A Not Final Goodbye

To all of my readers here on And Cuisine For All:

 

I am incredibly thankful for your time spent reading my scribblings.  I am even more thankful for every comment you have made, because you cared enough about what I posted to weigh in.

However, after a long de facto silence, today I felt it is time to make it official:  And Cuisine For All will be down for an undisclosed amount of time.

It is not because I don’t appreciate my readers, nor is it because I lost my interest and passion for cooking.  I still believe that everyone – even Joe Schmoes who have just wandered into the kitchen for the first time – should be able to make something delicious, and be helped through the process.  I still say that anyone, regardless of skill, age, gender, or anything else, is able to cook a dinner fit for a five-star restaurant.  All you need is a good recipe, fresh ingredients, some time, and lots of humility towards what you do.

But I have other commitments with school and my family, and I feel I do not have the time to prepare a fresh post or two, complete with pictures, every week.  For a while, I hoped that the post-moving stress would go away.  Then I hung on until summer semester ended.  Then I thought that after the first few weeks of fall, it will let up enough to where I can post regularly again.

It never happened.  But I do hold out hope that eventually, once, I can return to And Cuisine For All.  I will keep my comments open, and I do check back from time to time.  I will also reply to emails and requests, but I won’t be posting new material.

I do sincerely hope to return.  Thank you for your loyalty and reading…  and until then, keep enjoying your meals!

A New Take On Takeout

Chinese takeout.  A staple in comfort food for many, an insta-party, and a mob movie staple (just think Godfather…  “He sleeps with the fish tonight…”) – and the best of it all is fried rice.  Yummy, sticky, salty, and drenched in soy sauce, it’s probably just as unhealthy (if not more) as delicious.  I have been working on a slightly revamped version on it for a while, experimenting with spices, additions and whatnots, and this is where I arrived.

Cool as a Cucumber

In the heat of the summer, a cool, chilled salad is always refreshing.  However, Hungarians also know how to make that cool and tart taste amazing!

Cucumbers and garlic combine great – just like in tzatziki.  Add a vinegar dressing, sour cream, and a hint of paprika, and you have the refreshing, tart, but creamy Hungarian cucumber salad.

Curvature

After a long, long, long break, hopefully I’m finally back!

And to celebrate the return, the first recipe is something really close to my heart.  I love working with all kinds of food, but baking, and especially yeast doughs are my absolute favorite.  And why the title?  Because the best thing to do with yeast is pretzels!

This recipe for salty, buttery bread pretzels can even be prepared in a breadmaking machine:  just use the dough function to prepare the dough, then shape it by hand and bake it all the same.

Returning to Summer

After a long hiatus due to school, moving, internet issues and whatnot, finally we’re back!

As I have recently moved, my kitchen is not quite set up the way I would prefer it to be, but on the positive side – now I have a barbecue!  After the years in the old apartment, where charcoal barbecues were banned, along with all propane ones bigger than a tiny tabletop thing, at the new apartment, I have my own balcony and my own charcoal grill.  Combine that with the end of the semester, the hassle of not even knowing where all my pots and pans are packed, and balmy-beautiful early California summer, and ta-da… it’s BBQ time!

Since my camera is also somewhere in the pile (to be deconstructed after finals), today I’ll just share a favorite recipe without pictures, which may get their own post, along with more smoky goodies at a later time.

Don’t Pass Over Passover

For the first time at And Cuisine For All, we’re hosting a guest post!  Longtime fencing friend Kethrim is sharing her experiences with Passover cooking – after her awesome birthday cake!

I decided to host a Passover seder this year for some friends. Typically, such an event involves a special service, the seder itself, during which the story of Passover is told and certain symbolic foods are explained (and eaten!), followed by a dinner, and in our case, a game of Apples to Apples.

Happy Easter from AC4A!

Easter Bread Wreath

Happy Easter from And Cuisine for all!

Easter Preparations

Easter is two days from now, and to aid in the hassle of organizing your family festivities, here’s the And Cuisine For All recommendation for the menu!

Bun-ny Bread

Easter is right upon us – it’s just over a week!  In Hungary, people traditionally make a special bread called “husveti kalacs” or Easter sweet bread for the occasion.  As the country is mostly Catholic or historic Protestant (Lutheran or Calvinist), the end of the Holy Week has its own set of traditions.

For Good Friday, the meat-avoiding dish is beans, thickened with a buttery base rather than the common pork lard one.  For Saturday, our big meal is usually the supper, after the Resurrection celebrations at churches – in most Catholic parishes, this involves a major procession on the streets circling the church.  The big supper usually consists of cooked Easter ham, special homemade sausages, hard-boiled eggs, horseradish to go with the ham, and Easter bread, as well as fresh radishes, green onions and other vegetables in season.

The Easter bread often looks extremely elaborate with its braids, and tastes just amazing – and compared to how difficult it looks, it’s not even that hard.  While I wouldn’t recommend this recipe for absolute beginners, if you have handled dough before, it shouldn’t be too hard!

A Birthday Surprise

Fresh in from the comments:  my longtime fencer-friend and reader, Kethrim has prepared a surprise!

Birthday cake!!!

Thank you so very much!!!!