Czech Foods Recipes

Insalata di Patate e Calamari was a dish discovered years ago. A light potato salad with baby squid and a black olive tapenade spread mixed into the dressing. The flavours were out of this world. It wasn't very pleasing to the eye, however, as the tapenade tinged the potatoes grey. Enter the purple potato. These babies do loose a bit of vibrancy when boiled, but when spritzed with the lemon afterwards, bounce right back to a startling violet hue. Perfect for salads. I remember reading Rome-blogger Apron and Sneaker 's post about her hunt for violet potatoes, and so when I stumbled upon them at a local market, I quickly nabbed a few packages. I new they were prime for salads. The memories of the calamari salad I'd made years ago had left quite the impression. It's the heavy dose of tapenade in the dressing that makes it stand out among potato salads. Zingy lemon and a bright black olive spread tie the potatoes and seafood together just so well. I've used strictly ca

Sauces can be daunting. Lately, Hollandaise has been taunting. Every so often, when eating my eggs, I can hear the soft and silky voice of Hollandaise, "C'mon, why didn't you make me? You know you wanted to. Oh, that's right. You can't." And there it is. Being taunted by a sauce that doesn't exist on my breakfast plate while nibbling a dry corner of toast is not the best start to a morning. Making a bad sauce is worse than no sauce at all. In my book, anyways. Sure, it's a bit strict, but just having moved from the Czech Republic where over half the national dishes were covered in a sauce, I've learned that a bad one, once used, makes for a hungry diner.  Hollandaise is one of the classic sauces I've been warned about. The hot butter can do a number on the egg yolk if not added slowly enough. But as vinegar pulled me out of my poaching paralysis, it came to the rescue here as well. Vinegar stabilizes eggs. I'd learned to add some to the e

 Here is the recipe for the Black Forest cake from my Valentines post.  I've always been a sucker for the taste of chocolate and cherry together...... but not so much a fan of actual cherries.  For this reason, I have modified the typical Black Forest cake recipe accordingly.  I've also used a fluffier frosting than usual, the recipe for which can be found below.  It includes more milk and uses flour as a thickener in addition to the icing sugar.  However I'm sure a normal vanilla buttercream would be yummy as well! You will need: 1 recipe dark chocolate cake batter yielding 3 9x.5-inch cakes, prepared (about the same as 24 cupcakes) 1. Prepare and bake the cake, distributing the mix amongst 3 cake pans.  Reduce baking time accordingly (as smaller cakes will cook faster). For the frosting you will need: 1/2 cup milk 5-6 Tbsp flour 3-4 cups powdered icing sugar 1 cup (220g) slightly-softened unsalted butter 1 tsp vanilla Cherry or Black Cherry Jam/Preserves (approx 1 cup) 1.

"..and she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China.." Suzanne , Leonard Cohen. Some weekends deliver that perfect setting of quietude usually found only early in the mornings. And when that introspective peacefulness can stretch over the course of the weekend, well, when it can do that, it is something to be savoured. It can happen on a particularly grey and rainy weekend, or when one feels a cold coming on and they've been admonished by colleagues to stay tucked in bed until Monday. And it can happen especially when seeing a very close friend with whom silence is just as pleasant as anything else that can fill a room. When that kind of weekend wraps itself around you, it's nice to have cake. Not luxurious eye-poppingly decorated cake meant for guests. But cake meant for tea. Simple cake that can be had with a quick rummage through the kitchen. A bowl full of mandarins and a half package of amaretti cookies inspired this light and brightly flavoure

