11 February, 2024

Feeling my Slavic oats

I went grocery shopping yesterday and couldn't resist buying pączki. I have to go into the office on Tuesday and this prevents me from being able to stop in at the Ugly Apple Cafe, which seems to be the best bet for pączki in town. The ones at the grocery store were from suburban Chicago. No classic flavors - prune, rose - were on offer so I went with apple, apples not being a tropical fruit nor Bavarian cream.

While it's not as easy to find pączki here in Madison as it is in the Chicago area, they are much more common today than they were, say, 10 years ago.

After a stressful couple days, I decided to run with the Eastern European thing and made gołąbki soup.

I decided to use buckwheat instead of rice as the buckwheat in my cupboard wasn't going anywhere fast. It turned out rather well, if I do say so myself. Perhaps a touch more paprika next time and a dash of oregano, but I was pleased with how it turned out.

I finished the trifecta with some rye chocolate chip cookies.

Remarkably, these also turned out rather well. The rye gives them a really nice nutty taste. I think the recipe needs tweaking as the dough was a bit dry and, while this sounds impossible, it called for too many chocolate chips. There just wasn't enough dough to accommodate them all. Still, very tasty.

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