For two plain kulich:

1 cup milk
2 tsp dry yeast
1 cup sugar
14 tbsp (2 sticks) butter
3 eggs in room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white raisins + 1/4 cup rum or brandy for soaking
4 cups all-purpose flour

For two chocolate kuliches omit raisins, cardamom and nutmeg, add:

1/2 cup dry tart cherries soaked in brandy or maraschino cherries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
4 oz semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup all-purposed flour

For glaze:
1 egg white
3.75 oz of powdered sugar

Dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in a small quantity of warm (160F) milk. As soon as the yeast mixture rises, pour in the rest of milk, beat in eggs and whip carefully. Add sugar, combined with cardamom and nutmeg, and melted butter to the mixture. Then pour in flour slowly, stirring carefully, so that there aren’t lumps. Stir in soaking raisins.

Line the sides and bottom of can with greased wax paper, making sure for the paper is at least one and a half the height of the can. Divide dough and put in molds. Cover with a clean towel and leave to rise in the mold. The best place for this – your oven with the light on. There is no draft and the temperature above room temperature because of the light. Rising usually takes 2-3 hours.

After that put cakes in a preheated oven (350F) and bake until light brown 45 minutes. Don’t open the oven often. But if it is getting very dark, cover it with foil to prevent it from burning. Check the readiness with a wooden stick – put it in the Kulich. If the stick is clean, the cake is ready.

Let the Kuliches cool down in their molds and then very carefully take them out and put on a wire rack on side to completely cool.

Glaze Kuliches over the top. For glaze whip egg white with powdered sugar until firm.

In small bowl cook milk and cream of wheat 3-5 minutes, let stay about 10 minutes. Add yeast in warm (not hot!) gruel, cover and let rise in a warm place 1 hour. Beat the egg yolks with sugar, melted butter, salt, spices, combine with yeast mixture, flour and knead until a smooth and elastic dough forms, about 3-5 minutes. Add currants, knead. Cover the dough with a towel and leave in a warm place to come. It can take several hours.

Coat two 2-pound coffee (or juice) cans with cooking spray. Punch down dough and knead a few times. Place it in the prepared cans, cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until double.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Glaze top of kulich with mixed egg and milk. Place pan on a baking sheet and bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake another 35 to 40 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Cover with foil if top become dark.

Remove kuliches from oven and let cool 10 minutes in the side. Unmold from cans and cool on a wire rack.

Buy Russian Eastern Bread

Here is a new way to prepare your Thanksgiving or Christmas Turkey.

1. Cut out aluminum foil in desired shapes.
2. Arrange the turkey in the roasting pan, position the foil carefully (see below )
3. Roast according to your own recipes and serve.
4. Watch your guests’ faces.

- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 lb. ground beef
- 1/2 lb. ground pork
- 2 medium onions, finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper

Sift the flour into a large pile on a clean surface. Make an indentation in the top and crack the eggs into that indentation. Adding the warm water gradually, knead the dough vigorously. Cover the dough and let stand for 30 minutes.

In a separate bowl, mix the beef, pork, onions, pepper, and ½ tsp salt together.

Working on a flour-dusted surface, roll the dough into a long “snake” one inch in diameter. Cut the dough at one-inch intervals and roll the pieces into circles 1/16 to 1/32 of an inch thick. Place a tablespoon of the meat filling in the center and fold the dough over, pinching it to completely seal the pelmeni into a small packet and turn the corners to face each other, making a small circle.

Boil a generous amount of water with 1 tsp. salt. Drop the pelmeni into the boiling water. They are ready to eat when they float to the top and stay there.

All you need are eggs and onion peel. Put them both in boiling water and boil for an hour or so till you see that eggs became brown. Many of Russian hostesses use this way of cooking Easter eggs nowadays, but also they use bright Easter stickers to make eggs looking more festive. On Easter people give to each other such eggs as a present. Easter egg can be stored for a whole years till the next Easter as decoration. If you are interested in Russian traditions, but dont want to cook eggs like Russian do, just buy decorative Easter egg and enjoy happy holiday of Easter.

Sour cream is easy to cook, it needs not very expensive ingredients. And one more reason to eat sour cabbage – except of very good taste it is real fund of vitamin C. Sour cabbage has more vitamin C than oranges. Eating it you do great prophylactic of winter diseases.
You can try to cook sour cabbage by yourself.