The final two heart-healthy ingredients - pistachios and cherries - make for the perfect figgy dessert pairing. Greek yogurt, honey, and vanilla bean are all that's needed to prepare four super-sized, creamy parfaits. Pistachios make for such a nice flavour with the figs, but for the next morning, the poached fig mix easily goes into breakfast mode with some muesli and walnuts stirred in with the yogurt. Either way, dessert or brekkie, it will put a smile on your heart. The heart-loving menu : Brekkie : Muesli-Pancakes with Honeyed Berries Lunch : Black Bean Chili with Swiss Chard Dinner : Pan-fried Fish with Blood Orange and Avocado Salsa Dessert : Vanilla-Poached Fig, Cherry & Pistachio Parfaits Continue to Recipe... Vanilla-Poached Fig, Cherry & Pistachio Parfaits Adapted from Bon Appétit Dec 2002 Serves 4 Eat with a late harvest Viognier (or Muscat) 1/3 cup honey 2 cups water 1 1/2 cups / 10 oz / 300g  dried figs - stems removed and halved/quartered 1 vanilla bean -

Orange juice on Corn Flakes? Grape juice and Fruit Loops? Or chocolate milk with your Chocolate Krispies? These were some of the 'creative' breakfast adventures had by my sister and I while growing up. Sitting at the table in the morning, reading the backs of the three or four cereal boxes in front of us could get boring after awhile. Assorted sugary beverages as milk replacement was our answer to jazz up the morning. Now, I (hopefully) have developed better strategies for breakfast boredom. This one still plays with cereal a bit, but rather than adding something to the cereal, it adds cereal to the something. And that something is pancakes . Not just any pancakes, but the pancakes promised as part of this weeks heart-healthy menu . Nutty, whole-grain, buttermilk pancakes with heart-healthy flax, cinnamon , walnuts, and topped with honeyed berries . If that sounds too healthy for a sweet Saturday morning brekkie, put any reservations aside. They were soft in the middle, cris

Second in line in the Valentine's week of heart-healthy meals is a quick and easy dinner of pan-fried fish with a citrus salsa. It all went from pan to plate within 30 minutes. Because that's how eating healthy should be - manageable. I am of the persuasion that most standard fish varieties taste great with a citrus salsa. Most recipes in this vein call for mahi-mahi. And while its sweetness certainly makes a good match, in my kitchen, this salsa has even graced the top of some cod. Snapper or bass I imagine would fit well, and even tuna would round out the flavours plus give all those tuna-y health benefits. Whichever fish you chose, this is great in the winter using blood oranges if you luck out on finding a good avocado. Happy avocado hunting! The heart-loving menu : Brekkie : Muesli-Pancakes with Honeyed Berries Lunch : Black Bean Chili with Swiss Chard   Dinner : Pan-fried Fish with Blood Orange and Avocado Salsa Dessert : Vanilla-Poached Fig, Cherry & Pistachio Parfai

My trip out to the store over the weekend involved purchasing a pound of strawberries sold at the very low price of $1.67 (the 3 pounds for $5 sale). The ridiculously low price got my wheels turning and I thought this would be a prime opportunity to purchase something sweet to go with this tasty fruit since Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. I picked up some milk chocolate baking chips with the idea to make some chocolate covered strawberries. The strawberries are a breeze to make and the chocolate melt can be accomplished by using double boiler method or microwave. I am old school and always prefer the double boiler method. Microwaves vary in intensity and there is always risk of overheating the chocolate which of course renders it useless for doing the job. I made a pound of these with my kids over the weekend and we successfully finished all but two during our Sunday night dessert. The recipe below calls for using two pounds of berries since that will adequately use up an entire p

Heart Healthy Foods   (from MedHelp ) Whole Grains Oatmeal Beans Fish Olive oil Cinnamon Pistachios Walnuts Flaxseed Tomatoes Avocados Oranges Blueberries Cherries Tea (3-6 cups of black/green) Coffee (2-4 cups) Red Wine (1-2 glasses) One can hate it, or embrace it, but it is near impossible to simply ignore Valentine's day . Living abroad, I find myself having to defend Valentine's day year after year. Not that I want to, or even that I feel as a good American expatriate that I necessarily have to. It just ends up that way. Comments on the holiday from my past Czech students were overwhelming focused on the forced emotional element . We'll see about the reactions tomorrow among my new Italian students. Differences? A large part of the negative image I believe stems from all the usual side effects of an exported holiday. Other cultures see the overpriced junk in the shops, and the nauseatingly clichéd displays of overdone emotion on the sitcoms. They are missing the pers

Tavis over at Orion's Lounge has found a vintage cookbook that is far more amusing than my own 1969 Betty Crocker cookbook .  Read about it here !

