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.