Grzaniec or Polish Mulled Wine

Grzaniec (pronounced Gshzah-nee-ets) is a wonderful drink to enjoy during the Christmas preparations. 


Between temperatures beginning to drop, outdoor Christmas decorations, shopping, and other outdoor activities, something warm (and soul warming) can make the holidays... brighter.  Especially if you are lucky enough to enjoy shopping at an outdoor Christmas market, such as those offered in Chicago or throughout Europe. 


We are personally hoping and planning on enjoying the Christmas market at Wroclaw's Rynek next year.  A mug of Grzaniec will be in my hands.


Before you make Grzaniec, enjoy this video I found of Wroclaw's Christmas Market last year.





Grzaniec is really just a way to warm and flavor red wine and the variations are many.

In my own personal experience, the different recipes vary based on region, family traditions, and the flavor of the wine that you purchase (which, years ago, different regions had different wines available to them).

Here is the version I made last night.


Ingredients:

1 quart of Red Wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon
1/2 cup Local Honey
1 Cinnamon Stick
5 whole Cloves, lightly crushed
1 whole Nutmeg
1/2 Bay leaf
1 tablespoon Orange Zest


Place the cloves into a spice ball or place all the spices into a cheesecloth bag.

Add all ingredients to a pot and bring almost to a boil, stirring to make sure the honey completely melts and mixes into the wine.


Serve steaming hot in a mug.

Smacznego!  Or rather, Na zdrowie!...




Notes: 

This post was inspired by the Embassy of Poland in D.C.  I'd love for you to follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Local wine is a great option for this as it goes well with the local honey.  Also, it's more environmentally responsible.

Don't Drink and Drive!  I lost a friend to a drunk driver years ago.  He was only 19 years old and all of his friends were basically just kids and mourning his senseless murder.  Please don't be a part of that...

Barszcz Meets Pot Roast

I found a recipe online called "Polish Pot Roast" from the 1970's. 

I decided to make it for dinner last night. I figured I could get a couple of days without having to stress over making dinner while I prepare for Wigilia.

 

I think next time, I will cook the cabbage in water seperately for about a half hour before adding to the dish, since the flour from the meat will have by then made a thick sauce that doesn't really help to soften the cabbage well enough for my personal preference.


Also, I think the beets could then be added to the cabbage for another 1/2 hour to get the flavors to blend together more.


It did turn out to have the flavor of Barszcz in the form of a Pot Roast.  It was a hit in our house.  I hope you enjoy this recipe I found.


Today, I am making a list for the local Polish store.  Included on the list are Oplatki, Dried Polish mushrooms, Kielbasa (for Christmas Day and Bigos), Sauerkraut.  We are also starting to make cookies, such as Bezy, Pierniczki and Kolaczki.


How are your Wigilia and Christmas preparations going?




Related Posts:

Another Version of Barszcz

My Favorite Holiday Memories

My Meatless Golabki

Mushroom Soup With Letfovers From Thanksgiving

Every year for Thanksgiving, I make Busia's Mushrooms for my husband.  While living in Baltimore, I usually made about 15 pounds worth every year for about 8-12 people. 

This year in Illinois, I made 10 pounds for 5 people, two of whom are young children.  So, my husband has a larger amount of mushrooms for himself, which he gloats over and eats.

My Tato wanted to have some soup made with the mushrooms for himself and I thought to share the recipe.  It's extremely simple and still satisfying.



Ingredients:

2 cups of Busia's Mushrooms
16 oz. of Beef or Chicken Broth
pinch of Curly Parsley
Pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon of Vegeta, if you like
Sour Cream


In a food processor, add the Mushrooms and a bit of the broth.  Finely chop.

In a crock pot or small saucepan, add the chopped Mushrooms, all the remaining broth, the curly parsley, pepper and Vegeta.

Cook on low for a while until the flavors have developed.

Serve with a dollop or two of Sour Cream mixed in.

Smacznego!




Notes: 

You do not need Vegeta for this recipe, it's merely an ingredient my Tato grew up with and on occasion enjoys in his soups. 

