Eats – By Cuisine Type | Healthy and Sane

Russian Bites: chocolate kartoshka (“potato” chocolate truffles)

February 9th, 2012

The one beauty of working (on my own business!) from home is that I have a lot of flexibility in my schedule. Every week I have a set of things I want to accomplish, but since I’m my own boss – I get to choose exactly what day and time I want to do them. The problem with that? Sometimes too much flexibility leaves a little too much wiggle room… which in turn accomplishes less.

Want an example? Let’s do something easy, like working out (I have a feeling a lot of you could relate!). I plan on working out daily (actually 6 times a week) but sometimes I don’t feel like doing it at the convenient time… or I start getting nervous about all those pull-ups P90X loves so much, so I tell myself I’m hungry and should eat first. Of course that follows my the need to digest before I can get to it. I tell myself I have the whole day to do it. And then 6/7/8pm rolls around and I’m too tired to work out. Too much wiggle room and a whole lot of nothing gets accomplished! Embarrassed smile

So I realized on Monday that I need to whip my ass into shape and get organized! Because besides all the things my business requires, I have a personal life too… with responsibilities and a social life, all of which require some juggling. Smile On the personal front, my 30th birthday is coming up and that means it was time to revisit my 30 by 30 list. On this lovely list, I saw the goal of making and blogging about 25 new Russian recipes. And since I’m still 15 recipes short (with the last Russian recipe posted over 2 months ago!), I’ve got some serious catching up to do!! On the calendar a new weekly Russian recipe went immediately. It’s now an appointment I must keep.

There was no way around it. I had to whip something delicious (and Russian) right away – a treat I used to enjoy as a kid – shokoladnaya karthoshka (translation: chocolate potato… yeah). I’ve written about this before but Russian have this weird obsession with trying to shape foods into strange things (examples include chocolate sausage, black poodle cake, little hill cake… and now potatoes!). I suppose out of those examples, potatoes seem almost normal. But have no fear, they always taste amazing.

These babies are made of milk, sugar, butter, cacao and crushed cookies and walnuts, creating fudgy little balls of goodness…which you can choose to shape into mini potatoes, or not. I actually kind of got into it and thought it was fun to make little potato sprouts out of pine nuts. Smile

Make the batter, refrigerate overnight, then shape into potatoes (or just balls) and toss in cacao/sugar mixture.

I Red heart Russian treats! Open-mouthed smile

See the resemblance?

How about NOW?

Oh yeah. Smile with tongue out

Or you can just go the plain non-potatoey route.

Soft fudgy goodness

ARRR (<—sound of me biting into one! )

Printable recipe here

How do you organize yourself? Have you ever shaped foods into something non-traditional? Would you like to try one of these potato truffles? Yes, I’m full of questions today and I want answers! Winking smile

P.S. The Dahlicious lassi giveaway winner is Lily. Congrats!! Please email me your address to elina@healthyandsane.com

Fideos with ham, shrimp and clams

February 6th, 2012

Since the first day Adam and I became a couple, we committed to seeing each other as much as possible despite the fact that at the time, I was living in New York and he was living in Boston (we met in college and were friends for 5 years prior). We took weekly turns on the bus to/from New York/Boston to spend the weekends together (and I’m proud to say in nearly a year, we only missed 2 weekends because of work and school related travel!). For any of you that have been in long distance relationships, you know how hard it is to be apart during the week. Of course that also made the weekends that much more special. We took advantage of every minute together. It was like honeymooning every single week Smile

Between Boston and New York, New York was decisively the cooler of the two, and I made sure to show Adam the best the city had to offer. We spent our days eating and drinking all over New York, enjoying perfectly pressed sandwiches oozing with goat cheese and plump tomatoes; feasting on ice cream, cookies and pastries while exploring new neighborhoods (ok the pastries part was all me Winking smile ); and finishing our nights with indulgent dinners and cocktails at fancy restaurants. It is then that dining out became the core of our relationship. Good food really does bring people together (oh yeah, and love).

Eventually I developed an interest in cooking, but our love for eating out never died – it remains to be our favorite past time. Unfortunately due to my lack of income at the moment, our eating out budget has been cut significantly (it has been the hardest part of our transition). To “ease the pain,” I’ve been trying to recreate memorable meals out at home. Open-mouthed smile

This dish of fideos with ham, shrimp and clams (recipe here; I halved it and it still made about 8 servings!) was inspired by a dish I had in a (surprise, surprise!) New York restaurant, Casa Mono (<—Mario Batali’s Spanish tapas restaurant in Union Square). It was my first time trying fideos which are thin noodles, replacing rice in this paella-like dish (yes, I know paella actually refers to the pan – not the dish – but in my mind rice, seafood and meats all cooked together with safron and Spanish spices = paella, regardless of the vessel they are cooked in). We were so blown away by Casa Mono’s fideos with chorizo and clams – we ordered round 2!

When Kerstin, Shannon and I decided to make a Spanish inspired feast, instead of going out to eat, I was eager to try my hands at a fideos dish myself… and I have to say it came out absolutely perfect – as good, if not better, than the fideos dish at Casa Mono!! Side note: Kerstin made manchego stuffed meatballs and fantastic potatoes and Shannon made some crazy brown rice milk cupcakes with almond cream cheese frosting, and her boyfriends supplied some home brewed beer and hard cider – oh yeah, we ate well that night!).

