Peel and slice potatoes and put them in clay pots, add salt, spices, sour cream and grated cheese and cover the pots. Put them in a hot oven and stew till ready. Strew the potatoes with greens and serve with fresh vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, small radish, etc)

Potato cutlets

8 - 10 potatoes
1/2 Tbsp oil
2 eggs
1/4 glass of flour

Boil potatoes, grate them and add oil, eggs and flour, a little bit of salt and sugar. Form cutlets, crumb each of them and roast in oil.

Stuffed Turnip

8 middle-sized turnips
1/3 glass grated cheese
30 g butter
1/2 glass sour cream
1/2 glass rice
1 onion bulb
1 egg
green parsley

Peel the turnips and make a round cutting at the top of each. Put the turnips into a saucepan, pour in cold water to cover them and boil till they are soft. While the turnips are boiling, prepare the stuffing: rinse and dry the rice. Fry chopped onion in a deep pan, add rice and fry the mix for 10 min. Then pour in 1-1 1/2 glasses of the turnip broth, cover the pan and stew the rice till ready. Chop a hard-boiled egg and parsley and mix it all with the rice. Take out the turnips and remove the kernel with a spoon, leaving the sides rather thin. Fill in the turnips with the stuffing, strew them with cheese, sprinkle with butter and bake in the oven. Serve with sour cream or sour cream sauce.

Stewed beetroot with apples

500 g beetroot
50 g fat /speck
1-2 apples
1 glass fruit juice
salt and sugar to taste
lemon juice
canella and clove
2-3 wineglasses red wine

Peel the beetroots and apples, remove the apple kernels, and grate them. Melt the fat in a pan, add the beetroots and apples, the fruit juice, lemon juice, sugar, salt, canella and clove, mix everything and stew on slow fire till the beet is quite soft. Pour in wine and stew for 2-3 min more.

It can be a nice side dish to meat.

Stewed Cabbage

1 kg cabbage or sauerkraut
30-40 g butter
2 carrots
1 onion bulb
2 Tbsp tomato pulp
2 Tbsp 3% vinegar (for cabbage)
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp sugar
2 glasses meat broth/ water
pepper, bay leaf and salt to taste

Finely chop the cabbage, put it in a saucepan, add the meat broth and a bay leaf and boil it. Chop and fry onion and carrot with butter and tomato pulp, and add vinegar in the end. Put the fried mixture into the saucepan with cabbage, cover it and stew the cabbage till ready. Do not forget to mix it from time to time.

A few minutes before the cabbage is ready, add the sauce: fried flour mixed with salted and sugared broth.

Usually served as side dish to meat or fish.

Golubtsy (meat in a cabbage wrap)

1 big white cabbage
1/2 glass flour
50 g butter
2 glasses sour cream sauce
For the stuffing:
400 g minced meat
1 glass boiled rice
1-2 onion bulbs
2 hard-boiled eggs
100 g butter
salt to taste

Remove the upper leaves and the stalk of the cabbage, put the cabbage into a saucepan with hot water and boil it for 15-20 min. Take the cabbage out of the saucepan, put it into cold water, let it cool and then drain the water.

Separate the cabbage leaves, cut off the thick parts of the stems.

Prepare the stuffing: chop and fry the onion, mix it with minced meat, rice and chopped eggs, and melted butter.

Put the stuffing into each of the cabbage leaves and envelop the leaves tightly. To make a good envelop, place the stuffing closer to the leaf base, take the flank sides of the leaf and fold them to the center; then roll the leaf, beginning from the place where the stuffing is. Tie the 'envelopes' with a thread, so that they do not spread out. Flour the cabbage envelops and fry them on both sides.

Put the glolubtsy into a saucepan, pour in the sour cream and tomato pulp (optionally) and stew under cover for 25-30 min. Place the ready golubtsy on plates (two for one serving), pour over them the hot sour cream sauce and strew with the greens.

You can make vegetarian goulbtsy as well: just put more carrots and onion instead of meat and flavor the stuffing with tomato pulp.