Spicy Cilantro-Lime Blender Salsa

Put in a blender...

• 2 small (or 1 huge GMO) tomato 
• 1/4 lime, peeled (not just the juice)
• 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese (optional)
• 4-5 green onion sticks
• 1 large handful of cilantro
• 3 tablespoons of regular hot sauce (Texas Pete, Cholula, etc.) 
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• Herbs
• Parsley
• Corriander 
• Chili powder
• Onion powder
• Salt and pepper

Pour over rice and beans, add sour cream and cheese, and serve!

Chechen Pumpkin Tarts- Khingalsh' (Рецепт Хингалш)

Fall is here again! Pumpkin-everything season is upon us. Instead of the typical breads, muffins, and lattes, try tickling your taste buds and impressing your friends with this interesting alternative.

Khingalsh is a delicious Chechen snack, often eaten with tea or after a meal as a dessert. The simplest description might be a pumpkin tart or pumpkin crepes, but really it's quite unique. 

this is what a pile of real khingalsh looks like...scroll down to see my attempt

I tried this dish when I was in Chechnya, and would have described it as stretchy, thin, buttery blini (Russian style crepes) filled with pumpkin puree. It is just a smidge sweet, rich and buttery, and, if made correctly, a huge crowd pleaser!


Ingredients
Dough:
Flour                   4 cups
Water                  1 1/3 cups
Salt                      1 tsp
Baking soda        1/3 tsp

Filling:  
Pumpkin guts      1 can or fresh from a 1.5 kg pumpkin
Salt                      1/2 tsp
Sugar                   3-4 tblsp
Butter                  ~2 sticks 
Spices- every chef has their own preference. For a sweeter flavor, add a dash of cinnamon and a capfull of vanilla extract. Some people add onions and a salty cheese. Caramelized onions can add texture to the sweeter variation, or you can even add a dash of thyme!

Here's how you do it:

Make the dough...

1. Sift the flour, or whisk it a lot if you're like me and don't have a sifter or don't want to deal with washing it

2. In a separate bowl, combine water, salt, baking soda, and a handful of your flour. Stir until it is watery but consistent. Let it sit for about 20 minutes, covered with a damp cloth (optional).

3. Make a pile on your work space with the rest of your flour.

4. Dollop a small ball of the gooey dough into your flour pile, roll it until it is well coated in the flour. Roll the dough ball out with a rolling pin into a large, thin circle
 

this is too ovally- aim for a more circular shape
also, do this in a pile of flour

 Make the filling...

1. Scoop out your pumpkin innards, take out the seeds (it can be helpful to soak pumpkin slices in water to loosen the flesh), or dump a can of pumpkin in a bowl

2. Add whatever spices you desire- I used cinnamon and vanilla because I am a sugar addicted American- plus sugar and salt. 
Taste this mix and adjust it to your preference!

3. Spread the 2-3 tablespoons of filling onto one half of the rolled out dough circle

5. Fold the dough over so it makes a semi-oval shape- like a cheburek or an empanada. Crimp the edges to seal it.

6. Put the khingal directly on a pan at medium-high heat. Do not grease the pan. Each side should fry for about a minute.
7. Prepare two bowls- one full of recently boiled water, and one full of melted butter.

8. When you pull the khingal off the pan, dip it first in the bowl of water, then either dip it in the butter or put it on a plate and brush it liberally with butter

9. Brush or pour remaining butter over khingalsh

10. Slice them up...and bam! Enjoy your khingalsh.

Spicy Tomato Pasta

This was, in fact, a mild success! I had planned on making mac n' cheese aka: pasta with half-melted cheese and ketchup which would have been pretty terrible...but then I got a craving for tomatoes, and ran across the street to my local produce supplier before it closed.

*Note: there are two 24/7 groceries near my house, but they're both small and really only have non-perishables, dairy, and questionable meat counters- no produce. During the day there are several street vendors and a store that has produce out front, pretty good quality usually (depending on the item), but with my lack of Georgian language skills, it's usually just a pointing and smiling game, since the sellers are usually not educated enough to speak either Russian or English...so I'm probably getting grossly overcharged, but it's still comparatively cheap, so I guess I'm fine with it. 

Anyway: this dish was not bad, and I'm encouraged to try it again with a few tweaks. Here's what I did...

Sad, wilted, most-likely-cilantro

Ingredients:

• Handful of spaghetti noodles
• One big tomato
• Handful of cilantro (probably...)
• Chorizo (I bought the kind with a Viking on the package)
• Smoked sulguni cheese

Instructions:

• Cook pasta
• Cut up tomato into chunks, it's not really precise, just getting them bite-sized and small enough to cook down a bit
• Wash and cut cilantro
• Pull cheese into meltable strings/chunks
• Cut chorizo into small pieces- size of a 10-tetri coin
• Once pasta is drained, leave a tiny bit of water in the pot and add tomatoes, let them stew for about 10 minutes, watching and stirring occasionally so they don't burn
• Next add the cheese and chorizo, watching until the cheese melts and the grease from the sausage has spread around the pot, coating the noodles
• Finally, add the cilantro, stir it up well, and serve!

