Cream of Spinach ala Svetlana

Here is a cream of spinach recipe Serbian style. You can tell that this dish is Serbian because it has zapška (pronounced as za-purr-sh-ka). You will learn in this recipe how to make zapška, a secret way to make all your food tasting great.

Ingredients:

5 oz baby spinach
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
salt to taste

Zaprška:
4 Tbsp oil
3 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp paprika

Boil water in a pan, then add washed spinach and cook it for several minutes. Drain the spinach and throw the water away. Pour new clean water into the pan and boil the spinach one more time. When the water boils, allow the spinach to cook in it for 5-6 minutes.

Drain the spinach well. Place on a cutting board and cut into small pieces.

And now, its time to make something what we call "zaprška". We use zaprška in many dishes, its purpose it to thicken the sauce and add some flavor. Here is how you do it. You will need oil, flour and paprika.

In a small sauce pan, heat some oil to medium-low. Add flour and stir continuously to allow it to fry, but be careful not to burn it.

Add paprika and stir again. Do not cook too long. Have your spinach ready.

Add spinach and garlic back into the pan right after adding paprika.

Slowly add milk while stirring to make a sauce like consistency. It is important to add mils slowly so that your cream of spinach does not turn out too runny.

When the milk starts to boil, mix the egg and add it to the pan.

Cook it for several more minutes while stirring, and your Serbian cream of spinach is done. Serve with fresh bread.

Pet Food- Beef Liver with Rice and Parsley

Do you buy canned food for your cat or a dog? It's expensive, and as it turns out, much of it happens to be artificial flavors and fillers. The list of ingredients is endless, and most of them are chemically names. The word most similar to anything eatable in this list is "meat by-products". It is hard to know which canned food is better. It is confusing because as the analysis shows, one brand of pet food produces both good and bad food. So how do you know that the particular can of food you picked up at your local supermarket is good for your best friend? Well, its extremely hard if not impossible to know. I think we all remember that pet food recall several years ago.

And now some good news- it is easier that you think to make all natural wet food for your pet. It is also much cheaper. It will cost you some time for cooking and washing the dishes, but hey, that's the last you could do to make sure your cat or dog eats well.

Ingredients:

1.2 lb beef liver
2 cups water
1/2 cup rice for cats, or 1 cup rice for dogs
1 cup fresh parsley
oil

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add beef liver at medium-high heat. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side. Its a good idea to cover it or it will spray all over your kitchen. It doesn't have to be completely cooked inside.


Add water and lower the heat to medium-low, but set the heat so that it would still be boiling. Add rice. Continue cooking, covered, for an additional 8-10 minutes on each side.

Cut the liver into chunks and stir. Add parsley and turn the heat off.

For dogs, cut into appropriate size chunks and serve with the sauce. For cats, blend all together in the blender. If the consistency is too thick for the blender, add a little bit of water.

Make sure the food cools down before you serve it to your pet.

My cats love fancy feast. They stick to it like magnets. I just need to show them the can, and they come running and meowing in their sweetest voice. Here Meda has a choice between a can of fancy feast and mom's home made kitty food. It looks like I impressed my cats as much as I impressed myself!



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It is recommended to get a ceramic or a metal bowl for your cats. Here is the one I have for my kitties, and it is really cute. The bowls come out and cam be washed separately from the cat stand.

Stuffed Peppers ala Svetlana (Serbian= Punjene paprike/ Пуњене паприке)

Stuffed peppers is one of those Serbian dishes that your mother starts cooking on a Saturday morning and the smell of sauteed onions wakes you up. Making stuffed peppers is not necessarily hard, but it requires time. So, don't try to make this dish after work when you are already hungry! Take the example of the Serbian mothers and use your Saturday for cooking this. But don't worry, it doesn't take that long. The reason why we start cooking it in the morning is because our main meal is lunch, so it has to be done around 2-3PM.

Ingredients:

1 lb 9% fat ground beef
1/2 cup paella rice (or any other white rice)
1 onion, minced
1 cup tomato sauce
1 1/2 cup water
4-6 bell peppers (depending on their size)
1 tomato, sliced in 4-6 slices (1 slice per pepper)
1 egg
oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp flour
1 tsp paprika

Cut the tops of the peppers and remove the insides. Place the peppers in the baking dish upright. Choose a good size dish so that the peppers would fill it and not fall over. Svetlana uses cast iron baking dish here, as it holds heat very well, and cooks evenly.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, and add onions. Fry them for a couple of minutes. Add ground beef and stir. As soon as the meat changes color, add one egg, rice, salt and pepper. Stir all together over medium heat for a couple of minutes. It doesn't have to be completely cooked at this stage.

Fill the peppers with meat.


Add 2 tbsp of water in each pepper and close them with tomato slices.

Mix 1 cup of tomato sauce with 1 1/2 cups of water. Add this sauce to the baking dish and cover it. Bake at 450F for 1.5 hours. Then, take the dish out of the oven and add some sauce in each peppers. Bake for another 30 minutes, uncovered.

In a frying pan add oil enough to cover the bottom and heat it. Add flour and paprika. Stir over medium to low heat until you get a uniform mixture. This should only take a minute or two. Add the sauce from the baking dish and mix all together.

Then transfer the sauce back to the baking dish where the peppers are.

Serve with yogurt or sour cream and fresh bread.

Here is an alternate, but a very similar recipe that:

http://tastymakeshappy.blogspot.com/2011/02/stuffed-peppers-ala-zorana-serbian.html

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You need a nice heavy dish for long baking. Cast iron makes great baking dishes, and it lasts forever.