This year Ukrainian Christmas Eve fell on Friday, which usually works out perfectly with Robert's work schedule and us staying up late eating and chatting. But so happened that Mark's baptism was rescheduled for 7 pm on Christmas Eve because of expected snow storm coming on January 7th. That made for a very busy Friday and a bit of a quick dinner but it was still a great success:)
Can't have a Ukrainian dress up night without taking a family picture!
We invited our great friends, the Martins, to come celebrate this special night with us. This is their beautiful girls.
The Grovers drove up from Virginia for Mark's baptisms and made it to the dinner as well!
So my way of doing the Ukrainian dinner is to cook for three days so I am not swamped crazily on the last day.
For two evenings I had been making layered cakes. I made Medivnik, honey cake, for the first time in my life. But I forgot one ingredient in the cake dough which made it flat and so I decided to make another cake with an impromptu chocolate butter frosting.
These are the ten layers that I carefully baked but that lacked baking powder.
And this is the second attempt, with layers than actually had some volume.
This is my "saved" cake layers, that tasted a lot like chocolate butter:)
I also made Shuba for the first time in my life! although traditionally it's made with herring, beets, potatoes, eggs, carrots and mayo, I used smoked salmon instead of herring and I, personally, liked it. But I was probably the only one-hehehe.
And I spent a couple of hours cooking Holubtsi, the cabbage rolls. They are always popular as they come out so well. This time, the cabbage leaves cooperated beautifully!
I managed to make twelve dishes (that's including dessert) as always.
And Vareniki did not disappoint! Kutia, kompot and Oliv'ye turned out really well too.
Next year, I'll be brave and will try a couple more new dishes too.
Happy Ukrainian Christmas!
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