It's good. It's bad. It's in, and then it's out. Leading up to Valentine's Day, it's always in. Chocolate . Prevents heart disease, lowers blood pressure, minimizes risks to cancer, and maybe even turns us on. Chocolate . Films have been made. Books have immortalized it. Blogs are founded on the stuff. Histories have been charted. Wedding fountains spout gallons of it. Chocolate . Flavenoids. Antioxidants. Caffeine. Dark. Milk. White. Have wars been started over it? Here's hoping a history buff is reading and can attest to that. It snowed in Rome last weekend. And the city shut down. Paralizzato was the word heard for days. I tucked myself away and played with chocolate. Returning from Castroni , which is Rome's premier cloud nine for all foodies, I had a good-quality half kilo bar of 60% chocolate. By the time the snow hit, I was scanning the kitchen for assorted bits to roll up into truffles. Three ways were found: Marsala-Prune-Honey , the sweetest ve

Yet another incarnation of this recipe from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook! In this version, I retained almost the same recipe for the base, but changed a few of the amounts/substituted heavy cream for yoghurt.  (Okay, not as healthy as what they were going for, but it's all I had).  The cookies turn out cake-like, a bit like the cookies in a chocolate whoopie pie.  But perhaps even more chocolatey.  Yum! You will need: 1/3 cup butter or margarine 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 1/4 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 Tbsp instant coffee granules 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 2 egg whites 1/3 cup heavy cream cream 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour Approx 1 1/2 cups sweet whipped cream topping (prepared) Yield: Approx 14 cookies/7 cookie sandwiches Paraphrased and modified recipe:  Bake at 350 °F (approx 175 °C) 1. Beat butter or margarine for 30 secs. 2. Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, cocoa, coffee, baking soda, and cinnamon and beat until combined. 3. Bea

There are few dishes I make repeatedly. Sure, I detest boredom of the palette as much as the next foodie, and a shortened attention span runs in my American eighties-baby blood. When something does get repeat play, it is guaranteed to be simple, relatively quick, and full of basic ingredients found in a mid-week kitchen. Chicken fajitas is one such recipe that's been in the rotation for years. Another is a fennel-orange salad - as a side or a quick brekkie, it's been hitting the spot for quite some time. And ever since I convinced a cute Sicilian to teach me a local dish, a saffrony pasta with sardines has been my cupboard staple favourite. And in the colder months of the year, butternut squash with curried lentils can be found in my bowl. I realized I've made mushroom risotto a total of three times...in just as many weeks. I had to share. A good-quality mix of frozen mushrooms makes this all too easy to start a pot going at a moments notice. Having a bottle of Marsala i

Syr Smezany or fried cheese a very popular dish often served up as a meal in itself or as a common appetizer at a tavern or by a street vendor. The recipe is simple as the ingredients list is short as is the price. This recipe will also be a sure fire way to win over some younger diners at the table as most kids will connect this dish to cheese sticks. The form of Czech fried cheese though takes on a rectangular shape. Czech Fried Cheese Recipe Serves 2 4 slices Edam, Gouda or Swiss Cheese ½”” thick 1/3 cup all purpose flour 1 large egg, beaten ¾ cup breadcrumbs 1 cup vegetable oil Salt and Pepper to taste Method 1.        Establish assembly line that consist of flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs all on separate plates and all in that order. 2.        Heat oil to 375 degrees in skillet or fryer 3.        Dredge cheese in flour, then submerse in egg, and roll into breadcrumbs. 4.        Shake off excess and place into hot oil in skillet. 5.        Be sure to turn fried cheese after about twen