Gazpacho with cucumbers and sweet peppers
To prepare Mediterranean cold gazpacho soup, you need to prepare:
- Dry bread – 200 g,
- Garlic – 1 small head,
- Olive or sunflower oil – 80 g,
- Tomatoes – 7 pcs.,
- Green cucumber – 4 pcs.,
- Vinegar (wine) – 40 g,
- Onion – 1 pc.,
- Bell pepper – 2-3 pcs.,
- Parsley – 1 p.,
- Red pepper in a bag – 20 g.
Ingredient calculations are provided for preparing four servings of cold Mediterranean soup.
So, first, let's cut off the crusts from the dried bread. You can cut fresh bread and dry it in a toaster. Place the bread pieces in a deep bowl and pour in plain water to swell so that the crackers are completely covered with liquid. Peel the garlic and pass through a garlic press. Squeeze out the swollen and softened crackers in water and mix with chopped garlic with a spoon. Add salt while continuing to stir. After obtaining a sufficiently homogeneous mass, you need to add one part of olive oil. Mix everything well and put it in the refrigerator for about one hour.
The next step is to prepare the vegetables. Place red tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds to easily remove the skin. After cooling, remove the skin and chop the tomato pulp as desired. Fresh cucumbers, if they are young and green, cut them with the peel; if they are quite ripe and hard, then it is better to peel them. The onions for gazpacho must be pickled. Cut the peeled onion into half rings and pour in table vinegar. After five minutes of marinating, the onion will soften slightly and the bitterness will completely go away. If desired, you can wash off the remaining vinegar from the pickled onions with running water, or you can simply remove them from the container and place them in a dish with chopped tomatoes and cucumbers. Wash the sweet peppers, remove seeds and peel, and first bake them in a hot oven until softened, but no more than 5 minutes.
We wash and chop our favorite greens, which can be parsley, dill, cilantro, celery. Place all the prepared vegetable ingredients in a large saucepan, add soaked bread crumbs mixed with garlic. Salt and pepper everything and put it in a blender for grinding. Place the finished gazpacho in the refrigerator for one hour, after which the Mediterranean soup is ready to eat.
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With the onset of autumn, the desire to indulge and eat something fatty, fried or sweet increases significantly. However, don’t rush to run to the nearest bakery or order delivery - after all, you can prepare something just as tasty and definitely healthier at home. We invite you to try five autumn PP recipes - main dishes from seasonal vegetables and two healthy desserts.
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It is possible to lose weight on borscht. But you need to prepare it in a special way.
Pumpkin puree soup
You will need:
- pumpkin;
- carrot;
- potato;
- onion;
- salt pepper.
To prepare the soup according to Maria Fomicheva’s recipe, you need to peel and chop the vegetables and cut the onion in half. Then add water or broth and cook until tender. Then remove the onion - it will no longer be needed. Grind the remaining boiled vegetables along with the broth using a blender to a puree, add salt and pepper to taste and bring to a boil.
When serving, you can add your favorite vegetable oil - for example, avocado oil - and garnish with pumpkin seeds.
Vegetable stew
You will need:
- potatoes – 3 pcs.;
- eggplant – 2 pcs.;
- bell pepper – 2 pcs.;
- tomato – 2-3 pcs.;
- fresh mushrooms (for example, champignons) – 500 g;
- garlic – 3 cloves;
- olive oil - for frying;
- soy sauce – 80 ml;
- salt and pepper - to taste;
- greens - optional.
In this recipe, you need to cut the vegetables into cubes, then soak the eggplants for half an hour in salted water, then rinse and squeeze lightly. Fry all the vegetables, except tomatoes, one by one over low heat for a couple of minutes - you can add a little oil or use a non-stick frying pan.
Then place the ingredients in a baking dish in layers in this order: potatoes, bell peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, champignons. Season each layer with salt and pepper to taste, add soy sauce. Cover with a lid or foil and place in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees. 10 minutes before readiness, you can add a couple of cloves of garlic, grated on a fine grater.
Meatballs with cauliflower in bechamel sauce
You will need:
- minced meat – 500 g;
- cauliflower (or broccoli) – 500-600 g;
- butter – 10 g;
- milk 2.5% – 300 g;
- water – 100 g;
- whole grain flour (or other) – 40 g;
- hard cheese 40/50% – 40 g.