Tips and Improvements

• Get fresh cilantro, and if you're slow like me, prepare it first so you don't get anxious at the end and just give up on adding more than a few leaves
• Add LOTS of tomatoes, cilantro, and cheese- less noodles
• Use angel hair pasta. My spaghetti was really thick and overwhelmed my mouth a bit, it would be better with a lighter noodle to focus more on the tomatoes 
• If you want to get fancy, you can remove the cooked noodles, and put the chorizo into the pot first, letting it brown and get a little more crispy, but don't drain the grease- this + tomato juice is the key to making it like a sauce, not just a bunch of separate ingredients kind of touching each other

Приятного Апетита/Priatnovo Apetita! 

Baby Dragon Noodles

I got this recipe here: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/08/spicy-noodles/

I have made this several times successfully, it's easy, delicious, and very unhealthy!

Unfortunately, today was only my second day in Tbilisi and I went grocery shopping kind of on a whim, no list, and didn't have all the right ingredients for the sauce. I tried it anyway because I didn't really have other options.

Rating: 3/5

Ingredients: 

• 4 oz. lo mein noodles handful of Supremo brand spaghetti noodles
• 2 Tbsp butter 1 Tbsp butter 
• ¼ tsp crushed red pepper  black table pepper
• 1 large egg
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar 2 Tsp white sugar
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp sriracha  a healthy squirt of "spicy fire Mexican ketchup"
• 1 handful fresh cilantro
• 1 sliced green onion

Instructions: 

1. Boil the water and cook the noodles. I had to wash my pot and pan first, as they were brand new.
2. I didn't have ingredients for the sauce, so I skipped that step
3. In a large skillet melt butter over medium-low heat. Add the pepper to the butter as it melts. Add sugar to the melted butter. Whisk an egg in a bowl coffee cup and then add to the melted butter. Stir gently and cook through. Once the egg is done cooking, turn off the heat.
4. When the noodles are tender, drain the water and then add them to the skillet with the cooked egg. Turn the heat on to low to evaporate excess moisture, add ketchup, and stir until everything is mixed up well. Sprinkle the cilantro leaves (whole) on top and serve!

Lessons Learned:

• Stir the egg up really well, don't let it settle at the bottom of the bowl
• Make the sauce...
• Don't use spaghetti noodles, flat noodles would be better
• Add some veggies

It took me 25 mins, including washing the pot and pan in the beginning.

Thanks, Budget Bytes for the recipe! It's seriously good when made right. I suggest using half the butter called for and adding a vegetable like baby bok choy or spinach to give it some nutritional value!

Welcome!

Hello dear reader,

Welcome to my new blog, so glad you decided to join me!

Are you looking for amazing recipes, inspired by world class chefs and the finest Parisian and Tuscan cuisines? 
Well, then you're way too fancy for this blog and should mosey yourself on out of here.

Instead, I freely admit to you that I am a horrible cook. Level 1. Maybe Level 0.

There are two compounding factors to my lack of skill:

1. I am currently living in Tbilisi, Georgia
1. I don't speak Georgian, so reading labels on food is difficult. I can read the script, so cognates are helpful, and many things are also labeled in Russian (which I speak), but a lot of the more local, natural things (fresh produce, cheese, meat) are only labeled in Georgian
2. Much of the things I'm used to buying to make simple meals aren't available here, or at least aren't familiar. I have to figure out which brands are the best, what I should buy canned and what I should get fresh from a market, what Georgian products are good and what I should buy imported. 
3. I also don't know where anything is. I know there are markets, but not which is the best and where they are, I don't know where to go to buy kitchen things like strainers and whisks.
4. My kitchen is tiny. I have about a square foot of counter space. No table, no chairs. Two gas burners, no oven. The house came with one pot and one pan, some utensils, plates, bowls, and cups. That seemed fine until I actually tried to cook and realized how much other stuff is useful or necessary (e.g., chef's knife, cutting board, colander) 
2. I am cooking for one. I live alone and while cooking for one is always a bit of a challenge, it's especially so when everything here is so natural that it goes bad quickly (a loaf of bread lasts about 4 or 5 days- thankfully the fresh baked bread I bought today was only ¢30!

So, with that in mind, I am trying to make dishes that I'm familiar with, plus try new things with local ingredients! Trying being the optimal word.
I hope to show you some successes as well as failures, but no guarantees. 

Without further ado, welcome to my second world kitchen as I attempt to learn how to cook.