shain

Some travel photos.

I've been eating some mango every day for the last month or so, my fridge is still full of them. To keep things fresh I'm often adding a sprinkle of chili, lime zest or mint. I've also had them with coconut rice a few times, and the overripe fruits have been placed in the freezer to become lassi and shakes.

It's a beautiful and interesting town. Very rural at parts, but quite active at its center. The "Red coffee bus". Not far from the hotel, we found this bakery. Not much to imply it's being one, other then the smell of wood fire and the sweet scent of bread being baked. The small sign on the window specifies the price of tonis puri at 75 tetri, which are 30 cents. A single baker salling only one bread. He is skillfully shaping the dough, stretching it over a special pillow and stick onto the tone oven wall. Ofcourse we bought a bread. Notice the hole where a hook was used to pull the bread out of the oven. They are quite large, measuring nearly 25" in length. It was as delicious as only freshly baked bread can be. Soft and pillow. Hot and aromatic. The crust well browned and crisp, crackling as you tear off a piece. The crumb is elastic and tender, very flavorful and well salted. It's akin to a Neapolitan pizza dough that was baked slower. The crumb is like a baggaute but slightly denser and less chewy, perhaps slightly enriched with oil. Actually, it's a lot like a crisp version of a good fluffy pita bread (in the Egyptian/Yamini style). Now I have to buy me some good pita (my favorite bakery is also quite a hole in the wall, but they use a mechanized conveyor oven). As I mentioned before, we kept some leftover pkhali from dinner. They were great with the bread. We only managed to eat a little more than half Where's my second stomach when I need it?

Breakfast at the guesthouse. Some pan-cakes of sorts (definitely not pancakes, though) a sort of sponge cake, slightly dry, crispy on the outside, eggy in flavor, generously sprinkled with crisp sugar. Sour cream, farmers cheese, plum preserve - those are mixed together. Some tonis bread, a little dry. We chatted with the homeowner about the farmer cheese and their usage, she mentioned that she makes cheese cakes and Russian syrniki. We were also served omelettes, a few sliced vegetables, and sulguni cheese We made two cups of the turkish coffee we brought with us. I wan't in the mode for sweets, so I had my omelette, and sampled the cakes and cheeses with plum preserve. View from the room: Many animals are free to walk the town. No shortage of foliage for them.

I figured so. I already know everyone here is too kind

Green beans with chickpeas in tomato sauce. Bulgar and vegetable salad, with tahini, silan, fennel seeds, pomegranate, pistachios.

Here's a video similar to how I make mine, overall, really easy. I prefer to slice mine rather than tore apart. I also skip the sugar as I find the dusting of powdered sugar and jam sweet enough. Raisin haters can use chopped dried apricots or cherries. And don't forget to soak them in rum. It's also delicious with syrup maple and butter.

Ha ha, sorry, was I was lazy So as I guess you already figured from the discussion, it's sort of a torn apart fluffy pancake thingy. I make them in biggish pieces (2"). I served it with quince and coriander preserve, as well as fromage blanc. Most of my family prefer to mix them up as a sauce, but I'm a dipper. I know it as being quite fluffy, and tall. It is souffle like, but fully baked, so it's mostly cakey, perhaps a tad custardy. A dutch baby, as I know it, is mostly custardy.

Hummus with pine nuts, and chili infused tatbila sauce. Freshly baked pita breads.

Thanks! There are plenty of walnuts trees, I haven't seen groves but they are planted in many gardens and parks. In There are also many chestnut trees, Tbilisi in particular is scattered with chestnuts. Both trees were baring fruits at this time of year, and the ground was littered with nuts. It seems that walnuts are mostly used in chopped and ground forms, and again mostly as a method of flavoring and enriching various sauces and salads. Some interesting dishes are chicken in walnut sauce, chirbuli (which I'll describe shakshuka with walnuts). They are often used whole in desserts such as churchkhela, gozinaki and as a garnish to desserts such as pelamushi. They are also used in cakes. I was looking for preserved green walnuts, but haven't seen them served or sold anywhere.

