Great Lent

So, all the celebrations are over, all the singing and dancing is in the past. The Pancake week has passed – the Great Lent has come

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So, all the celebrations are over, all the singing and dancing is in the past. The Pancake week has passed – the Great Lent has come.
"What is Great Lent? It is a precious gift to us from our Saviour, Who Himself fasted for forty days and nights, and did not eat or drink. It is a really precious gift for those who are looking for rescue, as pacifier of soul passions. By His word and His example God has legalized it for His followers. With what love, what divine blessed forces does God serve all those truly fasting! He visits them, purifies; renews, strengthens in struggle against passions... teaches any virtue and brings to perfection...", wrote father John of Kronshtadt.
The Great Lent is a preparation for The Resurrection by repentance, plunging into internal spiritual life, renunciation of its material side. The Great Lent is the longest of all fasts and also the most important and strict. It lasts seven weeks before Easter. First six weeks of the Lent till Friday of the sixth week have canonical name "Sacred Forty Days ". The last, seventh, week before Easter is the Holy Week, or Great Week, which gives the name to the Lent. It is recommended to do without food on the first two days and the last day of the Lent, and to be moderate and restrict yourself in foods on other days. During the Great Lent the church allows 4 degrees of fasting: "dry" you can eat bread, vegetables and fruit, fresh and marinated; "cookings without unction" - jams and vegetables without vegetable oil; - "permission for wine and unction" - wine is drunk moderately to strengthen those who observe the Lent; - "permission for fish" - fish is allowed to eat only on holidays of Annunciation and Palm Sunday. As for the vegetable oil, it can be consumed only on Saturdays and Sundays.

Georgian Sauerkraut

Ingredients

(for 4 portions)
1 white cabbage
1 beet
1 red chilli
handful of garlic vinegar
fresh celery or parsley
salt, sugar

Cooking
Cube cabbage, slice beet fine, slice celery and pepper. Put layers of vegetables densely in a jar or a saucepan, interlining with sliced garlic. Fill with boiling marinade - 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar per 1 L of water with vinegar so that the vegetables are completely covered. Put in a warm place for 2-3 days. Chill down, and the cabbage is ready.

Potato Salad with Garlic

Ingredients
(for 4 portions)
5-6 potatoes
200g salt
10g garlic
3 tbsp vegetable oil
20g vinegar spring onions

Cooking
Cube peeled potatoes, half-boil them in salted water, drain, cover with a lid and steam until ready. Chill down the potatoes and put them in a salad bowl. Crush peeled garlic with salt, fill with vegetable oil and vinegar, mix, season the potatoes with this sauce, sprinkle with finely sliced spring onions.

Vegetable Caviar

Ingredients
(for 4 portions)
1-2 aubergines
1 vegetable marrow
1 onion
2 carrots
300g cabbage tomato, vinegar pepper, salt
vegetable oil

Cooking
Roast aubergines and vegetable marrow, peel the aubergines. Chop vegetable marrows and aubergines finely. Brown finely chopped onions, carrots, and cabbage with the tomato in vegetable oil. Stir in with vegetable marrows and aubergines and stew 10-15 minutes stirring constantly and slowly. Season the paste with vinegar, salt and pepper, and chill. When serving sprinkle with spring onions or chopped fresh parsley.

Vegetable Marrows Soup with Fresh Mushrooms

Ingredients
(for 1 portion) fresh cep mushrooms – 83g
vegetable marrows – 100g
potatoes – 50g
carrots – 20g
parsley – 5g
celery – 5g
green onions – 15g
tomatoes – 40g
vegetable oil – 10g
fresh herbs

Cooking
Slice potatoes and vegetable marrows about 0.5 cm thick. Brown sliced roots in oil and add spring onions (2-2.5cm thick) 2-3 minutes before end. Chop prepared mushrooms, put them in boiling broth or water and boil 20-30 minutes, add browned roots, potatoes and cook 15-20 minutes. 5-10 minutes before end add vegetable marrows, tomatoes and salt. Serve with sour cream and fresh herbs. You can cook the soup with milk (200g).

Vegetable Soup with Beans and Croutons

Ingredients
(for 1 portion)
Savoy cabbage – 75g
potatoes – 50g
beans: fresh – 40g,
or dried – 20g carrots – 20g
leek – 20g
onions – 10g
vegetable oil – 15g
croutons – 20g

Cooking
Chop Savoy cabbage and put in hot water for 1-2 minutes. Slice carrots, chop onions and brown them in vegetable oil, fill with hot water, add sliced potatoes, fresh white beans, cabbage, salt and simmer until ready. If you use dried beans, boil them in advance. Separately serve thin dried white toasts fried in vegetable oil.

Cabbage Stuffed with Vegetables

Ingredients
(for 4 portions)
1 cabbage
2 carrots
2/3 cup rice
1 onion
1 tbsp tomato garlic
vegetable oil
salt

Cooking
Remove top 10-12 cabbage leaves, boil them slightly until soft, mallet the stalks or cut them off. Prepare the stuffing: boil friable rice, fry chopped carrots and finely sliced onions, combine with rice, add finely chopped garlic. Fill the cabbage leaves with it, roll in and lay in a deep frying pan or a saucepan. Fill with water, add tomato, fresh herbs, salt and stew until ready.

Pilaf with Dried Fruits and Nuts

Ingredients
(for 4 portions)
2 cups rice
1 handful dried apricots
1 handful raisins
10-12 dates prunes
4-5 walnuts
2 tbsp honey
salt

Cooking
Half boil rice in slightly salted water, add rinsed and selected raisins, julienned dried apricots, some sliced dates, and peeled, cored cleared and sliced prunes, as well as fried pounded nuts (optional). Boil under lid, add honey, stir and leave to rest.

Archbishop Potatoes

Ingredients
(for 4 portions)
1.5kg potatoes
5 tbsp vegetable oil
2-2.5 tbsp flour salt

Cooking
Boil, cool, slice coarse and fry potatoes in vegetable oil. In the end of frying add flour, stir thoroughly and fry until crispy.

Pie with Onions Filling

Ingredients:
for pastry:
800g flour
30g yeast
2 cups water
for stuffing:
8 onions
3/4 cup vegetable oil
a pinch of salt

Cooking:
Make leavened pastry with flour, water, yeast and salt, leave to rise. Roll out into thin flatbreads, bake, interline with layers of finely chopped onions fried in vegetable oil, bake in oven.

Pie with Pickled Gherkins

Ingredients:
leavened pastry
1 kg for stuffing:
700g pickled gherkins
3 onions
2 tbsp vegetable oil
salt, ground black pepper
for brushing:
2 tbsp strong tea
for sprinkling:
2 tbsp breadcrumbs

Cooking:
Roll out pastry into a rectangular the size of your baking tray. Put it on the buttered tray, level, puncture with a fork. Put an even layer of gherkins with onions. Cover with another rectangular rolled out a little thinner than the bottom, puncture with a fork, brush with strong sweet tea, sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Prior to this peel and core the gherkins, finely slice, simmer, lay on a colander. Chop onions finely, fry in vegetable oil, add to simmered gherkins, chill, season with ground black pepper and salt, and an optional pinch of sugar. Bake at 180-200 C until brownish. Such pies with pickled gherkins were eaten on Lenten days.