Mamushka

Wow, where did the weekend go? The whole day seems to have just melted away – that’s what a bit of shopping does, I suppose, it makes time disappear. Magic.

We were running low on groceries and cat food and litter, so it had to be done. Normally we would go and stock up on things one evening after work so that it leaves the weekend for us to do some housework and then relax, but, as last week has been so hectic we had to do it at the weekend. That meant being stuck in traffic for a while (not that I mind just watching the world whilst listening to the music), circling around the car park trying to find a parking space and then trying to navigate around the supermarket’s busy aisles. It seems the entire population of our area was either on the road or at the supermarket at the same time as us, that’s the joy of living in a busy area.

I generally like doing grocery shopping, with endless choices of products on the shelves, it is quite exciting for me to have the opportunity to explore and try different things. We are lucky to have pretty much all of the major supermarkets within roughly the same driving distance, so we can variate our shopping. Today we went to Tesco Extra store, they are handy as they have hand held scanners which makes shopping a lot quicker – you take a product, scan it and put it in your bag, then pay at the end once you have everything you needed to pick up without the need to unload the contents of your trolley onto the checkout belt. Our local Waitrose is the same, but going there at the weekend is not a nice experience their car park is quite small and it gets so busy inside the store, it becomes painful. You just don’t get a chance to look at food labels, or check the ingredients (which I do a lot) without having other shoppers looking at you like you are a major nuisance to them. How inconsiderate of me!

I guess, the reason why I take time when shopping for groceries is because I do not have a list of things I need to buy. I like being spontaneous. Simon is the same, so we often end up buying more than necessary, but we rarely waste anything so that’s ok. We just have a lot of “stock” so, if all the supermarkets were to close down, we could live for at least three months from the supplies we have in the pantry and the freezer. And our lovely chickens give us eggs 🙂

I was looking through some of my cookery books earlier today and considering what kind of food we could have during the week. I am still in a “Ukrainian food mode” after my friend’s visit so I was looking through the pages of “Mamushka” by Olia Hercules, and my “Encyclopedia of Ukrainian cooking”

I love Ukrainian food as I grew up with it, Olia Hercules‘ book “Mamushka” is amazing as it has many great recipes of food from Ukraine and other ex-Soviet countries

I found a few great recipe ideas to try out, and I love using my cute bookmarks to tag them.

A cute set of page markers and bookmarks from Lakeland was given to me by my mother in law a while ago – I love it but, sadly, it was discontinued…

I have selected a couple of recipes from Olia’s book and intend to cook them this week: I have missed the taste of buckwheat and I have a pack of medley of mushrooms somewhere in the depths of my freezer so why not make a broth that will remind me of my childhood when my mum would cook this aromatic dish?

Doesn’t it look yummy? Anton is snoozing away in the background.

Just seeing the beautiful photographs in the book make me salivate.

Manty are another favourite of mine – it will be fun making these with Simon

Both me and Simon love pelmeni, my mum is from Siberia so she taught me a trick or two when it comes to making those. Manty were not made as often as pelmeni in my family but they do have a richer flavour due to steaming rather than boiling them. Mmm, I can just imagine the taste… Simon has learnt to make pelmeni and he is quite good at it! We love making fresh pasta together too, it is so much fun!

Time to go and get ready for another week at work, I need to de-badger myself: the grey hair is showing along the parting of my hair and I do not like colouring my hair as it is such a messy procedure… Oh well, I will be as good as new tomorrow 🙂