Thank! I used mostly champignons, with a small amount of shitake. They have a very dominant flavor, while I wanted the mushrooms mostly for texture and umami. I was under the impression that ma la tofu usually refer to the dish made without the ground beef and without a substitute for it.

Eggplants in hot-sour-sweet garlic and soy sauce. Mapo tofu, vegetarian, with mushrooms rather than meat, served with rice noodles.

Kaiserschmarrn.

After finding a place to stay the night, and having a short rest, we asked the lovely homeowner for a recommendation of a stroll we can take before nightfall. She pointed us to a nearby grove and a hill-side church. It was more than a short stroll, but given the chill weather and crisp air, is suited us just right. When we returned, we were offered tea and cakes (the later we passed) and after grabbing some warmer clothes, proceeded to go out to the town. It's a quite place, the short main street mostly populated by restaurants and a few grocers with cozy stores. We found a pleasant restaurant to eat dinner at. We ordered a decent dry Saperavi wine, and a refreshing local lager. Khinkali, flavored with aromatic herbs, but I was told the filling wasn't as pleasantly soupy as some we had before. Pkhali plate. - Spinach and walnuts pkhali is a classic, mildly garlicky and not very creamy. - Nadugi is made of farmers cheese and mint. It could have been more strongly flavored, overall our least favored. - Eggplant pkhali was made of coarsely chopped fried eggplant, which seemed not to work as well in this form (compared to a smoother texture). But was otherwise delicious, very toasty and flavorful. - Pepper wrapped pkhali had a mildly sweet filling of walnuts with garlic and either a small amount of tomato, or juices from the peppers soaked into it. Very reminiscent of muhammara. The sweetness of the fries/roasted pepper and tartness from some wine vinegar, worked great with the creamy nutty filling. This was one of the tastiest things I had on the trip. - Crisp and warm mchadi (corn bread), was tender from the inside and much more pleasant than the one we had yesterday. Chakhragina, which I missunderstood as a khachapuri-like pastry, filled with beetroot, tarragon and cheese, turned out to be filled with chard instead of beets. The dough, somewhat pale, wasn't as flaky or crisp as the lobiani we had earlier this day. The filling was also a bit disappointing, I'm OK with chard, but doesn't love it. The cheese and tarragon both being mild and muted. I still think that a pastry filled with beetroots, cheese and tarragon will surely be a winner, I might give it a chance, tough I might opt for filo dough. The portions were so big. We took with us the leftover pkhali. They were too tasty to toss, and won't require reheating.

Thanks! I sure have some new ideas and insights - I took many notes during the trip. I will be sure to mention in future posts when something had inspired me. From what I shared so far, I'm sure to revisit the lobiani (and other khachapuris), the eggplant with walnut and garlic paste and try my own take on the filled mushrooms.

Yesterday's supper. Hand cut fettuccine and pesto, both I had forzen last month.

Inspired by @BonVivant - Cilbir - poached egg in strained yogurt, with garlic and zaatar. I haven't had this simple dish in years.

The height wasn't very noticeable, the hike and climb while ,not very long, were quite tiring and we had to stop quite often. In retrospect it might be the cause, but I was guessing that I'm just out of shape. What's sure is that the air was crisp and chill, and also very dry. It was welcome change from the humidity and heat of my home town which is by the coast. They were cooked and chopped/mashed, much like coarse refried beans (but without onion). They were also of a cultiver similar to pinto beans. The version I had was made of halved beans as well. I don't recall ever eating pureed/mashed green beans. My favorite pkhali is the one wrapped with bell peppers.

