Perfect autumn meal

Tags

food, kielbasa, pierogi, Polish food

While I love summer because I can lay out in the sun and read, I don’t enjoy cooking in the summer because it is usually too hot in the house and too hot for me to feel like moving much. However, when the temps finally drop, I love cooking! Last night was one of those nights.

I’m 100% Polish so I pretty much use butter and onions in anything and everything. I especially love good pierogis and Polish sausage. I like Kasia’s brand pierogi because even though it is is a bit more pricey, the dough has a really fabulous texture that browns nicely in butter….and onions. Now, I grew up on true kielbasa. While it’s good, I actually prefer smoked beef Polish sausage. I like Klement’s and Hillshire Farms. They both taste generally the same and I usually go with whatever is on sale.

Here is what I made last night:

Follow these steps to be successful!

1. Thaw frozen pierogi. (I also had to thaw the kielbasa because I had previously frozen it when I got home from the grocery store). Everything just cooks faster when it’s not frozen.

2. Chop onions to preferred size. Meanwhile, heat pan on medium. Add butter. I don’t measure. I just take a big heaping spoonful. It should be enough to cook onions and pierogis. Butter should sizzle.

3. Add onions to pan. Stir/move vigorously to get them evenly coated in butter. About 2 min.

4. Add thawed pierogi to pan. Allow it to cook on each side for about 2 min. A slight browning will appear. While pierogis cook, cut kielbasa into 3 – 4 inch lengths. After you’ve flipped pierogis once, add kielbasa to pan. I put all the pierogis on one side and all the sausage on the other (as seen in the pic). Continue to flip pierogis and rotate kielbasa and stir onions for about 10 min. If you have enough butter, nothing will stick. Add more if it seems like it is sticking. I also put the lid on to kind of get all the flavors/aroma to mesh together.

5. When it’s ready, put on plate – with lots of tasty onions on top – and add a side of sour cream.

I also made acorn squash in the oven. Once it’s cooked, I flip the halves right-side up and add lots of butter (surprised?), brown sugar, a dash of chinese five spice powder and a dash of curry into the “bowl” of the squash. I take a fork and stab it around to get the flavors to mix/permeate. I put the oven on warm/low and just let it sit in there while I cooked the ingredients mentioned above. The aroma of onions, kielbasa, and spicey squash was to die for!!!!

So here it is plated:

Prep – 5 min to cut squash in half and put in baking dish with water. 5 min to open pierogi and kielbasa packages. 2 min chop onions.

Actual cook time – 40 min squash. 15 min pierogi, kielbasa, and onions.

This meal was so filling and perfect after a hard day’s work!

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Rhythm of the seasons

Tags

fall, fall cooking, yard work

I am starting to enjoy each of the seasonal changes now that I have a house to take care of. This is the third autumn at our little homestead in the nearly “backwoods” of WI. My husband and I have decided once a week (sometime between Thurs, Fri, or Sat) that it is “pick up as many buckets of walnuts as you can day.” I love everything about this time of year and I think my husband hates everything about it. Haha.

Why I love being outside in the fall:

1. 50 – 60 degree temps after mid 90s in summer = instantly more enjoyable

2. Looking up into the tallest branches of the walnut trees and seeing the sun shine through so the walnuts are black globs waiting to drop

3. Watching Twiggy hunt bugs among the leaves and dying garden foliage

4. Listening to geese fly over head

5. Smelling the piney/rotting scent of walnuts when they plop into the bucket

6. Listening to my husband shout, “oh god they’re EVERYWHERE!” every time he walks around and picks up walnuts

After a really hot hot spring in 2012, the 2013 spring seemed to take forever to arrive and then for the ground to warm and the plants to bloom. Summer, this year, was much better than last because the grass did not die and the plants survived and so did we – mostly. Fall is here again. I much prefer cooking in the fall winter because I love making soups, stews, and casseroles – not really ideal when the house is 80 degrees, but awesome when it is a cool 40 or 50 outside. Last night I made Campbell’s Butternut Squash Bisque soup (yep. I don’t have a food processor, so Campbell’s makes it for us) and added fresh acorn squash and made homemade croutons to put on top of it. It was excellent; the perfect Friday night fall time dinner. Tonight, since it will almost reach 60 today, dinner will be Polish sausage, sauerkraut pierogies, and onions all sauteed together. Hurray!!

