Lord, Bless this Easter Basket

So besides falling off the writing bandwagon for what I suppose is a week and a half now, I've up and moved to St. Catharines finally. Piotr and I spent our first night in the apartment last night (which is only partially furnished until my parents come on the 17th to move my crap out of the Huron St. apt in London).

So much has happened even in the couple days that I have lived down here now.
1. I got a full time job as a reservations agent in Niagara Falls. I should be excited about it because I love the hospitality industry, but it's in a cubicle in a basement with no windows.
2. I fell down the stairs, or rather slid down them yesterday at Piotr's parent's house. They were only 7 or 8 steps, but I hit my spine and tailbone on every step with the back of my head following after. I wasn't allowed to sleep for two hours because of the possibility of a concussion. No concussion, but one hell of a headache followed. I did wake up today, obviously.
3. Piotr and I took an Easter basket filled with kielbasa, babka, and other goodies to be blessed by the priest today. It's Polish tradition. Tomorrow we eat it and lots of other yummy goodness. I should really be a cook.4. I've mixed up the breakfast casserole my parents make every Easter ready to be cooked for breakfast tomorrow. Think 9 eggs, 3 cups of milk, 3 cups of cheese, 1lb of breakfast sausage sliced small all mixed together and poured over six slices of bread in a 9x13 casserole dish. Sits overnight. Cook in the morning for 45 min at 350F covered with tin foil, then another 10 with the foil off. Serve and Smacznego!
5. I feel like even though Piotr and I live together we're not really spending 'quality time' together so far. He took an extra shift at work during the Easter holiday weekend when he doesn't even have another day off. His buddy is in town for the weekend from Ottawa and is leaving tomorrow, and went to go hang out with him today even though we were supposed to dye some Easter eggs already and whatnot. I don't really care about him taking the time to hang out with his buddy at all, but this could have been planned out better so that he didn't have to break plans with me to do it. Because let me tell you, there's nothing I like better than dying eggs at 11:30pm when I have to get up early the next day. *sigh* So is life. I guess the reality of it is I'm just lonely. I'm here in a new city and don't know anyone. Hell, I'm not even in my own country yet again. I don't understand why every time he goes to hang out with his friends he can't invite me along once. "It's like a boys only kinda thing" doesn't really cut it with me. Every time I went out with my girlfriends in London or Burlington, he was always invited. I find this annoying. So that's it about my personal rants and what's been happening. Even though my bloggin class is done and I don't have to write in this anymore, I will continue to do so because it is really great to get stuff off of my chest.

BTW...my new neighbors smoke weed and try to cover it up with some nasty-smelling perfume, which makes it smell even worse. Disgusting.

Gulasz

I'm trying to clean out my freezer and fridge before I move in two weeks, so I let 1.3lbs of beef cubes out to thaw out last night. With that much beef, you can easily make two dishes and then freeze it, so that's what I did.

One dish I made was a chunky beef chili, but I want to focus on the other dish I made, which is a Polish favorite: Gulasz

This is such an easy meal to make if you cheat like I do and buy the sauce mix from a local Polish specialty store. Actually I think you can even get it in Food Basics if you're lucky. The only problem is it is usually in Polish and if you don't know how to read it, you might be out of luck if you're not good at guessing.

So what you'll need:

1lb stewing beef cubes

1 carrot

1 tsp minced garlic

1 yellow onion

1 packet Knorr gulasz mix

2 cups water (500ml)

2 tbsp butter

2 stalks celery

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 potatoes

sour cream

maggi seasoning

Like I said, this is an uber simple recipe:

I cut the cubed stewing beef into smaller bite-size pieces because I find it can get a little chewing in this recipe. I would recommend cutting a big cube into about three smaller pieces. At the same time, take the carrot, shred it, and set it aside. Also dice up the yellow onion and two stalks of celery and set aside. Save about a half cut of the diced celery for later use.

In a frying pan, place the meat inside with a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil. Fry the meat while stirring intermediately so as not to burn the meat. The small meat pieces will cook quicker than they would if left their normal size so pay close attention.

Drain the fat and oil and add chopped veggies. Stir continuously for a few minutes to the veggies fry a bit before adding water.

Add 2 cups of water. While stirring with a fork or whisk, slowly add gulasz sauce mix a little at a time. Reduce heat to low, put a lid on the pan, and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

About fifteen minutes before the gulasz is ready, I make homemade garlic mashed potatoes. You can make this to your own personal tastes.

When everything is ready to serve, place the mashed potatoes in a bowl and then pile the gulasz on top. Then add a dolop or two of sour cream and add the rest of the diced celery to the top of the sour cream. As a finishing touch, sprinkle some drops of Maggi seasoning on top for a very delicious flavor!

Hungry? How about some Meatloaf?

I made meatloaf last night and it turned out so well, I thought I'd jot down the recipe on here:

1 lb. ground beef
1 pkg lipton onion soup mix
2 eggs
1 cup plain breadcrumbs
2/3 cup traditional italian tomato sauce

Combine all the ingredients together and place into a non-greased baking pan. Mold it into a loaf shape and bake at 325 for 45-60min depending on your oven. I always look at the recipe on the Lipton's Soup box, but I change it around a bit to meet my needs. For instance, they use ketchup and I use tomato sauce. I think it just tastes better that way.


Enjoy!