Adventures of Cooking in Russia

After the baptism last week we thought it would be nice to invite Anna and her family over so we could get to know them and they could meet us and feel more comfortable about the people Anna is associating with. They're very nice and we had an enjoyable evening.

Anna with her parents (and us)

We found out Anna is a BIG Lord of the Rings fan. She read the three books in Russian, and then she and a friend tried to get copies in English because they wanted to read them in the language they were originally written in. When they couldn't get the books, they found them on the internet, printed them out and spent 6 months making their own book of over 700 pages. She made a fabric cover for it, complete with a silver tree embroidered on the front. It was the first time she had ever embroidered anything but it looked professionally done. She said she took the pattern from the tunic of a warrior in a scene in one of the movies. They drew maps and dipped them in tea to make them look like parchment. They hand numbered the pages. They even included pictures from some of the movies. Then they sewed the pages together by hand. It was AMAZING! The funny thing is they tried reading it in English but couldn't because there were too many words they couldn't understand or find the translation for.

Now, some background about the dinner. It took several conversations back and forth, but we finally found one night that worked for Anna's family and the missionaries who taught her. Dave and I went shopping and got everything we needed. Sometimes it's hard to find a decent cut of meat for a roast, so we were pleased to find a nice big one at the second store we went to. The slow cooker here really is a slow cooker--for the size of roast with potatoes and carrots we planned, we would probably need to cook it for over 15 hours, so we figured out how to do it in the oven (small oven, one rack, definitely NOT convection). Then Monday the missionaries just happened to mention that Anna is a vegetarian. So much for our plans! My first thought was that I could make macaroni and cheese and cut up some carrot sticks, but that doesn't seem like a good meal when you're trying to do something special. I thought about making my pasta salad but omit the chicken, but I'd also have to omit grapes (they're not safe for us to eat unless we put them in bleach water first--yuck) and find a substitute for the bow tie pasta. I think I could probably find everything else, but I wasn't looking forward to a watered down version of a great salad. I checked online for vegetarian meals but didn't want to experiment with a new recipe with visitors. I emailed Becca and Heather, both very good cooks, for some suggestions.

They sent some recipes that sound wonderful and should have been helpful. However, the biggest problem we have with fixing food is finding the ingredients. Dave wrote down the Russian words for things like cream cheese and cottage cheese and took his time wandering around the store. He found those two things as well as a box of lasagna noodles* and we were delighted because we didn't know they were available here. However, the cream cheese is about 6.5 oz instead of 8 and the cottage cheese is way expensive, like $2 for a package slightly larger than a yogurt cup.

*It says lasagna on the box, but the noodles are mostly flat--a little wavy like they weren't dried flat, but no curly edges--and short, only 7" long, and they tend to clump together worse than spaghetti while cooking. A couple of days later we found a bag of something that resembles lasagna noodles with wavy edges, but they're about 1/3 as wide and only an inch long.

Heather, Becca and her mom gave us lots of suggestions that we'd love to try when we get back home. Either we can't find the ingredients for them here or we haven't looked because we can't eat the fresh produce without soaking it in bleach water or cooking it.

Here are some of their suggestions and why we couldn't make them:

*Spinach Manicotti--We haven't been able to find spinach or manicotti shells. We have seen very small pasta shells yes, but no way could we stuff them with anything bigger than half a mashed pea. The Elders have told us there is no spinach, fresh or frozen, in grocery stores Russia.

*Zucchini casserole--no zucchini, no cream of celery soup, no stuffing mix.

*A spinach or tossed salad? We can't eat the produce here and I haven't seen the makings for a nice tossed salad. Of course, I haven't really looked closely at lettuces since that would be a waste of time :) We don't have a blender to make a smooth dressing. They're probably available here, but we don't have one and haven't seen one.

More ingredients not available to us (or at least we haven't found them yet) so we couldn't make the other suggested recipes:
jars of spaghetti sauce
provolone cheese
ricotta cheese
Italian seasoning
crushed red pepper flakes
blanched/slivered almonds
sesame and poppy seeds
wine vinegar
Craisins
fresh strawberries
We think they have canned tomatoes, but can't read what the various kinds are and the pictures aren't very clear, so we haven't tried those yet. That will be an adventure for another day.

We're looking forward to our first Visa trip to Helsinki at the end of the month. Everyone keeps telling us about the American Store where we can get a lot of food items not available in Russia, like mustard. Even if we don't buy anything, it will be nice to walk among familiar foods and just bask in the atmosphere!

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm complaining, because I'm not. I was just surprised how something that would be so easy at home is such a big challenge here. Except when entertaining vegetarians, we've been able to fix delicious, nutritious meals easily, and learn new ways of fixing them as well!

I'm sure if the situation were reversed, a Russian visiting the U. S. would have a hard time finding some of the things they can get here so easily. One of our favorite meals here is a dish called plove. It's chicken, rice, shredded carrots, chopped onion and a spice packet called "plove." Mmmm. I wonder how many packets of it I can fit in my suitcase when we go home.

Dinner turned out great. We had vegetable lasagna made with a white sauce. The recipe was delicious, and we didn't even have to try to figure out how to substitute something for spinach or eggplant.

We recently made a fun discovery. At home one of our favorite meals was something we called sketti casserole. We haven't been able to make it here because we can't get the cans of tomato soup it calls for. One night I was feeling a little brave and decided to make it. We were pleased that it turned out almost like at home. Here's what I substituted:
fettuccine noodles for spaghetti (my mistake in picking up the wrong package at the store)
tomato sauce with lots of milk and a little mayonnaise and sour cream mixed in
Colby jack cheese instead of cheddar (it's easier to find here and a little cheaper).

Today's Russianism:
Toilet paper comes in fun colors--bright pastels: sunny yellow, bright pink, deep peach, lime green, and then sometimes gray, and if you look hard you can find white. The bright colors have an associated scent to them, like lemon, strawberry, peach or green apple. Hmm. For some reason, the concept of scented toilet paper had never occurred to me--what about you? Sometimes the texture has an almost crepe paper feel to it, but sometimes it's almost like what we had at home. For a long time the biggest package we could found was 4 rolls. Lately we've seen it in 8-packs, but that size doesn't easily fit in the storage space we have so we get the 4-pack, which costs nearly $4. On the other hand, we found batteries are MUCH cheaper; internet is only $18/month and is much faster (100.0 Mbps).