Amaze me August #51~ ROMANIAN PARTY FOOD ~ Come eat with me!!

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ROMANIAN PARTY FOOD

Do you all know I'm Romanian. Well I am, I was born in Romania, but raised in the US, 24 years in California before moving to the south! If there is one thing you must know about Romanians it's that we love our food, A LOT! Oh and we are also really loud, especially the woman.

Back in Romania people used to raise much of their own food, especially if you lived in the country, which is where most of my family lived. Pork was a staple food back then, and still is for many. Even though we all pretty much have lived here for over 20 years, we still eat like we are back home, especially when it comes to party food.

While many of you know that I am really trying hard to eat healthier, local, organic food, I have a major weakness for Romanian food. I just enjoy it too much, so thankfully we don't party all the time, and I stay clear of it most of the time. If you are not a meat eater, you might just FREAK OUT with the amount of meat here, but hey, it is how Romanians typically eat, so I am happy to share it with you today. I hope you enjoy the tour.

Without fail if there is a Romanian party going on, you will ALWAYS have the same kinds of food, EVERY SINGLE TIME. You will have appetizers, which consist of all kinds of PORK lovely meat. Salamis, bacon, head cheese, PORK, PORK, PORK. Typically there will be sausages too, usually homemade by the uncles, which I have two of here, so we always have a good supply of this. Then we have the main meal, which is more MEAT, but we vary, sometimes chicken, beef, and usually PORK as well. Cabbage Rolls are a very traditional food, and those are made typically with pork. Then of course we have dessert. 

I wanted to take you with me through the buffet line at my aunt and uncles house. We had a party there this weekend, celebrating a birthday and a graduation. It was tons of fun, and  i thought you might enjoy this little walk through of what you can eat at a typical Romanian party. Ready??? Lets GO.

This was my FIRST appetizer plate. I kind of had seconds. The appetizers are probably my most favorite part of the meal. I just LOVE them. 

These are my uncles getting ready to drink some Romanian plum whiskey, homemade, and pretty much DEADLY if you aren't used to it. My nose hairs literally burn just smelling it. I can't drink that NO way, but it is a tradition, and men regularly take a shot OR two EVERY SINGLE day back in Romanian after a long days work, to get ready for dinner. It's supposed to work up an appetite :)

You see, we eat fruits too, lol. There were green grapes, and peaches in the basket.

ALRIGHT lets get started. This is where the food starts.
BREAD!!

YUMMY meat platter. That in the middle is bacon, raw smoked bacon, and thats just how we eat it, thank you very much. It is SOOOO good too. (sigh)

Green onions, and hot chillies, yes please. We totally have onion breath at out parties, and nobody cares.

An assortment of lovely veggies, because this is how we eat our appetizer. MEAT, VEGGIES, BREAD. That is a very typical snack food too. Just grab some salami from the fridge, cut some tomato a cucumber, some feta cheese, some olives, garlic, or onion, and bread. YUMM!!

Did I mention the onion breath??

Tomatoes!

Cheese!!

Eggplant salad - VINETE - or baba  ga something, lol.

The tastiest homemade meatballs EVER!!

Chicken liver cooked with onions, moist, delicious, and oh so good.

Bell pepper and onion roasted goodness.  - ZAKUSCA -
READY FOR THE SECOND COURSE???Oh another thing, our parties usually only start at around 7pm, whit everyone usually showing up between 8-9pm, because Romanian are ALWAYS, ALWAYS late. So dinner is usually served at around 11pm, or even later sometimes. We are crazy, and the party lasts easily until 4-5 am in the morning. Lots of dancing, and always lots of homemade drinks. 

Potatoes, seasoned with vegeta, and paprika, and surely some pork drippings.

Turkey!

Rice!

Cabbage Rolls, OMG I love these. I can't wait to share some recipes with you!!

Our veggie for dinner. A cabbage salad, he he.

Chicken! NO thats not ALL fat, :)

Pork, SHNITEL. I dont' know what to call this in English people, HELP??

Chicken!

More chicken!

Pretty flowers.

My dessert plate, OMG, totally had seconds too.

Walnut croissants, with powdered sugar. - CORNULETE-

A delicious coffe mocha cake, with crunchy chocolaty something in the cake. FINGER licking good.

A plum preserve honey cake, with some tasty cream and fluffy whipped cream on top.

