Reflection on a Week of Russian Cooking

This entry nearly concludes my week of Russian cooking. There was supposed to be another update today, but as something sudden came up, I did not have time to cook. The final day of Russian cooking will take place tomorrow.

As time consuming as this project was, it was thoroughly enjoyable to relive some of the culinary experiences I had in Russia. While what I cooked wasn't exactly the same as what I ate in Russia, I was surprised at how delicious the recipes I made turned out, especially given the sorry state of my kitchen! I believe I'm a more confident home cook now than I was when I started this project.

A side effect of this project is that I didn't go hungry this week. Each of my meals were planned, so I didn't have to think too hard about dinner. The night before I cooked each dish, I wrote up a shopping list and picked up the food I needed after work. I tried to cook as soon as I got home, but on some days I waited until later or couldn't get the ingredients until later. I ate much healthier this week than I usually do (an odd thing to say when each day's meal consisted of butter and/or sour cream in some form) and I still have a lot of food left for later. There's a lot of effort involved, so I couldn't do this every week unless I never had to work again. It was a fun experience, though!

Some other things I found interesting about this project:
- While Russian food is still mostly meat, potatoes, sour cream, and butter, I used less butter than I thought I would. I bought too much butter and had to go back to the store for sour cream.
- I ate less this week than I normally do, but less is more when food contains this much dairy.
- It's possible to put too much cheese in something. (See the post on khachapuri.)
- Georgian food is simpler to prepare than it looks. The most difficult part involves finding the right spices, which isn't impossible thanks to the internet. Chicago probably has some stores that would carry these kinds of spices, but they're not as convenient and I didn't need the spices immediately.

I have a few more days with the cookbooks I checked out from the library, so I will be copying the recipes I liked the best and saving them for later. The chakokhbili is definitely one of them - I'd love to pass it on and I hope others will be as impressed with it as I was. As for my leftovers, my father and I will eat some and I'll distribute the rest to interested (and hungry) friends.

If you paid attention to this blog, thanks for reading!