Congrats to All Chefs!

Today is World Chef Day! Then it’s the best day to talk about food. This has been a very challenging year for me health wise so on most days, I was just happy I was able to feed myself something simple as not much energy or the motivation were left to make any elaborate foods, let alone blog about it.

I’m still in a post-surgery recovery mode, plus I had unrelated health issues prior to surgery too that I’m still dealing with and getting physical therapy for (like how many seemingly unrelated health issues can you get at the same time?) so I’ve been spending a lot of time at home (in-between doctor appointments) and on some of those days, I had a bit of strength to make something interesting. The beginning of the year actually wasn’t that bad and I was extremely busy with work, private practice and a post-graduate psych course. Things started to get sour in mid Spring and even more challenging mid Summer. But, we’re talking about food today, right?

Let’s look at some of my creations during the year. You’re not getting recipes but at least, you’re getting pictures.

The year started with mini hot chocolate cakes, marshmallows and all.

Fruit bars or berry bread pudding (gluten free of course) were great for breakfast.

You can’t ever go wrong with crepes (by the way, crepes is one of the first foods any Russian girl learns how to cook, and we don’t use any of the fancy crepe makers, we don’t need them, we’re pros since childhood).

Eggs are good for breakfast too, especially if you make eggs in the veggie baskets.

If you want to go the fancy route, have eggs and caviar (but you must use mother of pearl caviar spoon though, it’s a must, otherwise Russian food police will come to arrest you). Do you know that each Russian family has a caviar dealer? I’m not joking but it’s legal though. Basically, we have a guy who hand delivers caviar as we have it often. Like, my mom and I have different caviar dealers because we prefer different specifics in caviar. It’s a serious business I tell you!

Afternoon treats are basically a must too. Here we have a choice of homemade pizzelles, cinnamon maple cookies, chocolate mini loaf or Russian sweet raisin rolls (do I need to tell you that everything I make is gluten free but you won’t even know it?).

Are you drooling yet? Then look at different breads I’ve made. I make my own bread almost every week, or whenever I can.

Traditional Easter breads were also made this year, sweet Easter rolls for Western Easter and Russian Easter bread for Orthodox Easter.

Do you love homemade waffles? I can eat them with anything, like with eggs or puttanesca style.

Some traditional Russian foods were made also. Slavic meatballs with homemade bread, minced cutlets with veal and carrots and a couple appetizers served along with a smaller chicken cutlet.

And, if you want more heart-shaped foods, here’s a mango cake.

I’ve made a ton of different things with blueberries: blueberry buttermilk muffins, blueberry apple pound cake, blueberry lemon cake, blueberry and fig tart, giant blueberry cookies, just blueberries galore.

We’re fully in the Fall mode now so it’s all about apples. Here’s apple and pear almond sharlotka (Russian sponge cake). I promise to do a formal post about apple sharlotka as it’s a traditional Russian cake. I’ll also do a post about my mom’s apple cake, it’s simply the best!

If you don’t have time for cakes though, you can make pumpkin French toast. It’s a great Fall recipe too.

And let’s end it with the cake of the year, my son’s birthday cake when he turned 21 back in May. It’s a boozy bourbon chocolate butter pecan cake: chocolate cake with bourbon simple syrup soak, brown sugar and bourbon buttercream with pecans and butterscotch drizzle, homemade chocolates. Yep, he was pretty happy.

Are you happy too? And probably hungry now. Do you feel sorry yet that you don’t live with me?

Say congratulations and happy World Chef Day to all the professional and amateur chefs you know!