Today was my first day cooking food from my new world recipe book. The month of January is all going to be from Eastern Europe and Russia. Today's dinner consisted of Mushroom & Cranberry Chicken, with steamed broccoli and carrots, and kasha. The chicken was pretty good. It was technically braised (a term I have never actually used in my own cooking). You sear the chicken and then cook it covered in liquid. The mushrooms were shitake mushrooms which I still don't know if I like they have an interesting taste. If you don't know what kasha is it is known more commonly here as buckwheat groats (not to appetizing sounding so I prefer kasha). According to the author buckwheat is used because in the northern countries rice and wheat don't grow so they use buckwheat which is actually a grass. Kasha is a common staple food and is basically porridge.
Tonight I made the recipe for plain kasha. It was definitely plain, kind of like eating bland oatmeal with a slightly bitter flavor. Overall not the favorite of the night. Both Lin and I want to try it again however with one of the other flavored recipes (with cheese (cottage or ricotta) or bacon and onions). It was quite filling and really healthy because it isn't polished like white rice. If we can find a way to make it a little more flavorful I think we will adopt it into our regular meals maybe to replace rice or potatoes sometimes.
Overall I would call week 1 a success. Definitely different tasting but not terrible.
Haha, is the Kasha the grayish lump? I think I prefer to call it kasha too. Don't forget where we live if you need extra taste testers!
ReplyDeleteyes it is. . . it looks worse in the picture but it didn't really look that great kinda like very sticky oatmeal.
ReplyDeleteI love those kind of mushrooms...try them again..I get you will get used to them and love them.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see what you do next!