Happy Birthday, Charles! We celebrated the day before with our Danish-American Friends. I feel like I was in the kitchen all day (and I just about was) but he's worth it. We had grilled chicken and steaks with blue cheese and shallot butter, twice baked potatoes, creamed cabbage, roasted broccoli, and peanut butter pie and Sarah's delicious Danish birthday cake for dessert.
One thing about living in a new place is that you cannot always find certain ingredients. In Colorado I had the hardest time finding frozen coconut for our favorite cake we make at Easter. Here in Poland, we are missing certain items that I have to make from scratch, or find a substitute. you may have to make an ingredient from scratch first that you might otherwise have purchased. For example, before I made the pie I had to make a cool whip substitute using gelatin and cream of tarter. Simple things like that take more time, so cooking sometimes just takes longer. I find that in my kitchen here, cooking always takes longer! It is just a strange layout and after six months in it, I still haven't totally found my groove.
Anyways, I think the birthday boy had a good day! Since his birthday fell on Monday, he of course to work. My Polish lesson was canceled, so Matthew and I went to the barracks to have lunch with Daddy. Then that evening we went out to supper at one of our favorite places. Yum!
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| Giving Daddy good-bye hugs after lunch. |
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| After supper hot chocolate, it's so yummy! |
On Wednesday, I finally tried my hand at making pierogis. Back in the fall, some of the ladies invited me over for a pierogi making session. Our friend, Tanya, taught us how she makes the Russian, or ruskie, kind. They are my favorite, and they have potatoes and a kind of cheese called tworóg in them, which is like cottage cheese that has been drained.
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| Pierogis are best served with sautéd onions on top. Yum! |
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| I need to practice my technique, but I was pretty pleased with my first attempt! |
A friend asked me why in the world I decided to make them while we still live here and can easily get fabulous ones from a pierogarnia. I figured it is better to try them while the process was still a fresh in my mind, and then if they didn't turn out well, I could ask Tanya for help. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, but maybe we'll have another session with Tanya just because hers are amazing.
So here is a story about how well Sarah and I "planned". Thursday was "Fat Thursday", in Poland people celebrate the Thursday before Ash Wednesday by eating lots of jelly donuts. They are filled with a marmalade and topped with candied orange peel. You can buy them at other times, but on this day every year, you see them everywhere, so we'd been told. So, around 13:00 Sarah and I decided to walk to the market, about a 15 minute walk from my house. We load up the three kids (it took us like 45 minutes to get them all out the door) and we mosey over, buy some veggies, honey, meat, some good local stuff. Then we decided to get in line at the best donut place in the market (or anywhere so far as I've tried here) so we can also partake in this cultural deliciousness. When in Rome, right? After about 15 minutes or more of waiting, I glance at my watch and realize it is almost time to leave to get the girls from school. Yikes! Sarah had one sleeping in the stroller and one sleeping on her, so I asked if she wanted to stay in line and get us both donuts for our families, and I'd run home and go get the girls and meet her back at my house. Then she could let Claire sleep in the stroller longer, nurse Hannah in the comfort of my house while I was gone, etc. And, I still got donuts. Good plan, right? So I booked it home with Matthew in the stroller. I knew I was going to be fine, but I like to leave so I have plenty of time to park because it gets dicey at pick up sometimes and I didn't want to rush. But I was going to be home by 3, perfect. Until I walked up and saw that Sarah's car was blocking my driveway. BRILLIANT. So I called another friend, who offered to grab both our girls and let them play on the playground, Sarah hoofed it home to move her car, and I drove over to pick up the big girls while she stayed home with the 3 littles. I think the universe was telling us we didn't need jelly donuts. Oh well, next year! Or next week, I mean the donut place is open all the time...
Friday was the last day of first school term, and so the kids had a Carnival party at school Friday afternoon and wore costumes for the day. Lots of fun! Next year I should see if I can figure out how to make a king cake for her to take for her shared snack! Apparently the peanut butter chocolate oatmeal cookies I sent no one wanted to try. :\
Here are a few photos from Friday and Saturday.
The end of the week and start of the weekend has been spent getting ready for our trip to Prague, which is were we are headed next! I'll post photos of that trip soon!
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| Friday is pizza night and this Friday was also movie night! He looks so grown up to me here. |
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| Such a treat to eat in the living room! |
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| Reading to her brother. I love this, just had a hard time getting a good photo through the crib slats! |
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| He may kill me for this one, but too funny, dressing up Daddy! |
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