my first time cooking in Ukraine!

Anyone who knows me...knows my lack of cooking expertise in the kitchen. I can make a pretty mean sandwich (complete with chips), some tasty Mexican food (in my opinion), and that's about where my creativity stops. For one of our language days, we were to cook a traditional Ukrainian dish. Our choice? Goluptsi...aka cabbage rolls. During your first day in your pre-service training city (mine is Oster), you are given approximately 15 books of all different shapes and sizes that include a cookbook, titled "Babushka's Cookbook." It has a bajillion different recipes (both Ukrainian and American) that are capable of being cooked while here in Ukraine. We somewhat followed the recipe in the cookbook...but mainly went off of the way that our language teacher, Zhenya, makes them. The ingredients, that we purchase for around 70 grievna ($8.85 to feed 6 of us with plenty of leftovers).

1 cabbage, 2 onions, 2 things of tomato paste, 1 cup of rice, 1 carrot, some seasonings, and minced meat (aka farsh). The meat was the expensive item...costing around half of our food budget. The rest of the items were the other half.

First, all of the ingredients got washed. The cabbage was then boiled in a pot of water for at least 30-45 min (can't remember). This makes the leaves soft enough to roll!

Mark was in charge of chopping the onions (that were then browned in a skillet with oil and some of the grated carrot). Sidenote: Don't you think Mark looks like one of the vampires in the twilight movies? Don't know which character, but he definitely has the hair!

Cassi was in charge of peeling the carrot first...this was done with a knife, not a peeler (which all of us brought with us here to Ukraine but did not bring to our cooking day! lesson learned). Then, it got grated!

After the cabbage is done boiling, you have to trim off the vein on the outside of each cabbage leaf. This makes it easier to roll...Zhenya was an expert in this area. Definitely an acquired skill :)

Jamie is now mixing the minced meat (uncooked) with the browned onion and carrot, and cooked rice.

Then, you line the bottom of the pan with cabbage pieces...and start filling little cabbage rolls! Didn't get any pictures of this part because my hands were not clean!


After you fill the pot with cabbage rolls...you make a soupy mixture that consists of tomato paste, the rest of the browned onion and carrot, and some seasonings. It is then poured on top of the cabbage rolls. This pot (with lid) went into the oven then for 45 minutes.

We had a lot of extra meat/rice/carrot/onion mixture left...so we made cabbage roll meatballs. After adding an egg to the mixture, you could kind of roll the food into a ball...

then in some flour...

and then into a skillet lined with oil...

and voila! I actually liked these better than the cabbage rolls I think.

Here is our beautiful goluptsi with our wonderful teacher Zhenya holding it (Jamie in the background). The soupy mixture on top of the cabbage rolls was TO DIE FOR. Seriously...so good. I ate it...onion and all!


And that, my friends, is my first cooking experience in Ukraine. I am excited to see what the next one holds. Since I am now uploading past pics, blog posts may go a little bit out of order until I get caught up with old pics! Exciting news we learned today...we are going to Kyiv next Thursday!! SO excited :) Goodnight!