Plum jelly rolls.

A lemony dessert.

Cozonac- A sweet bread.

Oh and the CAKES. If you want to see the close ups make sure to stop by my cake blog. They were pretty amazing. A jewelry box cake, and a graduation star cake.
I'll be posting them tomorrow!!
EURO STYLE CAKES.

So there you have it. A tour of our party food. Lucky for you, I don't think you can gain any weight by looking, but I assure you, take one bite, and you can't stop. 4 pounds later, I think I'm full, lol. 
Actually this is NOT funny, I seriously PIGGED out. I need to work on saying NO to the party food. Tell me, do you have a hard time eating well at parties? Do you even care? Obviously I don't, which is kinda bad, since I am trying to get healthier here. Hopefully I will do better next time :)
Oh and have you check THIS out yet. Make sure you do, I promise, you don't want to miss out. 

Romanian Church Potluck

Our Church caught on fire last month on May 5th. Since the fire Sunday mass has been held outside, and the service has been moved to a much earlier time due to extreme heat later in the afternoon. Regardless everyone still gathers for Church every Sunday, and once a month there is a potluck meal. There is so much food, and you will notice a LOT of special breads, and a particular type of sweet called COLIVA, which is eaten in honor of the dead. There are lots of candles, and red wine, and after the service the Priest blesses the food, and everyone there, and it's time to eat.

 Take a look at all that yumminess. Don't get me wrong but you will never find donuts here, at least not store bought ones, hehe. Romanians love to eat, and we love to eat good food. That big round bread on the left there is a sweet kind of bread with raisin.

 Our Priest blessing the food. Can you see those two cake looking things there towards the center, that is COLIVA. It is absolutely delicious and as soon as I get a good recipe I will share it with you.

I hope you enjoyed that little peak into a typical Romanian Church Sunday. Well typical if you are Romanian Orthodox like we are. However despite the religion, one thing you WILL find in common is the food, no matter what church you go to. As long as there are Romanians there, you will find plenty of great homemade delicious food.

Hello HAM, BEANS, and Moms FRESH BREAD!

*** Announcements***

I have officially started my AMAZE me AUGUST weekly party starting every TUESDAY.  The party only ends when the next one starts, so please go HERE my Amaze me August Page on TOP to enter and join in the fun. Show me what you got girls, I look forward to all the AMAZING things you will be sharing.

Can't resist sharing with you guys a very dear recipe from childhood. This has always been one of my MOST FAVORITE soups (ciorbas) of all time. Ciorba is what you call a thick kind of soup in Romanian, and Ciorbas are always a bit sour. The sourness coming from the canned tomatoes, and sour cream at the end, but often during the cooking process we add something called Borsch, or some juice from pepperoncini, or pickles, or something like that. 

Ok so quickly want to say Hi to all my dear friends, who I finally got to see this weekend. After not seeing them it seems all summer long. It was so nice to catch up with them, and wish my little football player a Happy Birthday. This little boy is the most solid kid at 2 you have ever seen, and CUTE as a button. His little smile and dimples melt my heart. So while celebrating with my friends, I had several of them tell me how they enjoyed my blog. Who knew, not me, and I blushed a bit. It's a great feeling though, and I was really happy naturally. 

One friend in particular gave me some very helpful advice on my cooking posts. While she says that she loved it, and wanted to follow along she had a hard time, going from recipe to recipe, as I  had to many at one time. Sorry guys if you have been experiencing this problem. I was just trying to document how I cook, and this is how I do it. Very much all over the place, doing several things at once, and of course not being a recipe kind of gal, I have been struggling with creating actual RECIPES.

However I will try my best to break it up for you guys, and make it as reader friendly as possible. My whole goal in posting these is that you may experience my love and passion for food, and not be scared. After hearing my friends advice, I wondered if I actually am scaring people with the amount of info I am giving, so  from now on I promise to take it slow, and even if it kills me, I will try to explain in the traditional kind of recipe kind of way. 

I often buy these large hams, as they are WAY less expensive than buying small quantities of diced ham, which I love to have for eggs, in the mornings. We love bacon around here, but have given up on eating it, hardly ever, and just use ham instead, or this delicious uncured turkey bacon, but anyway. 

