Paska (Easter) Bread

Paska bread is a Ukrainian Easter bread.  We would have some every year for Easter dinner. Here in Florida, I haven't seen any bakeries carrying the bread, so I asked my dad for a recipe so that we could attempt to make some on our own. He sent me a recipe from the book Ukrainian Easter.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 yeast cakes (fresh, not dry yeast)
1 cup flour

Mix 3/4 cup lukewarm water, sugar, and yeast cakes till dissolved in a small bowl.
Add 1 cup flour, stir until smooth. Cover and let rise in a warm place until bubbly, about one hour.

12 egg yolks (do not substitute whole eggs)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup melted butter, cooled
3 cups flour , unsifted

In a large bowl, mix together the egg yolks, sugar, and cooled melted butter. Add the yeast mixture prepared above; beat well. Gradually add the 3 cups of unsifted flour. This dough will be very soft. Knead or mix well, scrapping sides of bowl. Brush dough with melted butter. Place in a buttered bowl, cover with a towel, and set in a warm place to rise until double in bulk, approx. 2 hours.

To shape, knead lightly on a floured board, shape to fit the bottom of your bread pans. Fill pans (well greased with shortening) only  1/3 full. Place loaves in a warm place to rise until double. Bake in a 350 F oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. For a golden gloss, brush top of Paska with an egg yolk wash (egg yolk well beaten with a little water) about 10 minutes before end of baking time. (Brush with egg glaze too soon will risk over browning.)
When done, remove from oven handling very gently. Remove from baking pans to an oven rack covered with a dish towel. When cooled, paska bread may be stored in plastic bags in freezer. If 2 lb coffee cans are used for bread pans, this recipe will make 4 loves.

We had to make a few adaptations from the original. First of all, we seem to live in a fresh yeast wasteland, so we had to convert to the instant dry yeast we had. For this, we substituted 5 1/2 tsp of dry yeast for the 2 fresh cakes the recipe called for. We also didn't have coffee cans, or even enough bread pans. We made two full loaves in the bread pans we had, and two smaller loaves in some throw away pans that we had from a lasagna night a while back. Lastly, we don't own a cooling rack yet, so I lined a plate with some bamboo skewers to allow the bread to cool on those.

Since this was my first attempt at making paska bread, I didn't add any decoration or mix-ins (like raisins). Maybe next year I will be a little more adventurous and attempt some. I'm happy with the end result, though, as it tasted delicious - light and fluffy, slightly sweet and just like Easter.

Happy Easter!

I love Easter. It's one of those holidays that has little fuss. It's a relaxing family get together with lots of food. Kind of like Thanksgiving (which I also love), but in the springtime. I'll post some of the recipes from today's meal later in the week, but for now I'm going to enjoy the day with Nick, as I hope you do with your families.

Snapper

Another Friday, Another Fish.

To prevent Lenten Friday's from getting monotonous, we have been preparing different fish dishes each week. This week, we found snapper fillets at the store, but needed a recipe since we don't often eat snapper. To remedy this problem, we went to a great cookbook, given to Nick by one of his aunts. The cookbook is Roy's Fish and Seafood, Recipes from the Pacific Rim. The recipe we used was from their section on Ehu, or Short Tailed Red Snapper, although I don't believe that is the particular kind of snapper we bought. The recipe, Lemongrass-and-Cilantro-Crusted Ehu with Sweet Black Rice and Mango was delicious.

Ingredients (for two):

2 tsp. minced fresh lemongrass
2 tsp. finely sliced scallions (green parts only)
1 tbsp fresh cilantro leaves
black pepper
1/4 c fish sauce
1/8 c soy sauce
1/4 c canola oil
2 snapper fillets
red bell pepper, julienned, for garnish (we used orange because it was all we could find)
mango, diced, for garnish

Combine the lemongrass, scallion, cilantro and black pepper to taste. Mix the soy sauce and fish sauce into a shallow dish and mix. Crust the fish with the lemongrass and cilantro mixture on one side. Place the fish crust side up in the dish with the sauce. Marinate the fish in the sauce for 5 minutes. Heat the canola oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and saute the fish for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until opaque throughout.

We served the fish with black mango-coconut rice topped with bell pepper, mango, and cilantro.

This was a relatively easy meal to put together. The fish came together in about 15 minutes. The snapper crust was slightly salty which contrasted with the sweetness of the mangoes nicely. Plus, I love cilantro, which is why I also chose to garnish with even more. I could have lived without the peppers, so I probably won't bother to get one the next time we make this.

I'm almost upset that Lent is over since now we won't have a built in excuse to make fish every Friday. But I guess that does mean that Easter is here, and I think I could probably live off deviled eggs for quite some time and be happy.

Pie Crust

I plan on making a pie for Easter dessert, so I wanted to make the crust ahead of time. Here's an easy pie crust recipe that can keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or the freezer for up to 6 months. It's great to have on hand when you are in the mood for pie. This recipe makes about 4-5 portions.

Ingredients:
4 c. flour
1 tsbp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 3/4 c. solid vegetable shortening (Crisco)
1 tbsp white or cider vinegar
1 egg
1/2 c. water

First, mix the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl with a fork. Add the shortening and mix until crumbly.

In a small bowl, beat the egg, vinegar and water. Combine the liquids with the solids until moist.

The dough can be divided into 4 or 5 portions depending on the size of your baker or pan. Wrap each separately so they can be frozen and thawed individually and used when needed. And honestly, it took maybe 10 minutes total time to make this. It's easy. I live a block and a half away from a grocery store, but it is still faster to whip this up at home than make the trip.

Kitchen Lifesaver - Our Weekly Menu

Each week, we post (on the board above) a list of the meals for that week. It's a rough outline. Unless we have very complicated or ingredient heavy sides, we typically don't list them unless there is room, or we wanted to make sure they got eaten that day. Broiled asparagus, grilled corn, even I can remember those, but the main dish goes up there, so we know what to take out of the freezer and what to start when we get home exhausted from a day's work.

We try and save the more complicated meals for the weekends and make quick and easy meals during the week. We try and keep in mind what is in the freezer - too much chicken stock and we make risotto, too many beans and we have burritos, etc.We also try and keep in mind leftovers. Usually one day we leave blank for leftovers or a meal made from the hodge podge of items we have remaining from the other meals.This week, some of Nick's family is in town and we are going out to dinner with them, so we've left one space for that as well. 

I had no idea that creating this weekly menu would be such a lifesaver. I never have to think about "What's for dinner?" because I already know. We can prep ingredients or meal components earlier in the week or weekend so that life is easier during the week. For example, Nick usually makes all the bread (or at least the dough) for the week on the weekend. And grocery shopping is easier and more economical when we go prepared.

What do you do to streamline your meal prep during the week?