Bulgaria - Pitka and Telshko Vareno

Pitka – Bulgarian Christmas Bread

Beef Soup Recipe Teleshko Vareno

Well, this was all pretty delicious. As you can see, Mo made a very pretty pitka, which was the perfect accompaniment to the hearty teleshko vareno. Not only is the pitka delicious, but it is also abundant. Mo started out making a half serve, then added a full serve of eggs, so evened out the eggs by adding more of all the other ingredients. But I'm not complaining. Great work, Mo. Next up, Finland.

United States - Ribs

A while ago we had England while we were away on holidays with B and K - on that occasion we decided to make a day of it and have every possible meal England(ish). Today we set ourselves a similar challenge with the United States, this time away with Polly and Green.

I have never used so much sugar in a day's cooking (and we didn't even do lunch).

It all started the day before where I rubbed some ribs with a mix of sugar, paprika and chilli, while Green mixed some pancake batter ready for the next day. Breakfast was the most tasty, fluffy and light pancakes ever, topped with maple syrup and fruit. Bacon was on the cards as well but we saw into our future and it wasn't a pretty picture



An amazing bbq Easter Sunday lunch at Sim and Lisa's changed the theme a little bit, but we were back to America-land for tea where we cooked up some 'Freddy's Ribs' (House of Cards style, southern ribs) with home made barbecue sauce, corn bread and some green beans.



The ribs were so amazing - probably the best ones I have cooked, with the sauce so full of flavours and rich (and probably a bit sweet).

Followed that up with some games and some USA snacks (Reece's pieces and
Milk Duds). It all made for a really fun day.

Montenegro

After a year off the journey we are back. I've had issues with inspiration and actually finding recipes for Montenegro. Maybe because the small size of the country, or perhaps because it has only recently gained independence, but it was really hard to find recipes with more detail beyond an instruction of 'cook lots of seafood with tomato'.

So, with word from the farm that fresh grown tomatoes were on their way, I found a (supposedly) common tomato based chutney/relish that gets served as an accompaniment to main meal meat. Pindzur is tomato, capsicum, garlic and chilli all cooked for a while until they are nicely mushed together. Recipes either had it chunky or blitzed up; we went for the chunky version and served it topped with feta as a side for some lamb and bread.

It was a country I didn't think we would get away from. Verdict; it was good - quite good actually. The lamb and the relish went nicely together and the hint of spice was spot on. It is good coming back to this and trying new stuff, and this meal was a fresh and tasty one.

The next one is huge... United States.

Equatorial Guinea

After a long break from this we are back - this was a tough one as there are only 600,000 Equatorial Guineans and so finding recipes was challenging.

The meal was Contrichop with rice. Like everything in Africa the contrichop was meat cooked in peanuts. Great stuff, accompanied with E-Guinea style rice - which is chilli rice cooked risotto style. This one surprised us as it tasted great and we only used about 6 ingredients.

 

Netherlands

Erwtensoep.

Pea soup with meat - the instructions told us that if your spoon doesn't stand up in the soup then it isn't right.

It was thick and meaty and not our greatest adventure effort. Not the recipe's fault but the sausages we got were not great and that brought the whole thing down.

England

For England we set ourselves the task of having a whole day's worth of food with origins from the country of choice. Admittedly it was one of the easier countries because a lot of the food in Australia comes from the tradition of English cooking but it was still an interesting day where we cooked up a couple of new dishes (for tea).

So, while humming "Rule Britannia" we started out with a traditional English breakfast of baked beans, eggs, bacon and toast. As we were on holidays we got to force our challenge on extra people and so Bee, Kristy and Liv also enjoyed a trip to London with us.





Did anyone say scones and cream!?!? They hit the spot after a morning of bush walking.




Lunch - when we learned that Plowman's Lunch has its origins from England we were pretty stoked as this is a bit of a favourite holiday lunch (being an excuse to eat dip and cheese as a meal). This one pushes/bends/distorts/breaks the boundaries of being English as I'm pretty sure none of the ingredients we used could really be considered (a) in a traditional Plowman's Lunch or (b) even English. It's our challenge and we can make the rules up as we go!



Finally tea - Toad in the Hole (roasted sausages in Yorkshire pudding) followed by Sticky Toffee Pudding.





What a day!

Macedonia

Every element in this dish was tasty. Mo made the bread, which was perfect. The sausage-like items are cevapi, and the salsa is called ajvar, and is made with eggplant and capsicum, amongst other things. We cheated by buying the yoghurt rather than sourcing special Macedonian yoghurt. All accompanied by a delicious fresh salad with feta. Yum. Next: Eng - er - land.