According to the recipe of nutritionist Anna Kulikova, the minced meat should be salted and peppered to taste, formed into meatballs and fried until tender in a non-stick frying pan. Separate the cauliflower into florets and boil until soft.
For the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, add flour and mix thoroughly, then add milk and water one by one. Stir over low heat until the sauce thickens and becomes smooth.
Place meatballs in layers in a baking dish and cabbage on top, pour sauce over everything and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 180 degrees until the cheese is lightly browned.
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Baked apples with cottage cheese
You will need:
- cottage cheese – 100 g;
- sour cream – 2 tbsp. l.;
- apples – 4 pcs.;
- sugar – 1 tbsp. l.;
- cinnamon – 0.5 tsp.
Make the filling from cottage cheese: mash it with a fork, add sugar and sour cream, mix everything well. Core the apples and fill with the resulting mixture. Place them in a deep refractory plate or baking dish, pour a little water on the bottom and place in the oven for 20-30 minutes - until the apples are soft - at a temperature of 180 degrees.
Homemade condensed milk
You will need:
- whole milk powder – 4 tbsp. l.;
- dates – 5 pcs.;
- milk – 50 ml.
First you need to make sweet milk: pour regular milk over the dates and boil for about 3-4 minutes, then strain the resulting “decoction”. It can not only be used in making desserts, but also added to coffee and tea or drunk on its own.
Fry whole milk powder in a dry non-stick frying pan until golden brown. During frying, lumps may form, there is nothing to worry about - just pass the mixture through a sieve. Then you need to combine regular sweet and dry fried milk - add dry milk a little to adjust the consistency. If lumps appear again, you can beat the dessert using a blender.
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Proper nutrition may seem monotonous only at first glance. In fact, you can always find new flavor combinations and interesting recipes that won’t add extra centimeters to your waist.
Vegetable soup
INGREDIENTS
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- handful of white cabbage
- 1 fresh cucumber
- 3–4 tomatoes
- 0.5 bell pepper
- salt to taste
COOKING
- Peel and chop all the vegetables in advance.
- Then start placing the chopped vegetables in the pan in layers: 1st layer - carrots, 2nd layer - onions, 3rd layer - cabbage, 4th layer - cucumber, 5th layer - tomatoes, 6th layer - Bulgarian pepper.
- Close the pan with a lid and simmer the vegetables over low heat for 25–30 minutes in their own juice. If necessary, you can add a little water. Shake the pan periodically.
- Then pour boiling water over the contents, add salt, bring to a boil and turn off.
- The soup is ready. Serve with dill, parsley and sour cream. You can add grated garlic and pepper. Bon appetit!
Origin of the word "soup"
Since ancient times in Rus', the first dish has been a liquid dish, which is prepared on the basis of meat, fish or mushroom broth. Quite often they were prepared using kvass, milk or yogurt. Previously, the first courses were called stew or bread. All of them were divided into:
- Shchi are soups that contain cabbage;
- Kalyu is a pickle and its composition includes pickled cucumbers;
- Solyanki - spicy soups that are well seasoned with various spices;
- Borscht is a soup that contains beets;
- Ukha - fish soup.
The word “soup” itself entered the Russian language presumably during the reign of Peter l.
TOP 5 most popular Russian soups
We offer the most popular soups of Russian cuisine with their recipes and history.
Cabbage soup
Cabbage soup This dish appeared in the 9th century. At this time, cabbage was brought from Byzantium. Today, there are several options that can explain the semantics of the word “cabbage soup”:
- The word “cabbage soup” comes from the Old Russian word “s’to” (food);
- Derived from the name of the ingredient that is part of cabbage soup - sorrel.
This soup instantly became popular and served as a kind of sign of equality between simple peasants and wealthy boyars, since all people prepared cabbage soup.