From here we proceed to Stepantsminda. After a long day of driving and hiking, it was getting late, and our bellies were rumbling went, therefore we headed straight for lunch. A mushroom soup was more of a vegetable soup with mushrooms, it was flavorfull, spices with paprika. But the highlight was the dill - it was strong but had a delicate sweet flavor, it took the soup into another level. A beef soup was reported to me as being tasty but not very rich, it smelled of paprika, cilantro and caraway. A serving of tonis bread was not fresh and lacked the crispness and tenderness I loved. A Greek salad arrived due to a misunderstanding (most Georgians we met had hardship with English, and it being my second language didn't help either). It wasn't exactly a greek salad (where's the olive oil?). But the vegetables in Georgia are always very good, especially the peppers. A salad with walnut dressing was disappointing, as the scatter of (tasty) walnut powder failed to connect with the vegetables. Later renditions we will have will have this made into a real sauce with vinegar and tossed, which works much better. The lobiani (which is not really a khachapuri, since it has no cheese) was delicious. The dough slightly acidic from yogurt, warm, flaky and tender. The filling of coarsely grinded beans tasty, flavored with bay and butter. The unpictured kebabs were served with fresh onion and were reported to me as being decent, flavored with garlic, cilantro, cumin and chili - much like kebabs one often finds in Israel.

The area is 7300ft above the sea level, the fortress is on a large hill, maybe 20 meters above the surrounding - just enough to have a good view around.

We took a challenging and breathtaking drive through Truso valley. And ended it with a nice hike up to Zakagori fortress. (clicky picture 👆)

Ohh, green beans in walnut sauce was one of the tastiest things I had on our trip. I'll get to post about it soon enough. I'm also sure to make it myself eventually, so I'll be happy to hear about the recipe you follow and about your results. However, I only seen pkhali referring to minced vegetables with walnuts, so I wonder if I'm missing a whole range of dishes.

Thanks, I'm glad to know this And this is a beautiful country indeed, it left me with a taste for more. The food was mostly very good, other than the dinner I mentioned above, I recall that we truly enjoyed each restaurant we ate at during the trip. Breakfasts however weren't usually remarkable.

View from the hotel in Gudauri. And breakfast: Pretty basic, plain white bread (already missing my beloved tonis puri), smokey sausage. Some rough cut tomatoes and cucumbers (I always miss veggies at breakfast when traveling to Europe). Eggs to order. Imeruli cheese, strong lactic fermentation flavor, too much for me - I just couldn't get past the spoiled milk connotation. Quark cheese, sour cream, plum preserves - mixed together and filled into the blini. Again, only instant coffee and tea were served. We opened the bag of Turkish coffee we brought with us and brew something more decent. We later drove to the Georgia-Russia friendship monument. I was excited to find those tarragon flavored chips at the market, before leaving town (I love tarragon). But they just tasted like plain old scallion and sour cream chips

Gudauri. Later that day, we looked for a place to eat something light and some drink some wine. Gudauri, being a beautiful but sleepy village, had little to suggest in term of restaurants open late. We found a cozy looking place to sit at. We ordered two glasses of red Saperavi wine, which turned out decent, but sweeter than I prefer. Baked mushrooms with sulguni cheese served in ketsi (clay bowl) - I had doubts about this traditional dish, while I sure love baked cheeses and mushrooms at any form, the dish sounded one dimensional. At least this rendition of the dish profed me right, the mushroom, baked enough to be meaty but not browned, where OK, the melted sulguni cheese, chewy and salty, somewhere between halloumi, feta and fresh mozzarella, didn't provide complexity of flavor or difference in texture to make this into an interesting dish. I couldn't help but to compare it to a dish that I like, made of portobello mushrooms, filled with ricotta blended with toasted nuts (usually walnuts or hazelnuts), then baked on a tray so that moisture evaporates and they can brown. Thinking about it, it whould fit well in a Georgian meal. Nigvzit Badrijani - fried eggplants stuffed with a semi-coarse, yet creamy, walnut paste, flavored with garlic. It was sadly served near freezing, which I found muted all the flavors, other than the eggplants inherent bitterness, and made it unpalatable. A little creativity was in order and the eggplants found their way directly into the hot mushroom dish to take a sauna. They shortly became warm and mostly enjoyable, if a little moist with mushroom juice. So while the food wasn't impressive, we still enjoyed the atmosphere and the view.