On a recent outing to our local St. Vincent de Paul store, we found a classic cookbook, The Frugal Goumet on our Immigrant Ancestors. Like our meals, it is organized by ethnicity, with recipes from Armenian and Ethiopian to Welsh and Yugoslavian. This will keep our brains and stomachs occupied for a long time.

For our first meal, we chose the Russian Stroganoff. This was definately more minimal than other stroganoff recipes we've tried. Just to be different, we chose to use ostrich meat, and the result was excellent. The Frugal Gourmet recommends serving this dish on top of kasha, made primarily from Arrowhead Mills Buckwheat Groats. They don't have a specific webpage on the groats yet, but check back soon. They definately smell potent and earthy when they're being cooked. We added a lot of pepper and salt per the recipe, and will add less next time, as it combined with the groat flavor was overpowering.

As a side dish, we boiled up some romanesco broccoli that we found recently at the Dane County Farmers' Market. It looked so fractal and cool we just had to try some, and it tasted better than any broccoli or cauliflower we'd eaten before! Last week was the final market until spring time; we'll really miss seeing all the fresh produce, breads and cheeses.

To round out the week, we had some ziti topped with Victoria's Vodka Sauce. Ok, it's not strictly a Russian dish, but we think it fits. Victoria's claim to have the original commercial vodka sauce and the best; we found it thinner and less flavorful than Newman's Own, still our personal favorite.

We'll probably finish up with a stew from How To Make Soup this weekend, stay tuned.