We’re happy that you’ve dropped by. Pull up a chair and have a drink while we turn on the radio and fire up the grill. We can swap stories, recipes and memories of days gone by. If you’re not in a rush, maybe we’ll even light a campfire and get the guitars and ukuleles out. In any case, we’ll share some good food and great company.
Make yourself at home.
Another classic of Lithuanian cooking is Kugelis (or Kugela) – a casserole or pie made with potato, onion and egg. Typical recipes include bacon, but I left that out and added a little paprika and smoke flavoring.
Ingredients
1 Stick Salted Butter
1 Onion, Chopped
3 Cloves Garlic, Chopped
Salt
Black Pepper
Paprika
Grated Nutmeg
Liquid Smoke Flavoring
5 LBs Red Potatoes, Peeled and Grated
5 Eggs
1 Can Evaporated Milk
Flour
Instructions
Sauté onion in butter, seasoning with salt and pepper. Add garlic and sauté until all is soft and translucent. Add Paprika and Nutmeg.
Soak the grated potatoes in water, rinse, press in colander to remove some of the moisture.
Whisk together eggs, evaporated milk, and a little smoke seasoning.
Combine potatoes and onion mixture in a large bowl. Dust with some flour, add more seasoning if desired, and mix thoroughly. Mix in egg mixture well, and pour it all into a greased 9 x 13 pan.
Bake at 375 °F for 60 – 75 minutes, until top is beginning to brown.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream and some chives.
If you wanted to keep the recipe strictly Vegan, you could sauté the onions and garlic in olive oil, and substitute a little oat milk for the evaporated dairy milk.
After baking the 100% Rye Bread, which was closer to a Pumpernickel style, I wanted to try to get closer to the flavor, texture and appearance of Lithuanian Rye from the old Baltic Bakery in Chicago. It was the bread of Claudia’s childhood, and holds a special place in her memory and that of her family.
I used the 40% Rye recipe from the Sourdough Archive website this time.
When she arrived home from her Sunday Morning Yoga class, she took a bite and immediately said “This is the one.”
I tried it plain, and thought it was delicious, then tried it toasted with a little butter on it, and also an untoasted slice with some Orange Marmalade. Super tasty any way you eat it. Just lovely.
If you’ve thought about baking artisanal breads with sourdough, but have been afraid of the process, I would encourage you to give it a try. So long as you follow instructions from a reputable source, and take things a step at a time, you’ll be fine. I’ve found the experience to be a lot less complex and daunting that I’d anticipated, and the prep and baking process a lot more forgiving than one might think.
On a day trip to Chicago recently, we stopped at the Michigan Avenue satellite location for the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture. Claudia’s grandmother was from Lithuania, so the country and its food and culture are always of interest to us.
Of course, we came home with a cookbook. The two things that interested me most were Kugula and bread.
The bread recipe in the book was fairly sparse, assuming that one already had a sourdough starter, so I had to research the best way to approach culturing one. I was lucky to find this guide from the Sourdough Archive site. I ordered some Dark Organic Rye Flour from Bob’s Red Mill, and got started. I had some experience with developing starters from wheat (and gluten-free sources as well), so the process wasn’t totally unfamiliar, though my success in creating finished products made with sourdough had been mixed.
Here’s how the starter looked on the morning of day four.
After a little more than a week of training the starter, it was time to bake. Although a lot of the material I read cautioned against baking with anything over 40% Rye Flour on the first attempt, I wanted to follow the recipe from the cookbook (100% Rye) as closely as possible.
I fed the starter on Sunday Morning and after it rose a bit prepared the “sponge” (preferment) of 100 grams starter, 300 grams of flour and 400 ml of water. This went into a warm spot to rise overnight. Monday Morning I mixed the dough, adding 700 grams of flour, 300 ml of water, 2 T honey, 2 T Caraway Seeds and 1 T salt and mixing it well. The dough went into a greased bread pan to rest and rise in a warm spot for four or five hours. I poked holes in the top using a chopstick to avoid what the Lithuanians call “flying roof” when it baked.
I baked it at 425 °F for fifteen minutes, then at 350 °F for another hour. It released from the pan easily, and I brushed the top with water as the recipe suggested.
After it cooled, I wrapped the loaf in a wet towel to rest overnight before slicing.
I have always loved what might best be described as peasant food. This Lithuanian Rye Bread ticks all the boxes. Simple ingredients yield a thing of rich, dense, complex goodness.
Claudia had a taste for grilled salmon this weekend, so we cooked a couple of Norwegian steaks on cedar planks on the Genesis. She harvested some dill from her herb garden for seasoning.
I don’t eat flesh, but she and her mom said that it was delicious.
They made a lovely salad and some roasted broccoli to serve along with baked potatoes (also cooked on the gas grill).
Later, we had tapioca pudding with raspberries for dessert.
Having grown up with Nat Cole’s version of The Christmas Song and the Ronettes’ Sleigh Ride, I’ve always romanticized roasting chestnuts at the holidays. On several occasions over the years I considered giving it a try, but fresh chestnuts were relatively difficult to obtain where I live, and what I learned about the process made it seem a little complicated, so I didn’t get around to it until 2024.
The first attempts roasting in the oven were underwhelming. They came out bland, mealy – and edible but unappetizing. I finally decided to give it one more go, on the Weber Kettle this time, and those were much better (and finally worth the bother).
Here’s the process I use, after much research into recipes, blog posts and YouTube videos, and our own trial and error refinements.
First, sort and wash the chestnuts. Discard any with mushy or papery skins, and be sure to inspect them for tiny insect holes. There are usually two or three in any one pound batch that need to be tossed.
Next, score an x shaped pattern on one side of each chestnut, just barely breaking through the skin. I used an inexpensive chestnut scoring tool from Amazon for this, but you could use a paring knife. Just be careful not to cut too far into the nut meat.
Soak the scored nuts in warm water for at least half an hour. I usually let them go for an hour while I’m getting the grill set up.
The coals and some wood chunks go on one side of the grill, and the pan for the nuts is placed over the other half for indirect cooking.
Keep a close eye on things after the first ten or fifteen minutes. At some point the skins will pop open where they were scored, and the meat will begin to get a nice golden brown color. The last batch I roasted were ready to remove from the grill after about 25 minutes.
Bundle up the roasted chestnuts in a damp towel in a bowl for a few minutes to steam and soften the shells. Once they’re cool enough to work with, peel off the shells and they’re ready to eat. I always try a few unseasoned, but then tend to put a little melted butter, maple syrup and Cajun seasoning on them. You could use any combination of sweet or savory seasonings you like.
The chestnuts have a mild flavor on their own, and the flesh is tender and chewy, so don’t expect the sort of deep nuttiness and crunchiness of things like peanuts or cashews or almonds and such. They’re definitely fun and unique, though, and add something to our holiday tables or as a warming snack on a chilly evening.
You can find chestnuts for roasting online. That’s not a paid link, so feel free to do a search to find your own merchant. The nuts are highly perishable, so keep them refrigerated until you’re ready to roast, and make sure you’re able to roast within a reasonable time of their arrival.
It’s also kind of cool to know more about the history of the American Chestnut, sadly now all but gone in the wild. It’s the tree that inspired the lyrics, back in the day when plentiful autumn harvests were still in memory.