You will need:

3 ½ pounds shredded white cabbage
1 shredded carrot
2 small bay leaves, lightly crushed
10 allspice berries
12 black peppercorns
2 ½ tablespoons kosher salt

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl using you hands. Mash with strongly until the cabbage wilts and exudes juice. Transfer mix to a pickling crock, packing it in as tightly as possible. Apply a weight, making sure that all of the cabbage is completely submerged beneath the brine. Cover and let ferment at room temperature for 4 – 6 days.
If you are not sure, you will have the best result, buy sour cabbage in the shop.

Take 1 kilogram of rye bread and cut it into pieces. Then put these pieces to electric stove and dry. Pound dried bread and fill up with 5 liters of boiling water. Wait for 6-8 hours and filter water, put in it 200 gram of sugar and 50 gram of dilute in 1 liter of water barm. Сover mix, in 12 hour fill bottle with kvass. Close bottles and let them stay in warm place for 24 hours. After that and can put bottles to the fridge and enjoy refreshing Russian kvass. Notice, kvass will have its best taste qualities in 4 days.
If you have no time to follow this recipe, use kvass concentrate to cook this beverage.
But of course, the easiest way to get kvass is to buy it. You can choose original taste free of any additional ingredients. Or try kvass containing berries or kvass with honey – it is really tasty and useful.

To cook shaslik you will need:

Fresh pork

Onions

Pepper

Lemon or glass of dry white wine

Salt and sugar

How to cook:

Take fresh pork with lard (600 grams for a person), cut it into pieces and put it into the deep dish. Cut and add onions (250 grams for 1 kilogram of meat). Then add juice of one lemon, salt, sugar, pepper. Leave this mix in place with room temperature for 4-5 hours.

Fry shashlik on open flame, using metal sticks.

Serve shashlik with lemons and fresh greenery. Spicy ketchup can be used as sauce.

But when Eastertide comes, Russian usually have rich dinners with a lot of delicious foods.
There are some special traditional meals that are to be eaten at Eastertide.

In the morning Russians usually eat eggs of red colour. Russian women cook them the day before Eastertide. They make eggs red using onion peel for it. Red colour of eggs symbolizes Christ’s blood.

Second traditional Easter dish in Russia is paskha. It is made of curds.
There is hardy can be found Russian hostess that does not cook Easter cake for this day.
Traditions suppose that at Eastertide people gave coloured eggs as a present to each other , visit their relatives and have fun.
Of course, Easter is holiday of all cristians. Catholics, protestants have there own traditions of Eastertide celebration. But all the cristians cook eggs for this day. So you can try to cook them in Russian traditional way.
The simpliest recipe is:
Put onion peels into the water and boil till water get red.
Then add eggs and boil them in red water for 10 minutes. Eggs for Eastertide are ready!

A lot of Russian women use Kremlin diet to keep their bodies fit and slim. At USSR times this diet was a secret – it was used only by political heads of the state, Olympic athletes, Russian movie stars.
Since times when secrets of diet were opened, a lot of Russian people with overweight lot lbs. with Kremlin diet.

Kremlin diet is good for them who does not want to refuse of protein products – meat, cheese, etc. All this food can be eaten if you practice Kremlin diet.

Food you can’t eat while keeping Kremlin diet – carbohydrate products and meals that contain sugar.

Kremlin diet is based on accounting c.u. (level of carbohydrates) per 100 grams of product.

If you want to lose lbs. you should take 40 c.u. and then you can lose 8 lbs. in a week.
If you need keep your results, you should take 60 c.u.
To understand it easier you can look through standart Kremlin diet menu for one day.

Note that 100 grams contain approximately 4 ounces.

Breakfast:

Two boiled eggs dressing mayonnaise; (2 c.u.)
2 ounces of cheese (any kind) (1- 1.5 c.u.);
a cup of tea without sugar (0 c.u.)

Lunch:

Boiled meat (any kind) (0 c.u.);
2 slices of bread (50 gramms = 18 – 21 c.u.);
Salad (12-14 c.u.);
A cup of tea without sugar (0 c.u.)

Dinner:

2 ounces of nuts (7-9 c.u.) (any kind);
3 ounces of fish (boiled of fried) (1 -2 c.u.);
A cup of tea without sugar (0 c.u.)

As a result you will take 40 – 46 c.u. a day and keeping this diet you will loose weight.