Look East for the light

 Oof. I hate the first working day after the clocks change. I know we have some community folk who aren't keen on the importation of Halloween, but I'm rather glad there's a silly orange fest to take the glum off the darkened streets. Vomiting carved pumpkins are still very popular hereabouts, and most families seem to be doing one pumpkin per kid, or more, so there's a lot of pumpkin outside. (I hope the rats enjoy them.)

I haven't posted for a month, apologies. I went on holiday for three days and then I had to pay for it with four weeks of very hard work, from which I am just surfacing. But! I have also been doing a rather diffuse lot of vaguely Eastern European cooking. Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian, Carpathian, erm Silesian, you name it. It has been hearty, there has been a lot of dairy, and it is almost universally from books without illustrations, which turns out to be a sound decision. It would give a food stylist a breakdown. There's also been a lot of grating and onion cookery. It has however almost all been seriously tasty. I was surprised how much garlic and oregano (in lieu of marjoram) there was in it, especially the Ukrainian and Polish foods, which were totally new to me - not at all bland. So, I am definitely glad of it. Upholstering for October, or at least the October we were having at the start of the month; not so much the balmy summer we're on now. Erk. 

I mean.

But I did find some stuff for veganish week. Beetroot and prune salad with walnuts was pretty good. With lots of garlic in the sour cream dressing dressing. Zingy. I apologise for putting it in a burger bun; I was right out of authentic breads (and patience) at this point. 

I mean, there was a lot of sour cream this month. Really a lot. I like to cook with it, but even I started to worry about how much I was using. Not as much ham as I'd have guessed, though some did sneak in to the more veg heavy recipes, I'm afraid.

Some of the food was just hideous. 

Cabbage noodles

Chicken noodles (I added the green stuff) - these were from Mamoushka and are a reminder how if you keep on going east from Ukraine you'll get towards the more Chinese-influenced cuisines. Mixing pak choi in did not feel insane.

Meatball soup with lovage - delicious, but the VAST SIZE of the meatballs doesn't really go with neat soup production.

I've posted before about Carpathian lettuce broth. It's still hideous and delicious:

I have come around to the omelette now - soup acceptance

But there are a few dishes I commend to you that are only ugly because I've no talent in photography. 

Tomato Lesco with noodles is from New Kitchen Basics if you have it, and is delicious. It's an alternative to goulash but still the same flavour profile - paprika, peppers, onions, cream, dill, noodles, secret chorizo because it's nicer that way [it was chicken week, try not to look]. I think I thought this was what I'd be eating all month when I started this. 

I'm pretty sure this is sorrel soup - basic vegetable broth, but with a load of fresh herbs including sorrel chopped in at the last minute:

Unexpectedly, from Carpathia, inordinately cheesy polenta (also with milk, Cheddar and sour cream), with a fried egg on top. 

This was the first day I cooked it. The second I came back late from work and discovered that when knackered and desperate it's possible to melt solidified polenta when it contains this much dairy (add some milk to ease it while heating - apparently in Carpathia you add hot milk to your own polenta bowl, so it's almost authentic). I did not bother with an egg that time.

Baked salmon, which works like most salmon baking you have heard of - a load of herbs mixed with butter and lemon in this case, squished between two bits of salmon, then foil covered and baked c20 mins. The different bit of this was that the herbs are dill, bay and garlic, which is quite the flavour bomb combination.

Okay, this is hideous, but that's what you get for baking lamb chops in sour cream, horseradish and capers. Baranina, apparently, and it should really be mutton. This was amazingly delicious. I'm getting this from a very barebones US-Polish cookbook off Kindle - not one for uncertain cooks, but it gave me a load of flavour combinations that surprised. And this was *great*, not least as you can leave most of the fat in the oven dish but you get all the flavour from the cooking with it. It's a bit like a tandoori-in-yoghurt cookery approach, but sharp instead of spicy. Good stuff.

Finally, Silesian Heaven, thanks to Diana Henry. Mixed spice and dried fruit, with pork, is a strong autumnal dish - deeply rich and the first hint that this is going to be moving towards winter foodstuffs soon. 

Not yet though. Next month it's Indian. Some spice AT LAST! Very excited.

I have a very minor cold, and have been testing negative for a few days. The pandemic admin continues to continue. Can we get through Christmas without a new scare? I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT THIS TIME. Halloween cheers the streets but gives me the horrors leftover from 2020 when things suddenly started to get bad. Let's not have that again. Fingers crossed, etc.