Our journey to becoming more self-sufficient has gone through many phases. In some areas we are already completely self-sufficient (such as electricity) and in other areas we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
We are producing our own food, and if the supermarket closed its doors permanently I reckon we’d survive. However, what you like to eat and in what quantities does not always match up with what you can grow and when you can grow it. I’m just not ready to give up chocolate and tea forever!
Changing our diets and our expectations around food is very difficult. You could eat the same meal every day and be perfectly healthy but how many of us could really be happy about it? Right now about half our meals are made either entirely or mostly with food we’ve produced ourselves and I’m working on it, slowly.
One of the foods we have in abundance is fresh goats cheese, which is a bit like “farmers cheese” or “cottage cheese”. I make it all the time with our fresh goats milk and there’s only so much you can spread on toast before it becomes boring.
Enter syrniki. Syrniki is a butter fried Russian cheese cake served sweet with cream and jam. In my version it becomes savoury and is fried in our very own Freedom Farm Olive Oil. I love how light and fluffy they are with a slightly sour salty taste. When I make them most of the ingredients come from the farm and so it gives me even more enjoyment!
Ingredients
- 500g Farmers Cheese/Cottage Cheese
- 1 cup of plain flour split into two.
- 1 large egg or 2 small eggs
- 1 bulb fresh garlic, or something similar like chives.
- Extra virgin olive oil, preferably Freedom Farm Olive Oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Thoroughly mix the cheese, half a cup of flour, eggs, thinly sliced garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the salt and pepper.
- Rub olive oil on your hands and start making small balls out of your cheese mixture.
- Roll them gently in your other half-cup of flour.
- Then when you place them on a well oiled surface, gently press down to make a little patty shape.
- Heat a generous amount of olive oil in your pan and fry the little patties four or five at a time until they are golden brown.
- You can enjoy the syrniki hot or you can eat them cold in a sandwich or in a salad.
Traditional Russian syrniki are made without garlic. We add sugar and vanilla and eat them with sour cream and/or jam.
Yes, this is not the traditional sweet recipe, but our own twist with what we can grow 🙂