1 Year Anniversary!
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My birthday marks the one-year-anniversary of this site! 99 posts later, I’m even more excited about the site than when I started. I never thought people would be so interested in Russian recipes.
I started with 461 views for the month of November 2009 and in November 2010, I’m only half-way through the month with over 12,000 views so far!! Yikes!! God is awesome – He always exceeds what I can hope for or imagine! My record DAY was actually yesterday with 2,179 views.
Thank you all for your support and lovely comments and questions. Keep ’em coming! Your comments encourage and inspire me to post more. And, thank you for being patient with me if I mess something up. 
To celebrate this anniversary, I’m giving away one of my favorite and most useful kitchen tools: The vidalia chopwizard. I’m giving away TWO of them so there will be 2 winners!! These were sent to me compliments of the Vidalia chop wizard company (Thank you soo much!)
I will randomly select the two winners from the comments below. To enter, leave a comment telling me about your favorite Russian or Ukrainian food AND click the “Facebook” or “Twitter” links below. If you don’t have a Facebook or twitter account, you’re off the hook 🙂 If you already have a Vidalia food chopper, Christmas is right around the corner and this would make an awesome gift!
RULES: The giveaway starts now and ends at midnight on November 20th. US Residents only. One entry per person. You must be 18 years or older please.
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Very good job writing them in this blog article
King regards,
Balle Raahauge
Thank you so much!
Does anyone have the recipe for Kasnifla? I had a great Aunt from Germany who would make it for us when she visited. I was very young but remember how good it tasted and how much fun it was to prepare with my Aunt. I would appreciate any information I could get. Thank you
Hi Dotty, I’m not sure you ever found that recipe for Kasnifla (Kaese Kneph) it’s been six years since your post. But here is the one I use from my aunt who married into a German family.
1Tbsp. Chopped onion
Butter
1 pint cottage cheese
4 egg yolks
1 tsp.salt
2 c. Flour
2 egg whites
Milk
Cook onion in butter until soft. Mix cheese, egg yolks, salt & onion, well. Combine flour, 1/2 tsp.salt and egg whites with enough milk to make a firm dough. Roll dough on floured surface, 1/4″ thick. Cut dough in 3 inch squares. Place about 2 Tbsp.of the cheese filling in center of square; fold in half and seal edges. Cook in biking salted water 5 mins. Drain. Fry in oil ( I use butter ) until browned. Option: onion can be omitted.
Steve,
I, also, grew up with kasnifla and other German dishes my Grandmother made. My wife learned to make perogies from her sister who married into a Polish family. When she made them for my parents my Dad would tell her they were kasnifla.
BTW, there was a large German populated area about 50km north west of Odessa. My father and grandparents came from there.
George
Oh well, I just wanted to mention, that since I didn’t grow up in Ukraine where I was born but in America, I really missed the culture that my mother didn’t bring with us….! And now since I’m in college in Italy, I really want to experience and taste all the food of as many cultures I possibly can, especially the one I missed! I love to cook and I’ve never encountered more amazing recipes than your…. you are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Thank you soooooo much for your help !!!!! (your enthusiasm is encouraging!)
Hi from the Rocky Mountain’s in Calgary Canada!
I was just “googling” searching for Ukrainian recipes and I came across your blog. Can’t wait to try out your wonderful recipes! Your Stawberry Bruchetta sounds amazing!
A girl can never have enough shoes or recipes! LOL 🙂
Mnohiya Lita Natasha…
God Bless you and your beautiful family!
Noella ( Nelia ) Joy
Great job on the blog! I love shuba with salmon. I always make it for celebrations and parties. Happy birthday!
Congratulations with having your blog for a year. My favorite recipe are nalishniki with cheese. I tried making them by your recipe and they were yummy:) Good luck on the years to come for your blog. You do a great job on it. I love the recipe ideas.
Natasha, you have done such a fabulous job with the blog. It keeps getting better and better. And you never slow down! Constantly new recipes… I can hardly keep up. My fave Ukrainian dish is potato vareniki with bacon and grilled onions on top. It’s a tradition on Christmas Eve in my fam. Yum.
