Cooking in Ukraine

Breakfast time! Its the biscuit-ham-egg homemade mcmuffin alternative this morning!
Since we just got back to Ukraine from Canada, I will tell you why I cook differently here. I mentioned in the “what we miss about Canada” post that I make the basic yeast products when we want them- in this photo I'm boiling bagels before putting them in the oven last week. (everything except bread- if you enjoy a heavy unsliced bread- white or dark, come to live in a Ukrainian village- it’s delivered to the store by truck daily- the boys walk down to buy it every morning-along with a treat of candy or ice cream bars.)


You gain a real appreciation for the phrase “ the best thing since sliced bread”_ when you saw up ¾ a loaf of bread for dinner everyday- Maxim doesn’t think it’s dinner unless you he has 4-5 slices of “hleb” even if the mail course has biscuits or cornbread in. Dinner is sometime between noon and one (most Ukrainians think 2 pm is a good time for dinner.) A real Ukrainian dinner consists of soup, a salad (not a green one with lettuce though) and the main course with a meat and potato or grain/macaroni/rice, followed by tea. When we had the Ukrainian guys here building the barn I had to feed them once a day, so I made this kind of meal for them. However Maxim has had to adjust to a more North American style menu after he came back to work for us- lucky for everyone he likes spicy food.

Except for Saturday pizza night, it’s often make your own at suppertime, Garry bought an electric sandwich maker last year, and he and the boys love to make pizza sandwiches with it (added bonus- he slices his own bread for them.) The boys like to warm up leftovers in the microwave. I am still waiting to get a new microwave- last summer Garry tried to dry corn silage in it- to test how much moisture was in it- left Jonah “watching it” and it caught fire inside the microwave. So when I got back (and still) everytime someone uses the microwave I smell burnt silage (the guys insist they can’t smell it- but it drives me crazy!)


We bought a new drip coffeemaker this month(its in the bagel picture) we’d been looking for a new one, since the one we’d been using from Victor’s bed and breakfast would not keep the coffee hot (although it cooked the counter underneath) but Metro only had little bitty 2 cup size ones- or really fancy expensive expresso machine kinds. We got a nice big and inexpensive one at Foxmart, and a new toaster to boot. The toaster we bought after arriving has not popped up the toast in more than a year, and we burnt many slices of bread with it. So this time we did not buy the cheapest one. We bought our second electric kettle before we left for Christmas- the first one quit working while making hot water for tea when we had all our visitors from church that Sunday- It just couldn't stand the workload, I think! I also have a crock-pot. You can get bread machines, juicers, meat grinders, food dehydrators, blenders, or food processors if you want one.

I also go through a lot more baking powder here, muffins, biscuits, pancakes, cakes and cookies. I finally bought a 500 gm container from Metro- the most common way to buy baking powder here is a set of 5 tiny bags with about 2 tablespoons in. Baking soda is more commonly used in recipes here. I am still trying to find a brownie recipe that works well here- I think it’s the sugar which has a thick texture and sort of unusual smell. I had to add flour to my muffin recipe to make it the right texture- it was more like cake batter than muffin dough. For pancakes you need to make syrup since there is none to buy in the stores- we got a recipe from Canadian missionaries when we arrived in July 2009. You need cream of tartar to make the syrup- they gave us that, and a bottle of maple flavour.

One thing I was prepared for- when your recipe calls for a can of mushroom soup, make white sauce – thanks to PJ, the wonderful hostess we stayed with during Summer English Institute in 2008- there’s no Campbell’s soup here! You can find knorr brand broth powder at Metro, and a brand of cup-of-soup like products. So plan on dirtying a few extra pans when you cook here. I spend more time on cooking here than at home- but I am not spending hours everyday feeding calves, the kids point out.

In the summer there is an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables but now in February its mostly potatoes, onions, carrots and cabbage for the inexpensive choices. There are tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms,and green peppers at Metro also, and sometimes I get some for variety. Lettuce is sometimes there (then we have tacos!) Celery is so expensive (compared to home) that I use more onions and a sprinkle of celery seed in recipes. I have been experimenting with many kinds of cabbage salads and side dishes this year.

Good news- since I started this post two weeks ago, I have fixed my favourite brownie recipe, using something I noticed when I accidently made a nice cake last year when I put the sugar in with the other ingredients that got boiled on the stove before adding into the batter. I melted my butter on the stove, then added the sugar and cooked it for a minute. This nicely combined the sugar into the batter when I cooled it, and added the eggs and dry ingredients, so there was no hard sugary crust on the bottom of the pan.