Category Archives: Family Recipes

Desserts and Sweets

Pracny (Czech Bear Claws)

Pracny were cookies that Grandma baked at Christmas–amongst many other delicacies such as Walnut and Poppyseed Rolls (Beigli), Cottage Cheese Cake, Hoska, and Viennese Crescents (AKA Mexican Wedding Cakes). The Pracny were baked in special molds, were a rich, dark brown covered with a snowy sprinkling of powdered sugar, and had a most wonderful texture (and taste!).

This particular recipe is one that a second cousin gave us when she came to visit us from the Czech Republic. The measurements are in dekakilograms (each dekakilogram measures 10 grams)… happy converting!

(Note: below this recipe is a link to a very similar recipe with convenient conversions already made)

Ingredients for Pracny

7 dkg ground walnuts
10 dkg butter
7 dkg powder sugar
14 dky flour (very mild one)
2 tsp Vanilla sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Mix all this together and let is sit for at least an hour or 24 hours, it’s up to you.

Spread a lot of butter into small cookie forms (we use metal one, if you don’t have any, we’ll send you some). It’s very important to spread the butter properly, otherwise, you won’t be able to take the cookies out.

Lay the forms (with the open side up) on the cookie sheet. Put the sheet in oven (about 180 C or 350 F). Bake them until they are done (until the cookies turn gold). After you pull the sheet out of oven, let it sit for a while. Then comes the final moment–cookies digging. Sometimes it is easy to take them out and sometimes you get just crumbs. Sometimes just knocking on the sheet helps.

Then you prepare some powder sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl. Every cookie you cover with sugar in that bowl. Then you have to keep them at the safe place without insect and with low humidity.

Merry Christmas….. Vesele Vanoce……. Marketa

Walnuts

Another Czech Christmas Cookie Recipe: Bear paws / Recept na medvedi tlapicky

Meat and Poultry

Segadin–Hungarian pork and sauerkraut stew

Székelygulyás: a rich pork and sauerkraut stew (goulash), perfect when accompanied by dumplings, noodles, potatoes or rice.

This simple and straightforward recipe was translation by Dad from Az Ìnyesmester Szakácskônyve (The Expert’s Cookbook).

Ingredients for Segadin (a Hungarian pork and sauerkraut stew)

  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 T lard (or oil)
  • 2 lbs. pork
  • 2 lbs. sauerkraut
  • Flour
  • Sour cream

Brown the finely chopped onion in 1 T lard, with paprika. Add 2 lbs. diced pork. Cook until tender. In separate pan, warm 2 lbs. sauerkraut. Thicken with flour. Mix together with pork and sour cream to taste.

Wesselburenkraut 19.06.2012 18-35-26
By Dirk Ingo Franke (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Fish and Seafood

Huachinango a la Veracruzana

Huachinango is the name for red snapper in Spanish. Veracruz-style fillets of red snapper are a Mexican favorite.

It is a savory fish dish seasoned with a medley of spices and the tang of green olives and chile peppers. Veracruz style red snapper is often made with whole red snappers instead of the fillets. This is only one of many variations.

Ingredients for Huachinango a la Veracruzana (Red Snapper Fish Veracruz Style)

  • 6 fillets of red snapper
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 chopped onion
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped
  • 2 cups tomato puree
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp cloves
  • 3 jalapeños, chopped
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 12 small new potatoes, pared and boiled
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 5 slices bread, cubed
  • 15 green olives
  • Salt and pepper

Fry bread cubes in butter until crisp and golden. Set aside. Dust fillets with flour. Heat oil and sauté the fish fillets. Set aside.

To same pan, add onion and garlic, adding more oil if necessary. Sauté until soft. Add tomato puree, cinnamon and cloves. Cook 5 minutes. Add chiles, lemon juice, and sugar, and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat.

Add potatoes and fish and heat thoroughly. Serve fish on a platter with the sauce, garnished with croutons and olives. Servings: 6

Fish by Carol

Breads and Pancakes

Bran Muffins

A plain old and easy bran muffin recipe, great for breakfast or a mid-afternoon snack.

Wheat bran is high in dietary fiber and so helps to keep the body’s elimination system in good working order.

Bran muffin ingredients

  • 1 cup flour
  • 3 t baking powder
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 T melted butter
  • 1 cup wheat bran

Sift together flour, baking powder and sugar. Beat the egg and add milk, butter and bran. Let stand for 10 minutes. Add the flour and stir just to dampen. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 400 F for 25 minutes.

Vegan Bran Muffin Tweak

This recipe is easily made vegan by substituting 1 T flax + 3 T water for the egg (mix together and let sit for 5 minutes or so to thicken before adding to the recipe), 1 cup unsweetened almond or soy milk for the regular milk, and 2 tablespoons of coconut oil for the butter.

 

Bran muffins


Breads and Pancakes, Desserts and Sweets

Bread Pudding

Old stale bread and breadcrumbs can be baked into something heavenly with ingredients that almost anyone has in the kitchen.  This simple dessert is popular all over the world and has hundreds of variations

Ingredients for Bread Pudding

  • 2 cups coarse dry bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1 quart hot milk
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 beaten eggs
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 t vanilla

Options: 1/2 cup coconut, nuts, raisins, dates

Preparation

Butter a baking dish. In it put the bread crumbs, butter, and hot milk. Mix and cool.