This dish is a little time consuming but it’s mostly inactive time. You can also make the ham hock broth ahead of time, and then the whole thing will come together leisurely in about 45 minutes. Easy peasy. It was my first time cooking with ham shanks/hocks (I found them in the frozen section at Whole Foods) – they lend an incredible smokiness to the whole dish since the noodles and seafood are cooked in the broth they produce. Oh and I also couldn’t find “fideos” so I bought angel hair pasta and broke it up into smaller pieces – it worked like a charm! This dish was hearty, smoky, briny (from the olives and clams) and buttery (from the shrimp) – I thought it was an incredibly impressive dish that is just perfect for company. Pair it with a simple salad or make a few other tapas, and your guests will be happy. I promise Open-mouthed smile

Have you ever had fideos? Do you like recreating meals out at home?

PS – If you haven’t yet, don’t forget to enter my giveaway!

Indian food and DAHlicious lassis giveaway

February 2nd, 2012

Aren’t they pretty? This picture makes me want to start painting!! Until then, I’ll just keep drinking these yummy lassis. More on that in a minute…

When I meet new people and they learn about my blog (or at least my love for cooking), the first question is always “What’s your favorite thing to cook?” The answer is – I like cooking everything! Of course the focus is mostly on healthy meals, but I don’t limit myself to any particular ethnic angle. I feel like if I did that, I’d be missing out on so much deliciousness that’s out there. Variety is the spice of life, as they say!

So the second question is 9/10 is this (seriously, almost every time!): “Do you know how to cook Indian food?” And this is where I must confess my limitations. I love love love Indian food, especially the non-traditional dishes the likes of chicken tikka masala (I’m sorry, I know people in India don’t eat it but it still tastes like Indian food to me and that creamy/nutty tomato sauce it comes with just can’t be beat. It’s the best!!). But I haven’t been able to replicate the stuff to save my life. I follow recipes, often highly rated recipes claiming to have restaurant-quality taste, and they still fall flat every.single.time.

The other day, I was browsing through my blog archives and found this old post on pork vindaloo that got rave reviews from me and Adam. I thought, hey – maybe I can cook Indian food after all! This also happened to be a super quick dish so I was excited to give it a go again and hopefully also make it a little more appetizing to look at. The end result was this:

1. It was very easy to make.

2. This dish is hard to photograph but the pictures are definitely an improvement over my previous set.

3. It tasted just ok. I guess my standards have gotten higher. I will not be making this dish again. Sad smile The search for a great Indian recipe continues!!

The bright spot of dinner were these DAHlicious Lassis sent to me by the company for review. Just in case you are unfamiliar with lassis – they are Indian yogurt based drinks. They are creamy and sweet – sort of like smoothies you enjoy with your dinner. Since a lot of Indian food is quite spicy, they add a nice cooling effect too. I enjoy them on occasion when out (although to be honest, they are typically quite indulgent and sweet and I usually don’t like to drink my calories).

DAHlicious Lassis are made with low fat Indian yogurt, made with milk from grass-fed cows (LOVE), are 100% natural and only lightly sweetened. When reading the labels, I also noticed that the banana flavor doesn’t even have any added sugar. Way to take advantage of banana’s natural sweetness. Very cool!

Here is what these pretties look like in a glass:

Again, love the color! The flavors offered are mango, vanilla, blueberry, strawberry and banana. Adam and I had a little taste test with dinner and honestly enjoyed every one. The creamy, slightly tangy taste of yogurt really comes through in every flavor. My favorites were vanilla (most yogurt-centric in flavor), banana – which had the perfect balance of yogurt and banana flavor (my favorite of the bunch, I think!! Also, this one gets bonus points for not having any added sugar), and blueberry – which has a much more berry forward flavor (most smoothie-like and Adam’s favorite too). The strawberry seemed to be just too mild at first but upon a second taste (since it was one of Adam’s favorites), I sort of enjoyed its subtlety. The mango seemed to the exact opposite – completely overpowering, ranking the least favorite of all.

So there you have it! I think these babies would make for a great on-the-go “snack” too, and they sure are tasty.

Would you like a chance to win some? One lucky Healthy and Sane reader will win 5 coupons for free DAHlicious lassis – so you can taste each flavor too and pick your own favorite (they are sold at Whole Foods and various independent retailers across the country)!

Here are the rules: there are plenty of ways to enter.

1) Leave a comment on this post – Tell me anything Indian related. And I will love you forever if you direct me to a great Indian recipe!

2) Follow me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway (a link to this post must be included to qualify)

3) Pin this post on Pinterest

4) Subscribe to Healthy and Sane by email

5) Like Healthy and Sane on Facebook.

6) Link to this post on your Facebook page.

7) Add Healthy and Sane to your blogroll.

8 ) Link to this post on your blog, if you have one. If you don’t, let someone else know about this giveaway and tell me so in the comments section after they’ve entered the giveaway.

Please leave a separate comment on this post for each qualifying entry. This giveaway is open to US residents only (sorry!) and ends at midnight on Wed, February 8. I will randomly choose 1 winner using random.org and announce him/her the following day. Good luck!

Russian Bites: chocolate kartoshka (“potato” chocolate truffles)

Fideos with ham, shrimp and clams

Indian food and DAHlicious lassis giveaway

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