Ethnic Night 4 - Czesc' Poland

Thats right! The Reseigh's hoped in our car and traveled ALL the way to Poland today. And I mean all the way as in less than 5minutes from my house to my parents house (Nonna and Papa).

Yet again, allowing time to slip by us we haven't had an ethnic night is so long I felt it was time. With Lent season just starting it was perfect timing to "travel" to Poland and make some pirogis to have on hand for the Lent season. Nonna and I are allergic to fish so it makes meatless Friday meals tricky. This should help out a bunch!

We began the day bright and early preparing the pirorgi filling (Potato and cheese) at about 10:30AM.

Nonna began to cook up the Kapusta (sauerkraut) which is best brewing all day anyways. Set it and forget it is the best way! We took this time to discuss with Sport the different kinds of Kapusta (sweet vs sour) it really does depend on your preference. It was so much fun to reminance with my Mom the battle of Kapusta that her parents (my Nanny and Papa) would put all of us family through. Nanny would make her version and Papa would make his. We know they are both watching over us today still arguing over whose was the best and NO I am not going to ever admit the winner in my book.

Once the filling was completed the dough was made. We ended up going through 4 double batches of dough which made a total of 165 pierogis!!! We ended up running out of filling and played "hide" the filling in our last dozen. We ended up with some Kapusta filled with Swiss cheese and salami and American cheese, cheese only.... believe it or not they were all GREAT!!!!

Close to 8lbs of potatoes peeled, cut, and washed. Sport did so well peeling it took a while but great to learn. We also have the little potato washer in the background. He took that job VERY serious.  

Everyone hard at work.

Dish washing time.... his favorite!!!

First attempt at rolling the dough and YES my little stinker had to be the first to crank the wheel. Once he learned it wasn't as easy as it looked he stopped. 





Assembly line. It was fantastic to all work together.
 

Thumbs up from the little tasters.

 

Mark it up as another very successful trip around the world. This was our most tiring of them all which totaled over 7straight hours of standing and cooking. Great job team!!! Best part is passing on the family recipes and traditions. I love "traveling" with my family! Pack your bags I think the next trip is Bulgaria!

Groundhogs Day 2013

"What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today." - Quote from the Groundhog;s Day Movie.

If you haven't learned by now, I am a big advocate of food fun and art. You will notice from working a Monday-Friday job, I tend to leave my food fun for the weekends. How perfect Groundhogs Day is on a Saturday! Check out the meals I made and their reactions. It was good fun and even better it tasted good!


Snack:
Groundhog Pudding

Dinner:
Groundhog meatloaves with the cave of mashed potatoes. Made with Pennsylvania Baked Beans

Look at that face. It looks like alot of work but he insisted on even stirring up the meat.



These beans were VERY sweet but tasty. Pennsylvania Baked Beans have meat in them which caught us off guard but all thumbs up and I would make again for sure.

Cooking up the meat for the beans (hmmm never had meat in my beans before) but remember we are doing this Pennsylvania style.

Finished product! I used a water chestnut for the back of the face, capers for the eyes, croutons for the ears, ketchup for the nose and two small dabs of sour cream for the teeth.  

Look he even does dishes (kinda) he adds more dishes than what were actually dirty and if you notice we stick to plastic when he helps. *** Caution Flor May Be Slippery if JJ is helping! *** 

.