"Mâncare Bună (good food) from Romania"

Foodie Friday~ Romania

It was Gabe's pick this week and he chose Romania. He said he didn't really know much about it and he finished reading Dracula a while back and thought it would be interesting. I realized that I really didn't know that much either. Dracula, Mountains, Black Sea...that's about all I could tell you before.
We read about their government, history, currency and looked up tons of pictures. It looks like an absolutely beautiful country; green and lush, gorgeous mountains, and wonderful old architecture.  The top picture is of Bran Castle in the Transylvanian Alps...stunning.
Okay, back to the food...Gabe found some great recipes. One of 

them being their national dish which is Mititei- they are basically little sausages without casings. But better. I found this great little blog where we found two of our recipes from- Romanian Mum and family...a bilingual journey through life. We used her recipes for Mititei and Baked Stuffed Peppers (Ardei umpluti la cuptor). And our third major recipe was for Romanian Cozonac, a sweet bread filled with nuts usually served at Christmastime or other holidays. We found something somewhere that listed Romanian salads and one of them was basically a light salad that just consisted of tomatoes, sliced onions, peppers, thyme & dill, and salt & pepper, so we added that in as well. All the recipes can be found on my board Successful "Foodie Fridays" Recipes. We had to convert a lot of the recipes from metric and change a few things. Changes we made was 'halfing' the bread recipe and only making the nut filling version.

We started with the Cozonac, the sweet bread, because it had to have time to rise. but knowing all the recipes now, we should've made the meat mixture for the Mititei the night before and let it set in the fridge. It all worked out though.

 

The stuffed bell peppers had ground meat, rice, onions, garlic, dill, and other spices inside. Then a tomato sauce poured on top and a tomato slice to hold it all in. They usually serve them with sour cream on top. The combination was super yummy, the peppers were sweet, and the dollop of sour cream was a great addition. Gregg kept saying all day, "My Patty Grandma used to make these, hers were a meatloaf mixture inside and no sour cream, but I remember having them all the time." Then we tasted the sweet bread, he said, "I remember her making something like this too! Maybe she had a Romanian friend she got recipes from!"
We really enjoyed all the food and I think some of these may become a staple in our family's menu. Overall, a very Successful Foodie Friday!