Finished Living Room Redecorate – as good as it gets

I suppose everyone has, once they move into their first house, that one room that somehow gets all the new updates/redecorating attention. Well for us, it was our living room. I was not a fan of how our living room furniture from our first apartments went with each other’s furniture or how it didn’t fit into the historical interior of the house. I was willing to wait a while until we found “the perfect” stuff. The first to get changed out were the couches. We had two (one for each of us). We gave away my husband’s and moved mine to the enclosed back porch. Next, we finally got what we refer to as “adult end tables.” Now our couch is a faded red, which I love because it won’t show the dirt. Next, in each of our apartments, we had survived with the three tier dorm side table meets bookshelf contraption. Again, fine for an apartment, but not so much for an older home. So last summer when I was in Minneapolis visiting my sister we hit several large antique stores and I found two perfect tables. (It was one of those moments that you kind of know what you are looking for, but only sort of and so you rely on your instinct of “I’ll know it when I see it.” Yeah that was me. It worked). Well with new end tables, we had to update the TV stand. We got a “build it yourself vintage inspired” model from Target. It fits really well. Then, the “bachelor chair” and my dorm chairs looked a little out of place. I desperately wanted my dorm chairs (from the 30s) reupholstered. I was willing to wait again until the perfect fabric inspired me. But then my husband convinced me to want and subsequently buy new chairs and move my old ones to the art studio. Woohoo. Another shopping excursion. I could not say no to that! We bought three new chairs altogether; two to replace mine and one to replace his bachelor chair. Because they had the two chairs (replacing mine) already in stock, we took them with us that day and just a few weeks ago, “his” chair arrived and we picked it up. My parents have always had fairly traditional furniture in terms of style and fabrics. While I love a beautiful floral print, I wasn’t so sure I wanted that type of fabric. I prefer more traditional lines, but more fun vintage graphic prints. Sooooo…..my husband found the chair he thought was the comfiest and I picked out fabric………with words……..Latin words. And he LOVED it. What?!!!?? I guess he is an English teacher. Hehe. I really didn’t expect picking out fabric to be that easy. I was just being funny and slightly obnoxious when I suggested dark grey fabric with cream colored Latin words. But if you love it….I guess that’s the one.

Here are the pictures!!!!

Living room with apartment furniture

My dorm chair

Autumn on the Farm

Tags

1860s, fall

Fall time in the Midwest cannot get much better. The walnut leaves have started to drop and we picked up our first buckets of walnuts this Thursday. At Old World Wisconsin, they have a lovely program from Sept to Oct 13 called “Autumn on the Farm” where they go through the harvest traditions and all things “autumn.” I’m so happy to be a part of this too!!! After three weekends in a row of reenacting with people I love, I now get to go back and see many of my summer friends/coworkers. This will be weekend number four of “dress up/pretend”. 😀 😀 Today I don 1860’s attire!!!

 

Here I am in the kitchen of the 1860’s house. It is a fabulous home to be in and interpret. I wish my house were that big. In the picture below, I am making cucumber catsup aka pickle relish. It’s really easy: finely chop cucumbers, onions, and red peppers (spicy or not, your choice). Put in a layer of those ingredients and top that layer with a sprinkle of salt. Then put in another layer of the chopped ingredients, sprinkle with salt. Keep repeating until the crock or jar is full. Cover and let it sit over night. Press out liqour (not sure if that just means the liquid or what; the recipe is from 1869) and add vinegar. Then bottle it and seal the bottles otherwise the cucumbers will spoil.

Sanford kitchen

Sanford porch

What are you packing?

Tags

18th century clothing, packing, reenacting events

This was the prompt from The Writer magazine. Packing….hmmm like heat? I guess for me this is really literal. The end of summer comes with three reenacting weekends in a row. I wait all summer for them (because besides being at my cottage, they are the most fun) and then they are over; poof! Just like that. A friend in my unit have adopted of “subsist for 48 hrs on as little as you can.” Yet, I have always followed the Girl Scout rule of, if you can carry it, you can bring it. Ha. When reenacting and staying overnight for the event, I like to have a fresh change of everything. The only thing I don’t mind wearing again is one or two petticoats because if they already smell like smoke and I’ll be around the fire all day, why not start the day by smelling smokey. Plus, who doesn’t like the smell of campfire. I also like to wear at least 3 petticoats. It’s more fun and kind of freaks people out. I usually wear one plain and two striped…because I can. The French love their stripes! So I’m at least bringing six petticoats with me. Then, I have my jacket and/or gown. I like to bring both….because they are pretty. Those are the main garments, not even the undergarments; only one set of stays, but at least 3 – 4 pairs of stockings (in case I fall in a lake or something), pockets, shoes, etc. This is just what I wear. I am slowly acquiring more sewing gear and camp/cook gear too. It’s fun, but I can really see how this gets out of control quickly!

