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This recipe is one of the most popular on our cooking site, “The Hungry Lovers“, according to the the number of times people have landed there searching for it. Hope you love these stuffed peppers as much as we do!
Go to Recipe: Chiles en Nogada – Stuffed Peppers with Walnut Sauce
When Joe was awarded a dinner for two for an excellent sales week, we knew where we wanted to go: Russian Tea Time in downtown Chicago. It’s one of our favorite, romantic restaurants in the city, especially in winter-time when we’re craving rich, hearty dinners. Russian Tea Time is on 77 E. Adams, just around the block from the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue.It serves a mouth-watering variety of classic Russian and Central Asian foods, and the tea menu is larger than a wine list in an upscale restaurant (our favorite is the coriander tea, a fruity, fresh blend). The decor is just the way I’d picture an old-world Russian restuarant, if the restaurant was located in a storefront in a big city. The glistening antique samovars, cushy red booths, and balalaika music set a romantic, comfortable mood, and all the staff we’ve met, except the busboys, are from Russia or the Ukraine. If you choose a vodka tasting flight, it comes with a piece of dark brown break, a gherkin, and instructions on how to take a shot the Russian way. Na zdorovje!
Joe and I had visited the Art Institute on our engagement anniversary, December 20, and decided to make reservations at this restaurant afterwards. Everything is good, even their beet caviar, though ordinarily I treat beets like you’d treat toxic waste. Since then, we have been trying to re-create the items on their tasting platter, and I’ll be posting our recipes here. Hope you enjoy them!
Russian Tea Time platter for two: appetizers.
Clockwise from top: Tashkent carrot salad, stuffed mushroom, beet caviar, cracked wheat (tabbouleh) salad, apple-beet vinaigrette salad, chick pea spread, beef dumplings (pelmeni).
Russian Tea Time platter for two: entrees.
Clockwise from top: chicken pozharski, beef stroganoff, stuffed cabbage, Moldavian meatballs, rice pilaf.
Related Recipes:
Beet Vinaigrette Salad
Beef Stroganoff
Tashkent Carrot Salad
Parjoale – Moldavian Meatballs
Roasted Beet Caviar
Thanks, Lee Coursey, for taking this picture for me.
I’m finally sharing my MegaBeans recipe for making baked beans. Every time I make these, people go crazy for them. I hope you like them as much as Joe does!
MegaBeans Recipe at The Hungry Lovers blog
My friend Talea and I went down to The Dill Pickle Food Cooperative in the Logan Square neighborhood last Friday.
Talea is a true hippie granola-head and we feasted our senses on a lot of things we can never find out in the burbs.
It’s a little store, but they pack a lot into it. We were there for a couple hours touching and smelling things like little kids do.
We all know that organic and locally sourced means expensive, but I had a gift certificate from a drawing I won at a benefit event for Christian Peacemaker Teams. (Now I can’t say that I never win anything.) So I could buy a few things I wouldn’t ordinarily consider.
Just kidding, I didn’t get any tofurky. I did get Thai red rice, millet, blood oranges, fresh heirloom tomatoes, pomegranate balsamic vinegar, plum flower tea, green olive sourdough bread, and raw milk cheddar cheese with spinach, leek, and garlic.
Tzatziki sauce on cucumber salad
This Greek cucumber/yogurt sauce is one reason gyros taste so magically delicious. When even your friends and neighbors won’t take any more cukes from your garden, it’s a great time to make a big batch of this sauce. Best of all, it’s really easy to make.
