Szmingus Dingus

Happy Easter Monday! Here in Eastern Europe, today is a National Holiday as it is the second day of Easter! In Poland, it's called Szmingus Dingus and on this day, everyone throws buckets of water at each other. I'm not really sure about the history behind this but I know that when we spent Easter in Poland (when I was a kid), it was one of the most fun days ever! My sister and I and all of our neighbors in our Grandparents little village ran around like crazy filling buckets in the well and soaking one another. We had to change a million times but it was a blast. I love this tradition, as crazy as it is! Today, it's a little too cold for a proper Szmingus Dingus in Zagreb. At least it's sunny though!

Easter weekend has been really great!

My Traditions:

 

 

 These pictures are blurry but I love this girl too much not to post them. And the only reason they're so blurry is because we were getting our Rihanna on so hard! Thank you to the cafe/bar Kic for being so friendly and welcoming to us crazy girls!

T-Slav was talking about baking our own bread for our Easter basket but instead I went for these butter biscuits that remind me of one of my old college roommates who is a great cook and baker!

 

 My Carrot Ginger Soup was requested by Tomislav to be at Easter Sunday dinner so his family could try it. It was a huge hit, even with his Dad (!!) who officially gave me his blessing after realizing that I really can cook! Thank you T for doing all the peeling ;)

 

So excited to be making my first ham!

 

Pretty little hammy

 

 Beer and pineapples - the best thing to ever happen to ham! It came out absolutely PERFECT, so juicy and delicious! (T was SO thrilled to be eating meat again!)

Croatian Traditions:

 

 Dying eggs by putting onion skins in the boiling water so they get a nice red color

Most of mine stayed pretty brown but some of them looked redder!

 The Easter basket is both of our traditions since our Polish custom is to get our Easter baskets blessed on Saturday before Easter. The Croatian way is to have plenty of green onions and radishes on Easter Sunday. We also had the biscuits, eggs, salt and pepper, some of the freshly baked ham, and chocolate eggs. The blessed food is the first thing you eat on Sunday morning.

At Tomislav's parents house we had these baked potatoes and cabbage salads

 

Of course, more green onions and radishes!

 

Lamb

 

And finally these awesome glasses that Tomislav's parents both got 2 pairs of (each) recently!

They are the glasses you get for free (with insurance) and in true Croatian fashion, once I get health insurance, I'm totally trying to get a pair. They're cuuuute! T's parents look adorable in them!

  

So if you're somewhere warm today, I encourage you to throw a water balloon, or even just a splash of water on someone in honor of Szmingus Dingus :D I know how I'll be waking T up today!