All of my lovely 18th century items get lovingly packed into my car for three weekends in a row. It helps me start the school year off in a positive mindset which I love.

Cooking breakfast at Pioneer Village 2013

Color change

Tags

change of seasons, driving to work, flowers

I love flowers. I’m a girl. What can I say. Though cliche and stereotypical, I picked countless bouquets for my mom at the cottage in the summer. I still enjoy clipping fresh flowers/foliage from around my yard starting in early spring and going into fall. Who doesn’t? But this summer, I had a job. I drove down the same highways each day. The best part about those drives: watching the seasonal flowers bloom and die back and new ones take their place.

At the start of June, there was a lot of purple cone flower, and other delicate yellow flowers (I could’t get close enough to identify), and thistle….lots of tall purple thistle. Then, mid to late June, the chickory bloomed; the color is fabulous. After that, the tall Queen Anne’s Lace and Mullein take over. Finally in August, the colors become extremely bright – it’s like the last hurrah of the summer; the Black-Eyed susan (I think), and some really bright pink spikey flowers.

Now the golden rod is out and it’s such a “fall subdued” color. I have truly enjoyed seeing this change and it brought just a tad more happiness to my days.

First person

Tags

first person interp, goals, reenacting

Sadly, I have few pictures from this event or the ones I did take, did not turn out as well as I’d hoped. As a result, I’m considering getting a new camera or constantly stealing my husband’s when important events require photographic evidence! Alas, this was a fabulous event. I’ve gone regularly over the past few years, but now that I’ve been in the organization a bit, I’m meeting tons of people and I’m becoming more involved which I like. Specifically, I had the opportunity to accomplish something that has always interested me/been my dream (since I was very young). Back when my parents took me to living history museums or to reenactments, the interpreters were largely doing first person interpretations. I was magically transported to another world that I desperately wanted/needed to join and I felt this with every fiber of my being (sorry for the cliche, but it is true). As I grew up, I searched for opportunities where I could make this dream a reality. My sister and I regularly played pretend (up until I was 13 at least) and as anyone who reads a lot knows….it’s not true playing pretend unless you and your siblings and/or friends give yourself alternate names/personalities and develop a vast plot line involving many melodramatic events. Then, when in college and working at a historic lighthouse, I was able to do some first person interp in costume. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. However, other work duties usually took precedence in the morning and evening portion of the work day, so I could not fully immerse myself in the world the way I dreamed about. Then, came reenacting. Woohoo! I was one step closer. I had my clothes. I made my clothes. I met people. It was fabulous. Then I started cooking over the fire more. heh. Fun times. Finally, I was invited to work in an 18th century tavern. I had visited the tavern before as a guest and that was fun because I felt like, yes, this is what someone like me could have done back then! But I was at the tavern for much of the weekend, guided by two wonderful people who are fabulous teachers who made me feel most welcome, and time was spent cooking, washing dishes, and serving people all in first person. GOAL ACHIEVED. Now I crave more!!!! This has truly set me on the path to developing a first person character and staying in character for the entire weekend. If this is not intrinsic motivation, I don’t know what is.

Best thing ever

Tags

1930s claremont oxfords, historical footwear, shoes

School has started. And American Duchess has started another shoe giveaway! What could be better?

http://americanduchess.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/giveaway-claremont-1930s-oxfords.html

Photos are from her website/blog. These shoes are EXACTLY what I need for my 30’s inspired looking dress!

Pioneer Village

Tags

18th century bedgown, manteau de lit

Every Labor Day weekend, there is a nice, small event at Pioneer Village Saukville, WI. It’s kind of cozy. But it’s always more fun when people arrive. I thought I was going to have time to finish my bedgown so I could wear it……not so much. I tried. I sewed about 2 inches. I forgot that I cut the center open and that I had to turn under the edges so they would not fray.  So I have the right and left sides to sew, the collar bit (though I’m still unsure about how that’s supposed to work), and hem the bottom. Three things. That’s it. I could get it done in a day. Alas…..my days are short.

Bristol Ren Faire tomorrow before the first day of school!!!!!!