Add sugar, beaten eggs, salt, and vanilla. Stir well.

Add 1/2 cup of any of the suggested options, or devise some of your own.

Bake for 1 hour at 325 F. Serve with milk or sweet cream.


Meatless Main Dishes

Meatless Mincemeat

Although true mincemeat, as the name suggests, usually contains chopped beef, beef suet (fat), and at times, venison, here is a tasty meatless version that’s great as a pie filling. Red wine can be substituted for the rum, if desired, but the favor will change accordingly.

Pyes of Mutton or biefe, must be fine minced and seasoned with Pepper and salte, and a lyttle Saffron to colour it, suet or marrow a good quantytye a
lyttle vyneger, prunes, great raisings, and dates, take the fatteste of the broth of poudred biefe, and if you will have paste royall, take butter and yolkes of egges, & so temper the flower to make the Paste.

From "A Proper New Booke of Cookery," transcription of the edition in the British Library, published in 1575 by William How. Medievalcookery.com

Dried fruit and nuts

Meatless Mincement Ingredients:

  • 1 large firm, tart apple, finely chopped
  • 3/4 cup raisins
  • 1/2 cup pecans, chopped
  • 1/2 cup fruit peel, chopped
  • 1/2 cup sugar, golden, packed
  • 1/4 cup butter, unsalted
  • 1/4 cup rum, dark
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon, ground
  • 3/4 t allspice, ground
  • 1/2 t nutmeg
  • 1/4 t ginger

Mix all ingredients together. Cover with a plate and let stand at room temperature up to 6 hours to meld flavors before using. Servings: Filling for 1 pie.

Vegan tweak:

Substitute coconut oil for the butter and orange juice or kombucha tea for the rum.


Meatless Main Dishes, Soups and Stews

Borscht, Doukhobor Style

A thick, very rich version of Russian beet soup melded with potatoes and other vegetables, butter, and cream..

For years, various members of the family have lived in an area of British Columbia, Canada, into which many Doukhobors (a sect of Christian Russians who practice  what is called “radical pacifism”) settled after emigrating to Canada from Russia in the early 1900s to escape persecution. One of the mainstays of the Doukhobour diet, which is vegetarian, is their particular style of borscht, or beet soup, which is thick with potato starch and heavily laden with butter and cream. It is a full-course meal in itself.

  • 1-1/2 cups runny mashed potatoes
  • 1/2 medium cabbage, shredded
  • 1 beet, diced
  • 1 large carrot, diced
  • 1 green pepper, chopped
  • 1/2 lb. butter
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 can tomatoes
  • 1 t basil
  • salt and dill to taste
  • water as needed
  • 1/2 to 1 cup whipping cream

Prepare the mashed potatoes, reserving the water in which the potatoes were cooked. Set the mashed potatoes aside. Add 3/4 of the cabbage, the diced beet, carrot, and green pepper to the hot potato water in a large soup pot and cook for 15 minutes.

Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the chopped onion and garlic and stir until transparent, and then add the rest of the cabbage. Fry to brown slightly.

Toss the fried cabbage in with the other vegetables in the potato broth. Empty the tomatoes into the skillet and add the basil. Heat well and throw into the soup pot. Add water as needed and continue simmering. Add the mashed potatoes and dill. Stir in cream (use as much as your taste buds dictate and your conscience will allow) and heat but do not boil. Season.

Serves 8.

Desserts and Sweets

Raisin Pie

Mom used to make this recipe as small raisin tarts rather than a full pie. It brings back memories of a warm kitchen during a cold winter.
raisins for raisin pie

Ingredients for Raisin Pie or Tarts

  • 3/4 cups raisins
  • 2 cups water
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 egg
  • 3 T lemon juice
  • 3 T grated lemon rind
  • 1/8 t salt
  • 1 pie shell, unbaked

Let raisins stand in water for 2 hours. Mix sugar, flour, egg, lemon juice and rind, and salt. Add raisins with their soaking water. Simmer until thickened (about 15 minutes), stirring constantly to avoid sticking and burning. Cool.

Fill the pastry shell with the cooled raisin mixture and top with pastry lattice if desired.

Bake at 425 F for 45 minutes.


Breads and Pancakes, Desserts and Sweets

Cake Doughnuts

  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 egg plus 2 egg yolks
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 tbsp melted butter
  • 1 cup milk at room temperature
  • Lard, shortening or oil for deep frying

Sift baking powder, nutmeg, salt and flour together. Beat egg and yolks and add sugar, melted butter and milk. Combine thoroughly. Add dry ingredients. Add enough extra flour, if necessary, to make a dough firm enough to roll but keep as soft as possible. Knead 1/3 of dough, pat, roll 1/4″ thick. Cut, repeat.

Heat lard to 370F. Brown doughnuts without piercing. Shake in icing sugar.