot soup, great for the winter.

Recipe:

1 large onion sliced

200gr carrots cut in chunks

200gr potatoes cut in chunks

2 cubes bullion (vegetable or chicken)

400gr water (you can use vegetable or chicken broth, and then you won't need the bullions)

3 cloves of garlic minced

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 handful of noodles (50-100 gr)

1 tablespoon vegeta

salt, pepper

In a pot, add the water and when it's hot, dissolve the bullions in it. Add the vegetables (if there's not enough liquid, add more water until submerged). Cook the onion, carrots and potatoes until tender. Transfer the vegetables in blender, and divide the soup in half. With one half blend the vegetables. Rinse and dry the pot. In the pot add the butter and when it's melted add the flour. Cook until golden. Then add the other half of the soup until everything is dissolved. Add the blended vegetables, and stir. Add the garlic. Season with the vegeta, salt and pepper. Crush and add the noodles, and cook until the noodles are done. Garnish with your choice. Enjoy:-)

French Toast

This is the Macedonian version of the popular French toast. The main different thing is that we make the toast salty and we eat it with white cheese and cup of yogurt. It's great for breakfast.

Recipe:

10-12 pieces of white bread (we make it with 1 day old bread because it soaks the eggs better, and because we like to eat the fresh bread with some other dishes:-))

4 eggs

200gr milk

1 teaspoon salt

oil

In a bowl beat the eggs with the salt and the milk. Heat a pan or skillet or griddle with a little oil on a medium heat. Soak the pieces of bread in the egg mixture one side at a time, then fry them until golden brown.

After that we just eat them warm with a piece of white cheese for breakfast.Yum!

Tarator

Tarator is a cold salad (it looks like cold creamy soup), and it's eaten mainly in summertime because it's light and refreshing. But you can eat it anytime through the year. It's very simple to make, and many Balkan kitchens have their own version of this salad. This is the Macedonian recipe:

1 large cucumber
500gr sour milk
1 clove of garlic (or spring garlic)minced or finely chopped
salt, pepper
dill or parsley
optional 1 tablespoon oil

Wash and peel the cucumber, then chop it into very small cubes. Add the sour milk and stir it well until there's no lumps of the sour milk. Add the minced garlic (or chopped spring garlic), finely chopped dill or parsley, salt, pepper and the oil. Mix everything until well combined.
That's it! And eat:-))

Zucchinis/Courgettes With Bechamel Sauce

Zucchinis/Courgettes with bechamel sauce

A great meal for every season. Also you can constitute the zucchinis with mushrooms for a delicious mushroom creme.

Recipe:

2-3 zucchinis/courgettes

water

For the Bechamel:

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups milk

2-3 cloves minced garlic

little bit of nutmeg (or you can skip it)

salt and pepper.

Cut the zucchinis/courgettes in 1 cm circles than in half. Cook the in water until they're almost cooked. Strain them from the water and put them aside. You can keep some of the water so that you'll adjust the sauce.

Warm the milk in one saucepan, but do not bring it to boil. In another saucepan on low heat, melt the butter until it starts to foam. Add the flour and with constant stircook it for 3-4 minutes or until the flour is lightly yellow. Than add the warm milk and whisk it with wire whisk so that

the sauce remain smooth and not with lumps. Cook it stirring for 10 minutes on low than add the zucchinis, garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cook it for another 5 minutes. If the sauce is too thick, add some of the water in which the zucchinis have cooked.

Delicious:-)!

Homemade Tomato Soup

Homemade Tomato Soup

This is Macedonian version of simple tomato soup, great for the summer and also for every season.

Recipe:

1 kg tomatoes

2-3 tablespoons olive oil (or any kind of oil)

parsley finely chopped

2-3 cloves minced garlic

2-3 eggs (you can skip the eggs, if you don't like eggs)

salt and pepper

optional:

few basil leafs

oregano

or some other spice that you like

Cut the tomatoes into four vedges. Grind the tomatoes into the pot. If you find this hard, you can peel them and blend them into blender. Than add them to the pot. Put the pot onto medium heat and bring the tomatoes to boil. Cook the tomatoes with open lid until 1/3 of the consistency is boiled down. Add the oil, garlic, parsley salt and pepper (and any spice that you like) and cook this for another 5 minutes. If the soup is too acidic for your taste add a spoon of sugar (although in Macedonia we don't add sugar). Beat the eggs in a bowl. Turn off the heat and add the eggs. Stir them

so they can cook. You can garnish this with parsley, garlic bread croutons or whatever you like.

Bon Appetit:-)

Turli Tava

This is a popular Macedonian dish, peope's most favorite in the summer, and extremely delicious. Not very easy to make

but sure it's worth it.

Recipe:

600 gr (or more) pork or beef meat (boneless) or chicken breasts or thighs (boneless). Cut it into medium sized pieces. (bigger than bitesize)

500 gr potatoes peeled and cutted into small cubes

500 gr tomatoes cutted into cubes

500 gr eggplant peeled and cutted into small cubes

500 gr bell pepper cutted into small pieces

4-5 okras cutted into circles

200 gr rice

1 large onion finely diced

water

oil

salt and 8-10 peppercorns

parsley

If you want this in vegetarian variation, leave out the meat and start with onions and potatoes.

Preheat the oven to 250 C degrees.

In a medium deep baking pan add the oil and the diced onion and stir. Lay the pieces of meat on top and bake this 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes stir everything and bake 5 minutes. After 5 minutes add the cubed potatoes and bake for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, stir everything and bake 5 more minutes. Then add the peppers and bake for 10 minutes. After that stir everything in the pan and bake 5 more minutes. Add the eggplant and the okras and bake 10 minutes. Than stir everything in the pan

and bake 5 minutes. Now add the tomatoes, rice, salt and peppercorns, parsley and stir everything. Add the water until the content of the pan is almost covered. Bake for 20-30 minutes more or until the rice is cooked.

The preparation is little boring but when you try this, you'll see that it's worth it.

Enjoy:-)