Natasha! You are truly an inspiration. I am so blessed to have come across your blog and to have chatted a little over email with you. You are an incredible cook it looks like. Your husband must be a very lucky man. =) Anyways, my favorite Russian food is Plov. I can eat it everyday and not get bored with it. My new favorite sweet dish is Blinchiki. I never really developed a liking for them and ever since your blog, Ive made them a few times and loved them! My husband absolutely adores them too! Thank you for the recipe! May the Lord continue to bless you Natashenka and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
My favorite Russian food is stuffed peppers.. I am about to cook some using your recipe… Thank you for your wonderful posts.
wow its 11/19/2010 and i just got on to ur web site..and here….. i might be lucky enough to win., lol… but thats not the point.. wow after reading quiete a few receipes i cant wait to get home n cook.. i love cooking but sometime from internet receipes dont turn out great.. but for some reason.. i already trust u n ur web site.. ur amazing!! and your family is beautiful!!! God bless u and continue to bless u no matter what.. u’ve truly inspired me, and many other souls!!! be blessed 🙂
I’m very happy for your success. Congratulations, both on the blog and on getting in to the nursing program. It’s going to be A LOT of hard work, but it will be so worth it at the end (I’m into my second year of nursing school, just a little bit more left and I absolutely love it. It’s a field that will never get boring.)
My favorite Russian/Ukrainian food, huh, that’s a tough one, well I love desserts, I’m a total “slatko eshka”. On the savory note I really like mashed potatos and tushonaya kapusta, they are good on their own but when you combine the two together you get something totally extraordinary.
Wishing you the best of luck with the blog and your studies. May God bless you and your family.
I love reading all of the responses! They’re interesting! 🙂 I think my all-time favourite foods are golubtsi and pelmeni. Olivye is my favourite salad… And I love shi! 🙂
Borsch, cabbage & carrot sauerkraut, pelmini, draniki, olivye, vinegret… I can’t just pick one! 🙂
Oh… so many that I like, Zupa soup, pirogki, salads (crab and broccoli). I keep checking your site for new recipes few times a week! Happy Birthday and God Bless you!!
I’m not sure if your mushroom soup is a Ukrainian/Russian soup but it is the best! I’ve been looking for a mushroom soup recipie for some time and found yours to be perfect!
Wow–99 posts already? That’s a lot of recipes! Good for you for sticking with it–all the photography and step-by-step instructions looks like a lot of work. Also, happy birthday–wishing you many blessings.
Oh, and my favorite Ukrainian food…if I want a treat, something starchy like vareniki or nalisniki or piroghi, but if I was stuck on a dessert island and could only have one food for the rest of my life, it would have to be borsch. Is that too much detail?
Congratulations on your anniversary! May you always have the time to create and share!
My favorite Russian food… well, not a recipe. My favorites were mulberries in Ukraine, and little funny shaped blue berries in Irkutsk. Other favorites are Pelmeni, salmon with cucumbers on brown bread, the tasty boiled sweet milk, good chocolate, and kefir. Oh, and the salad with eggs/crab/green onion… and the… well, I think I may have too many favorites! i can’t choose a favorite color either =-)
Ну, це важко…мені подобаєтся борщ, звичайно, і також плов і Київський торт! З днем народження!
Tough question. Borscht, stuffed cabbage and stuffed peppers, plov… And now I’m hungry!
I grew up eating my Grand mother’s ‘kasnifla’ (I don’t know how it’s spelled.) I have never seen a recipe for it, it’s like giant pelmeni with a cheese filling and is first boiled then fried. She was from the area near Odessa so it may be a regional name for the dish. After that I like galumbki best. I have made it outdoors in a dutch oven and there are never any left-overs.
Happy birthday! Happy anniversary! I’m glad you started blogging as well!
My favorite Russian food would have to be… blinchiki! With homemade raspberry preserves and sweetened condensed milk!
