Okroshka! and other fun

Okroshka days are running short for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, so I wanted to get in my yearly attempt before the falling temps dictate a change of allegiance to borsch. D is the okroshka expert around here. His verdict: awesome! This time I used the recipe from Natasha's Kitchen. It differed from my first go at the soup- no radishes this time, sour cream instead of kefir (which seemed really, really weird but tasted fantastic) and it completely slaughtered our memories of the terrible beer-shrimp broth of 2013.

It's such a lovely soup to make. Chop, chop, chop...

Mix...

Chill and serve!

It was our turn to make dinner that night, and we served the soup alongside a recipe I'd saved from the Alaska days.  

Mediterranean Spinach and Rice: Sauté olive oil and garlic, add raisins, add lots of fresh spinach, and toss with crumbled feta, red bell pepper, cooked rice, and a dash of pepper.

That meal is one of the few things I've cooked at all recently. Aside from a really sad and boring beet salad-

Without those packets of spice sold in Ukraine's supermarkets... it just tastes like raw beet :(

-we've been out of the kitchen completely. I can't wait to have a kitchen again (hopefully soon, as we just applied for an apartment).

On the other hand, both D's mom and my mom are great cooks. His mom makes all staples we've grown used to: tushonaya kapusta, golubtsi, gretchka, borsch, mashed potatoes, blini. She also made чайный гриб, which literally means "mushroom tea" but is better known as kombucha, aged to perfection on the windowsill for several days. Unfortunately it was consumed in no time flat and I didn't even get a picture of it.

My mom is always willing to try eating Ukrainian and Russian food but shies away from cooking it herself. The temperatures were in the 90s for a while so she fed us lots of quick-prep-serve-cold meals, done in her own style.

What about you? What kinds of meals have been on your plate recently? 
Are you preparing for warmer/cooler weather?