Here is how I dice it up, and what I do with that bone when I'm done. A quick call to my mom, and she is joining us for dinner, and bringing over FRESH HOMEMADE BREAD, oh yeah, I know, 

Dinner is served ladies and gents. This is Romanian Style all the way, so come on read up and PLEASE do try this yummy meal. 

Ciorba de Fasole~~ The BEST Bean soup EVER

• A large Ham Bone, or a couple small Ham Hocks, or make it Veggie and skip this altogether :)
• Small bag of White beans. I used 1 1/2 bags of white NAVY BEANS.
• About 4-6 carrots, depending on size, and if you like a lot of carrots, just add more :)
• 1 parsnip, looks like a white carrot.
• 2 large onions
• 3 ribs of celery
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes, any kind you have on hand, even tomato sauce, or paste.
• 2 TBS smoked paprika
• salt, pepper
• VEGETA, this is a European seasoning that we use ALL THE TIME. Found at specialty stores.
• Parsley ( I didn't have, but is lovely as a garnishment)
• Sour Cream for that ever so tasty tang and creaminess at the end. 
• Onion salad ( A MUST )
• Fresh thick crusted, warm on the inside, melt in your mouth BREAD made by MOM (a MUST)

My ham being diced up, Some will be left sliced, and then fried a bit for ham steaks, yummo. 

All done, off to the freezer you go. See how much ham I got, oh yeah, and not to mention that bone, just waiting to make my soup taste ever so yummy. 

Simplicity at it's best. How much easier people, go hurry, and make some. It is SOOO GOOD. 

Woops, forgot to tell you guys about the beans. SO you should normally soak them the night before, to release some of that gas, and make them quicker to cook, but I forgot. So cooking them up in the pressure cooker with a little water always does the trick. I just let it cook, until I heard it start to whistle, turned off the heat, let it cool, then rinsed the beans. Now I'm ready too cook. I added more water, and the bone, and some salt. Let those puppies cook, and added my pepper, and vegeta. THAT'S IT, easy. Now read on for the rest, which is also just as easy. I promise.

2 onions diced up and chillin in the pan, just added the smoked paprika. Now let them soften a bit more. 

See the bone start falling apart, yeah just let it cook baby, and all the meat will fall off the bone, and hopefully land in your bowl, or if you are the one cooking things can be arranged,  he he. 

When your ham and beans are pretty much cooked, add the canned tomatoes. 

The rest of my diced up veggies get a quick spin in the pan with the onions, and into the soup they go. 

Can you smell, that, can you feel it, the crust was literally still crackling. Oh my goodness, this is heaven on earth.

My Mom, and Dino D with the bread as big as him. THANK MAMI, for the wonderful treat.

My very simple table set up, who cares about decorating, when my tummy was grumbling over the smells. 

Bread was still piping hot, and smelled OH SO GOOD!

My lovely Ciorba de Fasole, which my mom actually gave me 10 stars on, WOW, she must have been having a really good day, or she was really hungry or something. She never gives me 10 stars, and often finds something to say to help me make it better. But last night, well, I was floored. She said it was PERFECT. :)

The bread cut up and ready to be devoured. Of course the kids went for the fluffly middle, leaving all that crust, so I was happily eating it after them. My favorite part, is the crust. 

Onion salad, THAT HAS TO BE EATEN with this soup. I'm telling you, you have to eat it OK. All you do is SLICE up your onions, smoosh them with some salt, and add a bit of oil. Then eat, and go kiss someone, or not, your choice.

My DINNER, oh yumm. So what did you eat last night?

My dear friends, I hope that you enjoyed this recipe, and PLEASE for the love of GOD, go make your family some. It's cheap, and so dang good. Remember me when you do, and let me know how it was OK. I hope this was much easier to follow, and if you guys have any other suggestions on how to make my recipes even better, please let me know. I'm a work in progress, but trying.

I am sharing this yumminess over at all these lovely parties!! 

Still trying to figure out the best way to display them so please hang in there, while I try to implement the BEST solution ever to showing the love to all the hard working hosts for linky parties, I know now what it takes, and I for one LOVE YOU ALL :)

Spotlight Yourself @ Its so Very Cherri
Penny Pinching Party @ The Thrifty Home

Whatever Goes Wednesdays @ Someday Crafts

As always ENJOY!

Special requests, or mad love always welcome:)
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