Expanding our culinary talent - because today is the day of big eatings anyway

Hi everyone :)

Believe it or not, Maxim can cook. During his Uni days in Godollo, he cooked for himself, mostly soups (I assume all the street food 'quarry' were far away). I thought it is a good base, we can do something with it until I saw how he really cooks. I still remember, tho it was more than a year ago.. He made some sort of Russian mushroom soup, not cream soup but with a lot of mushrooms and other veggies in it (so far so good). Then, he started adding the spices and herbs (V: which herb do you need? M: Parsley. V: that is dill in your hands. M: Oops.. ). Let's just say my liver also has nightmares when we talk about it.. The soup itself was delicious, but he used khm ALL of the herbs I had at home.. 

After we came to Scotland together, one day he jokingly said that when we will have a family, and I won't be home for some reason, he will ORDER the most delicious pizza in town for himself and the children. And I thought, oh no, you won't (bad memories from the time I worked in a piza-making company).  This was one of the reason we started cooking together. The other one was that whenever we visited his Mother, Olga (she is an excellent cook), she always made heavenly delicious meals, mostly authentic Russian cousin (I have some pictures, they could be found at the end of this post). One day we wanted to eat pelmeni (very similar to derelye), tho I had never made them before, but Maxim had (helped his Mother shaping them). So, this was the start of our regular Sunday afternoon cooking session together.

This was the first try. I had to documenting the whole thing, I wasn't shocked that he could make such cutie pelmeni, just it was an odd experience.

Here are the dumplings filled with meat, waiting for the others to be ready.

(I made the one which looks like a hat in the left hand side.. )

Here can be seen Maxim, showing off his skills in making the dumplings nicely and fast. (My pelmeni were neither good looking, nor made fast. :/ ) 

But we learnt how to do them more quickly and after the 3rd time in our 'pelmeni factory', mine were also good looking. 

We also gained a lot from trying to cook together, I learnt a lot of patience, and a couple of awesome recipe :D, while Maxim, I hope, learnt the basics, and will be able (in the future) to cook for our children, instead of ordering something) 

He is a fast learner by the way, here (in apron) he is making his own coffee mousse (with my instructions tho, but only verbally). 

I am really proud of him, he made a good job. 

I forgot to take a picture of the product, because we ate all without thinking twice, but this also a sign of the mousse being delicious.

Forget the monitor, because apart from that, everything you saw on the picture id food. Namely hamburger (as I said, I showed him the basic food :P), with homemade bun and meatbun.

He is greatly fond of tiramisu (like he could eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner too on the same day). 

I know, we forgot the cocoa on top, but the taste remained the same good without it.

Kakaós csiga, that we made on a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

We also started to experience with different sides, which don't contain any or that much gluten, or high in fibres, has a low glycaemic index. This is how we ended up eating couscous, barley, millet, oath and buckwheat.

Haha I remember a while ago, he said he doens't like any of the above, and now, he does. 

Deer stew in red wine with barley pearls. Although it doesn't look promising, it was very good.

We tried out a couple of savory muffin recipes, this one with poppy seeds, 'served' with yoghurt, because on that day the weather was sunny, I thought it is a nice spring lunch.

We (Mostly Maxim, he made the pastry for them) baked some with  spring onion and cheese.

These (füstölt sajtos, fokhagymás-tejfölös lángos) are not gluten free, nor count as healthy, but I was longing for them. Maxim had them only with cheese. (Still couldn't make him try out meals that contains Crème fraîche or garlic so obviously as this one. :D )  

And last week's favourite, chicken gyros with veggies, homemade tortilla and spicy yoghurt (and with fries, but that was not important, as we just fried them, while the gyros was all home made).

No week could pass without having some sweet dessert.
On the left, there is an apple pie. Maxim made the apple filling, while I made the pattern of the top.
On the right, coconut oat cookie.

Here a couple of traditional Hungarian desserts.

On the left, what probably everyone knows, cocoa chimney cake. Tried out for the first time, but was not disappointed.

On the right, that thing is some sort of heritage, a typical Easter dessert from the area of Hungary I came. One interesting thing about it, that nobody knows what it is except the ones who also came from or have relatives in my county. Another interesting thing  is that those, who is not originated from my county, and had the courage to tried it, 99% disliked it. Unfortunately Maxim also is not much of a fan of this, which kind of breaks my heart, because I do think this is one of the world's best thing, but hey, maybe after years and years of trying it, he will actually learn to appreciate it. ^^ ( I did warn him that I will make this dessert in every Ester tho :D)

 This is our first true Easter together. Last year we were on a holiday, so I did not have the chance to cook traditional Hungarian Easter meals, but I thought maybe this year I show him something .. (even tho he mentioned he does not really like these kind of food, still I hoped he is just joking.. I mean how on Earth could someone not like Easter food..)

So I made the other inevitable accessories of Easter are fonottkalacs, and boiled eggs.  I took the egg yolks and mixed them with cream cheese, then filled it back into the egg whites. These were our lunch today, along with cooked ham, potatoes in mayo and tomato cucumber salad. Looked very nice, were very deliciuos (according to myself :D). Guess who did not like them? :D Well, it turned out Maxim still dislike boiled eggs, even tho I tried my very best to make them acceptable. He disliked the sárgatúró, and find the potatoes only bearable because of the mayo.. Thanks God, he still liked the salad, ham and the pastry... and since I love these food, it was not a problem for me to eat them all :P but for next Easter, I try to make something which will win over this choosy boyfriend of mine..