Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
Today, the “Skinny Chef” visited the client appreciation party at Jenny Craig in San Luis Obispo! We had a great time!
Laura and Karen started off by joining Jenny Craig back in November of 2006, I joined their noble effort in December of the same year. In total, we have lost over 240 lbs. together (Karen, Laura and I have each lost 80 lbs each… or more).
Here are the pics of the Jenny Craig Party!
LINKS to our Jenny Craig Pictures!
Such Fun… PLUS everyone loved my Amarula Carrot Cake!
Roger
One of my Pirogi’s broke out with a little cheese oozing out onto the plate along with the olives, onions and sausages! I put this particular picture in because two of my daughters ( Karen and Kristin) will… let’s be frank… enjoy reading about this.
For the women in my family, ‘cheese’ is a major food group! Besides, the seasoned crust in this recipe makes all the difference!
Here’s the history and my recipe!
Bon Appetite!
Roger
Let’s just say, this guy I know returned from a wonderful vacation sailing down some river in Russia. So he sends me a recipe for something I know a bit about , but created a spark of discovery in me. I grabbed my old book (in English) on Classic Russian cooking and came up with a few ideas. (Click on the picture on the left)
Pizza Pirogs or Pirozhkis!
Classic Russian Cooking has been making a revival. Thanks to the foresight of some great people the book “A gift to Young Housewives” by Elena Molokhovets has been translated and an English version is available entitled “Classic Russian Cooking.”
Pirogs (stuffed Pastry) are usually round although Elena preferred triangular shaped versions. She also used butter and eggs in her dough but was very careful to cut back and keep the total amount of liquids static relative to the flour level.
One of the wonderful things about this book is ferreting out the exact recipes which are no easy task even with all of the superb guidance of Joyce Toomre. It is like following your superbly culinary trained grandmother in the kitchen as she grabs handfuls of this an that while she prepares something mysterious that only materializes into a recognizable form on completion!
How much is a ‘glass’ of this or that? The answer is that it is ½ lb. A little memory of ‘a pint’s a pound the world around’ and you know she is talking about a cup! To the purest this may seem like blasphemy, but this is the way to really learn how to cook with the courage to meet your successes and the willingness to be less successful.
One of our friends recently sent a recipe for ‘Pirogs’ from his trip on the river in Russia. Good as it may sound, there were quite a few things that turned me off… particularly the words ‘margarine’ and ‘vegetable oil.’ This recipe seemed like an echo of the days of shortages and deprivations of the Soviet era, but this is changing. Also, in the typical tradition of Russian generalities the amount of flour called for is “enough for you to be able to roll it out easily.” Is this cryptic enough for you? My grandmother would just shrug and say, ‘simple enough.’
Elena never did anything special for the Pirozhkis dough and called for ‘whatever’ was handy. However, I have thrown in some of the spices she liked in various fillings as seasonings for the dough: pepper and dill, for example.
So in the tradition of Russian generalities and from the time of the Czars… I am working on adapting to what is popular and available… PIZZA Pirogi’s should be great!
I’ll put up a finished recipe, nutritional data, portion size and pictures soon!
Roger
Our local Jenny Craig in San Luis Obispo is doing something fun. They are holding an open house to introduce the community to some of the local ‘stars’ of weight loss!
A whole lot of folks have lost weight in our community which must be tilting the entire North American continental plate! Wow!
Anyway, the ‘Skinny Chef’ (my moniker at Jenny) will whip up a portion controled goodie for the occasion… complete with nutritional label. Ah, fame! ha!
So… if you are in the San Luis Obispo area come on down! (click on the invite pic for a larger size).
viva Jenny!
Roger
Food of years gone by has always fascinated me … I have felt that tasting the food of other times is like sampling history…. the next best thing to actually being there. I fondly remember sampling a glass of Armagnac made before my grandfather was born, near a town in which he helped liberate in WWI. Whether it be the various Purees of the Roman’s or the Beer of the ancient Egyptians… it would transport me back to another time.
So it is with the humble cracker. This is an everyday food so commonplace in other centuries, but replaced with more fattening and sweeter alternatives. However, the humble cracker is making a comeback… be it in sometimes a more exotic form.
Chef Noriyuki Sugie has come up with an interesting twist with a cracker featuring nori (dried seaweed) and various spices. Basically it is a simple yeast dough with the garnish that making the statement.
I have some very old yeast based cracker recipes… but they take 24-36 to let the yeast rise… but it is next on my list…. along with an Armenian Cracker /bread called Lavash.
Roger Freberg