And my favorite recipe of yours on here was the Kievski torte!
My fav Russian/Ukrainian dish of all time has to be piroghi with cabbage. You know, the bread rolls stuffed with slightly sour cabbage and deep fried to a fatteningly delicious treat that makes you feel guilty for enjoying more than one a day? Just wish I had the time and patience needed to make them!
З Днем Народження!
A prosperous and peaceful life, health, salvation, and success in all good things, grant, O Lord, to Thy handmaiden Natasha, and preserve and protect her for many years!
Food? Hmmm…tough one. I think a toss up between halubi (halupki, galuptsi, galumbki, sarma, etc) and good borscht – not the thin smooth stuff, but with nice chunks of beets, carrot, onion, and cabbage. If you are lucky, maybe even a bit of meat.
Happy one year anniversary and happy birthday! I hope you keep on posting your yummy recipes. Please don’t include me in the drawing for the vidalia food chopper. I just got one this weekend! I can’t wait to use it. I just wanted to wish you the best! Keep up the good work and God bless you and your little family!
my favorite ukrainian dish is def nalesniki made with meat, mmmmmm whenever mom makes them its secretly for me!!! they r the best the next day fried up on a skillet.
I was so excited when I found out about your blog recently! I’ve been married for about a year and am always looking for russian/ukrainian recipes (my husband is not that into “american” food. Your blog has already given me lots of ideas for cooking. In fact, I made your three cheese lasagna last week and my hubby loved it! Thank you for doing this blog, I’ll definately keep on checking it and trying out the delicious recipes. God Bless 🙂
there’s so many good ones. But I think my favorite are vareniki with basically anything. farmers cheese, potatoes, kapusta and sour cherries. mmm…yummy
Natasha, I’m so happy for you that I can’t resist but comment! I’m so proud of you, you’ve done a really good job with your site and super tasty recipes! One that I actually tried yesterday at a friend’s house, were little “Korzinki” which I later found out were from your site! I thought that was pretty rad. Happy birthday & be blessed!
I like Zuppa. Give me. Give me
Happy blogoversary! It’s very exciting that you are getting so many views! I have never had Ukranian or Russian food (that I know of) but your biskvit roulade is still tops on my “to make” list. Thank you for the chance to win!
I love Shuba, it is yummy and healthy.
My favorite menu is pelmeni, and a have a very Happy Birthday
I have sooo many favorite ukrainian foods, but I LOOOVE nalisniki (thank you for the recipe by the way).
And thank you for this blog. When I got married I had no idea how to cook so I just learned the basic italian stuff *because it seemed the easiest* from cook books and online and I am sooo glad that I found your site and that it is in english. Now I can learn everything you have on here.
Thank you thank you!
I love your recipe for Shuba with Salmon!
I’m so glad to find your site–there are so many Russian/Ukrainian recipes I need to learn but whenever I ask it’s “a handful of this, a pinch of that” which doesn’t help me (since I didn’t grow up with the food). SO nice to try out your traditional, fun, and yummy recipes 🙂
I love your recipies. My husband is Russian and I’m Polish so all the recipies are similar. I made your Best Baked Zucchini with Garlic and Lemon and it was fantastic. Thank you and Keep Posting!!
Happy Birthday!
Great job on your blog, Fedor and I are always looking for fresh ideas! God bless you today oh and happy birthday! 🙂
I was blog hopping and came across your blog. Your recipes look just wonderful. I want to try some of them.
Natasha keep up the good work, love the recipes!
I love Rice. Russian Plov is delicous and by far one of my favorite recipes! I tried your plov recipe and even bought a rice cooker! 🙂 Came out DELCIOUS!!! 🙂 Thank you for posting all your recipes. I look foward to soemthing new once in awhile 🙂 May God bless you and your family!
I’ll still leave a comment even if I live in Canada. I love your site and check back daily to see what you have cooking. I’ll be looking for new ideas for Xmas and New Year’s Eve to have with my vodka shooters. Thanks for a great site. I love it!