One of the recipes for making cabbage soup is as follows. You will need: cabbage - 1.5 kg, potatoes - 4 pcs, carrots and onions - 2 pcs each, tomato - 4 pcs, sour cream - 100 g, oil (vegetable) - 3 tbsp. l., spices - to taste. Put the water on the fire, bring to a boil, add salt and other spices, add shredded cabbage and chopped potatoes into the water. In a frying pan, fry chopped onions, carrots and tomatoes in sunflower oil until tender. Add the fry to the broth and cook for another 15 minutes. Before serving, add sour cream to the cabbage soup.
Borsch
Borsch. Of course, borscht is considered another main first course of Russian cuisine. Today it is a favorite not only by tradition, but also by reviews. In any Russian family, borscht is often prepared, and almost everyone without exception likes it. By the way, borscht was the favorite dish of Empress Catherine the Great. It is no secret that Ukrainians try to appropriate this dish for themselves and call it their traditional one, but this dish first appeared in Russia.
To prepare such a popular and very tasty first course, you will need the following ingredients: meat - 500 g, potatoes - 5 pcs, carrots, onions and beets - 3 pcs each, cabbage - 1 pc, tomato - 1 pc, spices and herbs - each taste.
Start preparing borscht by preparing meat broth. When the meat is completely cooked, add the diced potatoes, and then the shredded cabbage. While the vegetables are boiling, fry carrots, beets, onions and tomatoes in a frying pan with the addition of spices. Bring to readiness, add this vegetable mixture to the broth and let your borscht simmer over low heat. Serve hot, with herbs, sour cream and garlic dumplings.
Solyanka
Solyanka. There are many sayings about hodgepodge, including humorous ones. It was believed that the Russian people would never know what hunger was if they knew the word “solyanka.” Very often, this first dish was prepared in order to snack on alcohol (vodka), because the solyanka contained all the necessary ingredients that did not allow one to get very drunk - namely, fatty meat, vegetables and brine. The very name of this soup comes from the word “village”. By the way, the phrase “hodgepodge” is very popular today and it means not only soup.
You can prepare hodgepodge as follows. Take beef - 400 g, ham, boiled sausage and frankfurters - 200 g each, pickled cucumber - 3 pcs., onion - 1 pc., tomato paste - 2 tbsp., olives - 1 jar and greens.
Boil the beef with the addition of allspice and bay leaf. Now cut all the meat ingredients into cubes and send them to simmer in a frying pan (including the cooked beef). Add chopped cucumbers, onions, parsley and tomato paste to the ingredients. Simmer for another 10 minutes. Now add all the roast to the broth, add a can of olives along with the brine and bring the soup to a boil. Cook until done. Serve solyanka with herbs, sour cream and a slice of lemon.
Ear
They began preparing fish soup in the 11th century, but at that time soups that were cooked in meat or fish broth were considered fish soup. But already in the 17th century they decided that fish soup was prepared only from fish. Almost every year the technology for preparing this soup changed. Today, the most delicious fish soup is the one cooked over a fire. It is believed that this dish must be prepared from 2 types of fresh fish. To prepare fish soup, you can take perch, crucian carp, pike, salmon, salmon, pike, beluga, and pike perch.
To prepare fish soup, you need to take the following ingredients: fish (head and tails) - 1 kg, carrots, onions - 1 piece, potatoes - 2 pieces, salt, black pepper, bay leaf, allspice - to taste.
You need to pour 2 liters of water into a saucepan and put it on fire. Add spices and add a little salt. Peel the onion, cut the carrots into small slices and place in a saucepan. As soon as the water boils, wait 15-20 minutes and remove the onion. Add fish. After 15 minutes, add the peeled, diced potatoes. Cook over low heat. Once the potatoes are ready, you can remove the fish and turn off the heat. You can add greens if you wish.
Okroshka
During hot periods, few people want to stand at the stove and cook soup. And then people came up with such a dish as okroshka. In order to prepare this dish, you need to take the following ingredients: potatoes, eggs - 2 pcs., boiled sausage - 100 grams, cucumber - 1 pc., greens - 1 bunch, whey - 200 ml.
Boil potatoes and eggs. Cut all ingredients into small cubes. Mix everything and add salt. If desired, you can add sour cream. Fill everything with serum. And put it in the refrigerator for 30-40 minutes.
We wish you bon appetit. Have fun cooking and don’t forget traditions. Good luck!