Polish Roulette

One more drinking game to tell you about before the weekend. I'm sure my friends who didn't grow up in the States are rolling their eyes at me majorly, but T-Slav came up with this one and it's really a great one! So, of course there is Russian roulette, but man that's sooooo not Polish peoples' style. So while at Babcia and Dziadek's last week, Tomislav had a brilliant idea and came up with the Polish counterpart.

Let's say 6 people are playing Polish Roulette, you have to fill up 3 (or 4 or 5, as you wish) shot glasses with vodka and 3 shot glasses with water. Then, everyone takes a shot and upon drinking it, everyone must try and keep a straight face. No sour vodka faces, just stone cold poker faces! I think the Polish version of Roulette is much better :)

Na zdrowie! Živjeli! Cheers everyone! 

How awesome is this Croatia/Poland supporter? He's such a cutie. I'm pretending last night's Germany vs. Italy game never happened and pretty much ignoring the rest of the Eurocup. Terrified of hearing seaside-7 Nation Army-singing by the Italians. Not talking about it anymore. Anyway! Have a fab weekend and hope you get to spend it outside in beautiful weather!

Polish Parties

 Kto ty jesteś? Polak mały! - A very early Polish Party in NJ ;)

Growing up, my parents got together with their friends every weekend for what I liked to call, "Polish Parties." All of our family friends (who are Polish, of course) would get together to drink, dance, be merry, perhaps watch a boxing match on Pay Per View, things like that. All of us kids would have a really fun time because we'd play games (which we would mostly invent, from "Don't Let the Parents See Us," to "Army," to our own version of the then popular MTV show, "Singled Out," to "Church" (we're Catholic, what can we say?). 

My two favorite party girls! At me and D's combined HS/College grad party in 2006

We would create, direct, and star in our own home movies and it really was always so fun for us too. There was also a period of time where, much like most other young girls around the world, we pretended we were the Spice Girls. We took things to a new level though, with full costumes and make-up, our own "tour bus" (the basement of one friends' house), a manager, a movie, complete choreography - WSZYSTKO!

Anyway, on a recent trip Tomislav and I took, I heard a song that brought me right back to those days. There are so much great, fun music that my parents and their friends would listen to and I just love hearing it again! It brings me right back to my childhood and makes me feel so happy. Whether it's Queen, Boney M, Abba, or some lesser known hits; I love them all! Anyone remember any of these?

Comment ça va
Comme ci, comme ci, comme ci, comme ça!

Sun of Jamaica, the Dreams of Malaika...

This is one of my all time favs! (T and I actually saw them in concert in Zagreb in 2009!) 

Boney M - Daddy Cool

Happy Weekend Everyone!

Hungry Man Meal!

I love having variety in the meals I make. Since I'm still a relatively new cook, there are a ton of things that I have never made yet and I just love to experiment. Making new things keeps cooking exciting for me and the best thing in the world is when I'm making something new and tasting it along the way and it tastes like the best thing I ever made. Yesterday was one of those days.

For a while, we were eating Asian inspired meals almost everyday. After we became obsessed with Thai take-out in the States in May, I spent the summer recreating those flavors in almost every meal. Now it seems, I'm getting really into comfort food. But it's winter, so I guess that's exactly what's supposed to happen! 

We got this really great ground beef and I wanted to try something new with it so I searched the internet for what to make and everything kept pointing me towards Salisbury Steak. I was hoping to try to make my own meatloaf sometime soon so I figured this would be a great way to make a Salisbury Steak/Mini-Meatloaf meal that would be hearty for my hungry man. I scoured the internet, reading reviews on every recipe I found and finally found the one I wanted. It's originally from the Sokolowski University Inn and is apparently from a Polish Kitchen episode, so no wonder I was drawn to it and inspired by it! It was a little daunting to see how long it would take to make it all, especially since I was really hungry after work, but for me, I'd rather make something that will taste excellent, rather than just so so. The extra time made it so worth it!

 

Here's what I used:

• 1 large onion (minced)
• 4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup (approximately) parsley
• bunch of sage
• 350g (about 2 1/2 cups) cooked and diced button mushrooms
• 2 Tbs flour
• 2 cups beef stock
• 2 dried bay leaves (to simmer in the beef stock)
• salt and pepper (as preferred)

Directions

Saute onions (reserve about 2 tablespoons for gravy) for about 10 minutes, until they start to caramelize 1 tablespoon butter, then add garlic and half of your mushrooms to the pan and saute for another 5 minutes.  Set aside to cool. Mix beef with cooled onion mixture, eggs, bread crumbs, parsley, sage and mushrooms. Form into 4 patties and saute in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter until golden brown on both sides and set aside. In saucepan melt 2 ounces of butter and add flour and cook over low heat for 1 minute until wet sand consistency. Begin to add beef stock 1/3 at a time whisking and bringing to simmer each time making sure there are no lumps. I added the remaining onions and a bit of minced garlic at this point. Then, add mushrooms and simmer for 1/2 hour. Place patties in a roasting pan and pour gravy over patties and bake in a preheated 375 degree (190 degrees C) oven for 45 minutes.

 

Since we don't have a deep roasting pan, I used about half of the gravy on the mini-meatloafs that went into the oven. I roasted the veggies, broccoli and cauliflower, on the same pan. The sauce was so good, I couldn't stop tasting it so I made the executive decision to add more beef stock, a bit more flour to thicken it more, and made more gravy so we could pour it over the egg noodles that I served it with. 

 

The gravy was so amazing, T-Slav and I both wanted to drink it up. It's amazing what you can do with the same 3 pans but that's what we've got and I'm making it work. This is definitely something I'll make again and I think my Mom would be proud!