It's Time to Say Goodbye...

by Jenny

It's Time to Say Goodbye...well, at least, see ya later to Foodie Fridays for the Relafords. We have hit a one year mark of Foodie Fridays, with over 30 different countries, Foodie Friday All Stars, Foodie Friday restaurant tours, and specials for birthdays & anniversaries. We decided to take a break for a while because the last few it seemed the like the kids were tired of cooking and helping. And maybe doing all those dishes! And frankly, hubby and I were too. We decided to make it to the one year mark and then in the new year think of something new and exciting to do for our family day on Fridays. So for our last Foodie Friday Gregg ended on America!

Foodie Friday~America

Gregg tried to select dishes from different regions, some we've never made our selves.

~Menu~

Maryland Crab Cakes

Texas Pressure Cooker Chili

Green Bean Casserole

Homemade Apple Pie

 

Everything was suburb! The chili had so much heat to it that the girls weren't too fond of it. It's a recipe from Food Network's Alton Brown- it'll bring tears to your eyes! We've never made crab cakes at home before and they were delish! Ahh, green bean casserole is my favorite holiday side dish so it's pretty common around here and Juliet ate it up by the handfuls! We all made the apple pie together and it was way easier than I thought it would be! Awe...so yummy! Really, nothing better than homemade apple pie!

 



 

As we end and I think about all we've done together, I decided to put together all the pictures of each Foodie Friday. Ahhh wow.... to think where we started and all the countries we experienced, the wonderful memories we made, the experiences we got to count as "school"- It's crazy to see how much the baby has grown and changed even! This experience was much more than just cooking together- what it did for our family was priceless. We put that day aside for our family and made it sacred and precious. Even when we traveled, we tried to experience 'Foodie Fridays' in other cities- one of the coolest was being at Epcot on a Foodie Friday!

I think I'm going to have to have these made into posters for our kitchen! Loved all these moments!

 

 

 

"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!