November 7th, 2013
Welcome to the new golubkakichen.com! We are so excited for this very overdue transformation and hope you like the site as much as we do. The blog was designed by Hannah of Little Light Creative and the logo is the work of Erin Ellis. We are ever grateful to these two talented ladies for making our visions and dreams become reality.
I’ve been all about soups these days and have tried out every single soup recipe from this book in the last couple of weeks. To be fair, I’m all about soup all the time – to me it’s the ultimate comfort food, as easy and satisfying as can be. As much as I love smooth, creamy ones, I often crave a chunky texture in my soups, thinking back to the ones I ate for lunch every day of my childhood. To most Russians, soup is a mandatory part of lunch – it’s served first, followed by a main, second course. My mother never had a shortage of soup ideas, and things like borsht, green borsht, solyanka, mushroom soup, and sturgeon uha were on the lunch table on any given day.
This soup is an interesting step away from the classic autumn squash soup – brilliant pink in colour, with plenty of textures and flavours to warm the soul and nourish the body. I adapted the recipe from Salatshop, a Russian wellness blog written by Olya Malysheva out of Moscow. Olya’s style is endlessly optimistic and she is great at coming up with vegetarian recipes that require no fuss. Her site and its popularity makes the Russian in me very proud – it’s great to see such an increasing interest in sites like Salatshop in the country of meat and potatoes. If you speak Russian, you should definitely pay it a visit.
Pink Soup with Roasted Onions and Broccoli
2-3 small to medium beets – peeled and cubed
2 garlic cloves – minced
sea salt
2 small to medium red onions – peeled and quartered or cut into eighths, depending on size
grape seed oil
1 head of broccoli – cut into bite-sized florets
2 cans Thai coconut milk
pinch of chili powder or a dash of cayenne
1/2 lemon – juiced
1-2 ripe but firm avocados
freshly ground black pepper
arugula leaves for garnish
1. Add beets to a medium-sized saucepan along with the garlic and a pinch of salt and barely cover with water. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until beets are tender.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F (180 C). Place onions on an oiled baking sheet, lightly brush with oil and roast until golden, for about 20 minutes.
3. While waiting for the beets and onions to cook, bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil and blanch the broccoli for 3 minutes. Immediately transfer into an ice-water bath to stop the cooking.
4. When the beets are tender, add in coconut milk and a pinch of salt, bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Add in the broccoli, stir to heat it through and then remove from the heat. Squeeze lemon juice over the soup and adjust salt if needed.
5. Cube the avocado. Ladle the soup into bowls and top with roasted onion wedges, avocado cubes and arugula leaves. Serve with sourdough and/or sprouted bread avocado toasts. Enjoy!
Tags: avocado, beets, broccoli, onion, soup
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April 21st, 2013
Today we’re thrilled to welcome more guests, Shanna and Tim of Food Loves Writing, who came up with a delicious veggie dip recipe to share with us. You may have noticed a new wave of guest posts on Golubka lately – that’s because we’re still working on the cookbook, which is in the copy editing stage at the moment, and generally trying to take a little rest from intense recipe development. I enjoy the concept of guest posts so much, sharing and exchanging ideas often leads to the best recipes, meals and friendships.
Food Loves Writing is a literary food blog written by an amazing husband and wife team based in Nashville. Focusing on engaging storytelling intertwined with whole food recipes, Shanna and Tim run a warm and charming site, which I always find hard to leave, wanting to read just one more post. Be sure to pay them a visit and check out their ebook, Written Together. Here is Shanna’s beautiful story:
Hello, Golubka readers! I’m truly so honored to be posting here today, partly because, like many of you, I so admire the quality of work on this site, and partly because, also, I resonate so much with the philosophy here of a fearless approach to new foods. Thanks again for the generous invitation, Anya! I hope you all enjoy hearing a little of our story.
My husband, Tim, wooed me into married life through sixteen months of dating around the delight of what were then many new-to-me foods. When I’d visit from Chicago, he’d bring me into his Nashville kitchen and make me impromptu salads, perfectly fried eggs with the brightest yellow yolks, mashed avocado on toast, sweet potatoes roasted in coconut oil, thick morning smoothies made in a blender he’d packed to the brim.
We’d first met through food blogs (a story you can read more about in our ebook), so the idea that we’d grow together around the table makes good sense. And in the years since I’ve known him, Tim’s taught me about balsamic vinegars and the many varieties of leafy lettuce and how rich a diet can be when one sticks to foods that are real. One month into our married life, going through boxes in our living room, I found an old journal of his, stashed with handwritten notes on the intricacies of ice-cream making, and I thought again how much this man is just my match. Because of this, over time, I’ve learned that when he has an idea, I should listen to it—and that’s the story of how this raw garlic dip, which is at once dairy-free, gluten-free and vegan, came to be.
So Tim said he had an idea for a vegetable or chip dip that would be based off of a cashew cream. I’ve always marveled at what cashews become when you soak them overnight and blend them into a chocolate pudding or raw berry pie, but turning them into something savory would, for us, be new.
Here is what we did: In a high-powered blender, we combined the soaked cashews, coconut milk, two cloves of garlic, two chopped green onions, chili powder and salt. Tasting and adjusting until we had it right, we ended up with a new take on the standard veggie dip, one so delicious I could eat it by itself with a spoon. We ate it with raw vegetables, but it would also be so nice with chips—or spread onto a sandwich or stuffed inside a lettuce wrap. I like to think of it as a testament to quality ingredients, but, I suppose, also, it’s just as easily a testament to love.
Garlic Onion Veggie Dip (Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Vegan)
(Makes about three cups, which is plenty for a crowd, and is best served with fresh veggies or your favorite type of chip.)
1 cup of cashews – soaked in water overnight
Around 3/4 cup coconut milk
2 cloves of garlic – grated
2 green onions – chopped
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Sea salt and pepper
Begin by blending the soaked cashews in a high-powered blender or food processor, with enough coconut milk to almost come to the top of the nuts. Once the mixture is smooth and creamy, add garlic, onions, chili powder and salt. Taste, and add more chili powder, salt and pepper as you like.
Tags: dip, garlic, guest post, onion, recipe, vegan
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