During fasting food is simple

It’s time for a great post. For many Christians who have recently decided to try their hand at fasting, this is a special test. After all, you have to give up the usual food, and even radically change your diet. What did our ancestors eat these days? What can you cook yourself today with a little imagination? Let’s talk about simple and healthy recipes for lean dishes today.

At all times in fasting, people rebuilt their diet for a simpler and low-calorie diet. But lean cuisine can be varied, tasty and nutritious.

One of these old Russian dishes was kundums – Lenten dumplings with mushroom filling. The dough for them was made unusual – it was a combination of custard and exhaust dough and was cooked in vegetable oil. In addition, the method of preparing kundums differs from the preparation of ordinary dumplings. First, they are baked in the oven, and then simmered in mushroom broth.

To prepare them you will need:

for the test
flour – 2 cups (260 g), water (boiling water) – 75 ml, vegetable oil – 4 tablespoons.

For filling
frozen white or other wild mushrooms – 200 g, buckwheat or rice – 0.5 cups, onions – 1 – 2 pcs., vegetable oil for frying, salt, freshly ground pepper.

for mushroom broth
water 0.5 l, bay leaf – 1 pc., allspice peas – 5 – 6 pcs., 2 – 3 sprigs of parsley, garlic – 1 clove, salt, dill or caraway seeds, freshly ground pepper.

Pour boiling water into a bowl, add oil, stir with a spoon, add flour, quickly mix the dough with a spoon and knead with your hands. Knead the dough, put on a wooden board and cover with an inverted hot bowl. Leave the dough for 30 minutes.

Thawed mushrooms should be rinsed with water and allowed to drain the liquid. Pour water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. We put a bay leaf in the water, crush a clove of garlic, add peppercorns and sprigs of greens. Place mushrooms in water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes. Salt at the end of cooking. We take out the mushrooms from the broth, let them cool and cut them for the filling. We leave the broth and filter.

Boil buckwheat, add a little salt. Saute finely chopped onion over low heat. Add the mushrooms to the onion, fry for 3-5 minutes, lightly salt and pepper.

The work table is lightly lubricated with vegetable oil. We roll out the dough with a thin layer, a layer of 3 cm. Cut it into squares of 5×5 cm. Put a little stuffing in the middle of the square and fasten the edges.

Turn the dough squares over so that the bottom side is on top, i.e. the side of the dough that is on the table during rolling should be at the top, then the edges of the dough stick together well and the dough will not need to be additionally moistened with water.

Kundums are laid out on a greased baking sheet or baking paper and baked for 15-20 minutes at a temperature of 160 degrees.

At this stage, the dough is dried, much like for making noodles. Or you can just fry them in a little oil.

Bring the mushroom broth to a boil. Put the baked kundyums in a deep form, pour in the broth, sprinkle with cumin and pepper. Cover the form with a lid or foil, return to the oven and cook for another 20 minutes at the same temperature.

We take out the finished kundums from the oven, put them on plates and sprinkle with chopped garlic or fried onions and herbs.

Fasting usually includes a large amount of vegetables in the diet. It is especially useful and tasty to bake them, because the fiber in raw vegetables is not suitable for every organism. Can be made from roasted vegetables salad with seeds and nuts in Armenian style.

We will need:

eggplant – 2 pcs., medium tomatoes – 4 pcs., bell peppers – 2 pcs., purple onions – 2 pcs., a small head of garlic, bunches of parsley and cilantro – 2 pcs., apple cider vinegar – 1 teaspoon, lemon juice – 2 tbsp. spoons, olive oil – 4 tbsp. spoons, ground black pepper, allspice, salt to taste, pumpkin seeds – 1 tbsp. spoon, chopped walnuts – 1 tbsp. spoon.

Wash all vegetables that will be used in the salad. Pat dry with paper towels. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Eggplant pre-cut and soak in salt water for 1 hour.

Pour half a glass of water into a baking dish, put eggplants, pierced a couple of times with a fork, and peeled onions. Pour water into another similar form and put peppers and tomatoes. They should also be pierced.

Send eggplants with onions to bake for 45 – 50 minutes: they should become soft. After half an hour put peppers with tomatoes. If desired, vegetables can be sprinkled with vegetable oil. Open the oven every 10 minutes and turn the vegetables over so that the roasting is even.

Let the vegetables cool down a bit.

Whisk vinegar with oil and lemon juice. Add spices, nuts and seeds. Cut onions into half rings, peppers into small strips. Tomatoes and eggplant should be cut into slices about 4 cm long.

Wash and chop greens.

Put all the main products in a large bowl. Pour dressing over. Mix carefully, cover with cling film and leave to infuse for 2 hours.

Another dish whose recipe is delicious and not difficult to prepare is beetroot carpaccio. To prepare beetroot carpaccio in advance, it is better to take the beetroot raw and bake in the oven, twisting it in foil.

To prepare beetroot carpaccio, you will need: beetroot – 500 g, arugula – 20 g, feta cheese – 100 g, pine nuts – 15 g, olive oil – 3 tbsp. l., balsamic vinegar – 1 tbsp. l., honey – 1 tsp, salt – to taste, black pepper – to taste, cilantro greens – 1 bunch.

Cheese should be made into thin shavings. Pine nuts can be replaced with walnuts, then they need to be crushed. You can add capers and pomegranate seeds. It is better to take beets in a small size, in diameter from about 5 to 8 centimeters. Vinegar is perfectly replaced with lemon or lime juice.

Fry the pine nuts in a pan without adding oil until light golden. Don’t step away from the pan – this process is very fast and takes literally less than a minute. Rinse the arugula and pat dry with a paper towel.

Cut the beets into thin slices.

To fill, take vinegar, salt and shake well. Next, add honey, olive oil, until a homogeneous emulsion is obtained. Pour filling into the beets.

Distribute cheese on top. If you have balsamic, then pour it in a thin stream in a spiral. A very good addition that gives the dish a flavor brightness.

Next, lay out the arugula and sprinkle everything with nuts.

So even in fasting, our diet can be complete and sufficient for spring time, when the biological activity of many products has already been depleted. But of course, it is worth remembering the words of John of Damascus: if in fasting it was all about food, then cows would be holy.

Alina Fedorova.

Author’s photo