E for Easter Basket

 

 

People in Poland prepare Easter baskets on Easter Saturday (which is part of the Polish Easter customs). Traditionally, pieces (samples) of foods that are eaten/shared by a family at breakfast on Easter Sunday are placed in a nicely decorated basket. In our family, it was some bread, butter, salt and pepper (mixed together), white sausage, a slice of ham, a hard-boiled egg, and some yeast cake. Besides it all, there was always a decorative lamb in the center of the basket.

 

On Saturday morning, the baskets are taken to church to be blessed by a priest. They were placed on a special table, usually in the church hall, and blessed after a short prayer/ceremony. 

When we were little, we enjoyed watching other people's basket contents - chocolate bunnies and eggs covered with colorful tinfoil happened. However, wooden eggs beat everything.

As for the eggs - after a dilemma: "shelled or unshelled hard-boiled egg" in the basket, we chose the latter option. It seemed more OK to us not to toss the "blessed" shell in the trash later.

Our Easter basket lamb - always the same

After the blessing of the baskets, we usually stepped into the church for a short prayer and to visit Christ's grave (church holiday exposition of course). 

When we were old enough to walk to church (at primary school), either my sister or I took the basket to church. Some kids tended to sample the basket foods on their way back from church to their home. Well, I did not do that.

Embroidery by my grandma

When back at home, the basket content went to the fridge. It came back in the basket on the Easter Sunday breakfast table.

How the breakfast started - Mom cut the food samples into pieces and each person sitting at the table took a piece of each sample. Then we ate more - more eggs, more sausage, and more of everything else.

Mazurek - my favorite Polish Easter cake

July Reminiscences

This year's 4th July/Independence Day has become history. Here are some reminiscences of the holiday parade.

 Photos taken on Independence Day 2021 on our FB page.

 

My First Thanksgiving & Cooking Challenge

When my first Thanksgiving came, I had been in the States for about four months. Holidays in Poland means a lot of cooking and baking at home, so I was willing to make our Thanksgiving feast too. The only problem was, I had no idea what should be on the menu (well, besides turkey). I had never experienced (made /eaten) any Thanksgiving meal - the holiday is not celebrated in Poland.
Luckily, there was the Internet. Two weeks before the big day I started searching the net to find out

• what a traditional Thanksgiving meal consists of,

and most importantly,

• what a traditional Southern Thanksgiving meal consists of.

I read quite a lot of recipes. Finally, I decided to choose a few, made a shopping list and started getting myself ready both physically and mentally also. I practiced in my mind all the cooking and  thought through my holiday kitchen work. Since I did not have the faintest idea how most of those dishes should taste, I decided to follow the recipes which I had chosen and was hoping for the best.

A day before Thanksgiving I made a pecan pie (first time in my life too) and baked cornbread for the dressing.

Next day I cooked. I seasoned the turkey and put it into the oven. I found the breast size (as big as a baseball) a bit intimidating, so my husband helped me with checking on it during the baking time. I worked for a few hours not being sure what the result of my challenge would be.

To my surprise, and a great relief, it all worked out so well! The turkey was juicy and tender, and everything tasted really good. My husband was happy and I was happy. If the food had not been tasty, our first Thanksgiving would have been a disaster, considering also all the load which would have been wasted. But it was not - everything was eaten and disappeared from the plates and pots quite quickly!

I have kept all those recipes and have been using them since them. 

God bless all the guys who have shared their wonderful (Southern) recipes on their websites! They saved our first Thanksgiving. :)