International Recipes marga@lacabe.com

It took me months to actually come up with a Belarusian Menu When I finally did it, I made it only for Mike and I. The problem wasn't a lack of recipes, I found a full Belarusian Cookbook online in addition to a smattering of recipes at several websites. But the actual process of coming up with a menu daunted me. It was, for example, pretty hard to come up with an appetizer that I would like to eat. I found many recipes for soups and salads, but nothing that would tempt my palate (I don't tend to like soups or salads to begin with). I finally decided on stuffed potato pancakes. A second problem was that I wanted a menu that incorporated most of Belarus staples (meat, potatoes, mushrooms, sour cream) without being too repetitious. It's amazing how often these four ingredients show up in Belarusian dishes. Finally, many of the dishes just didn't sound very interesting or likely to be particularly good. That, of course, probably just reflects my lack of experience with Eastern European cooking. I was pretty happy with the menu I came up with. Most of the food was surprisingly good, if perhaps a bit too rich to be eaten in large quantities. My final menu consisted of: Draniki Potato pancakes with mushroom filling Machanka A pork stew served with: Blinèyk think pancakes Piernik A Belarusian cake. Belarusian Food Links Belarusian cookbook Belarusian cookbook - mirror of above Belarusian recipes from the Bederov Family Home Page Belarussian recipes from the Foundation Help Chernobyl children Belorussian Dishes from Russian Foods.com Recipes from a Belrus family to try at your home - 3 recipes Belarusian Cuisine - discussion Human Rights in Belarus