If you find that the recipe could use a certain something instead, you could add a small bit of celery, carrot, garlic and onion into the food processor as well, enough to make no more than about a 1/4 cup total after being chopped.  You don't want the soup to be dominated by any added ingredients, just to help bring out the flavors of the Mushroom Soup.




Related Posts:

Barszcz Czerwony One Way

Mushroom Soup or Zupa Pieczarkowa

Our Date at a Local Polish Restaurant: Smak Tak

Creamy Carrot Sauce

This is actually not a Polish dish.  This is a cooking experiment by a preparations-for-Thanksgiving-frazzled Polish Mama gone right.  Happily.


I tried to make a creamy sauce for Pork chops and noodles inspired by Carrots in Cream or Marchewka w Smietanie

It was very easy to make and snuck vegetables into the kids.  Well, I'm not sure it's sneaking when they see tiny bits of carrot in the sauce.  But they didn't even really think twice to try the sauce and loved it.

So, I'm sharing with you a, what I would call, Polish American twist for dinner.  Obiat!  As my toddler calls to everyone when she sees Mama start to plate up.



Ingredients:

2 tablespoons Butter or Sunflower Oil
5-6 Boneless Pork Chops, seasoned with Salt and Pepper on both sides
5-6 Carrots, washed, peeled
1/2 Sweet Onion, peeled, washed, diced
2 tablespoons Flour
1-2 tablespoons any combination of the following:  Curly Parsley, Marjoram, Dill
1 cube of instant Beef or Cicken bouillon *
1/4 cup dry white Wine
1 1/2 cup of Milk or Cream
Pepper to taste


Finely chop carrots or place in food processor.  Set aside.

Melt butter in large skillet and cook pork chops over medium heat for about 5 minutes.  Turn pork chops.

Add carrots and onions and cook for an additional 5 minutes or until pork chops are cooked through.

Set pork chops aside. 

In same skillet, add flour and herbs and stir together.  Add wine and milk.  Add pepper to taste.  Cook and stir until thickened. 

Return pork chops to sauce and cook a few minutes longer until the flour flavor is gone from the sauce.

You can mix in whole grain pasta to the sauce, if you like.

Forgive the hastily taken photo, Thanksgiving preparations are leaving us very busy...

Smacznego!





Notes:

*  Instead of Instant Bouillon cubes, you can use a 1/2 cup or so of broth and just add as much milk as you like, probably a bit less.




Related Posts:

Stuffed Pork Chops, One Way

Pork Chops in Sauerkraut or Schab w Kiszonej Kapuście

Polish Herbed Meatloaf or Klops Wolowy





Also, if you feel that you would want to, please donate using the paypal button below to help us pay for our next trip (I promise to share pictures when we go!)...

Polish Tomato Soup Made by My Tato

My Tato loves tomatoes.  He has about 7 different dishes that he makes just for himself out of tomatoes.  Of course, he is always delighted when someone wants to eat some of his tomato creations.

Because it is the end of the Tomato season for many of us, with frost already either having arrived or about to arrive across the Northern Hemisphere, this is a great time to use up the last of those shiny red beauties in a warm soup.

Ingredients:

1-2 tablespoons butter (or olive oil)

1/2 a Leek, carefully washed and sliced

2 ribs of celery, sliced

2 carrots, washed, peeled and sliced carrots

1 clove garlic, minced

6 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2-3 pounds peeled and chopped tomatoes

handful of fresh curly parsley, chopped

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon marjoram

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup cooked rice or uncooked pasta

Garnish with sour cream (optional)

 

In a large saucepan, saute leek, celery, carrots and garlic until leek is soft. Add stock, tomatoes, marjoram, bay leaf, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered 1 hour or until carrots are tender and tomatoes have "melted" and the broth has reduced a bit.

Add the pasta to cook or toss in the cooked rice.  You can serve with sour cream if you like but we just eat it as is.

Smacznego!

Note:  Before adding the pasta or rice, some people like to puree the soup, which you can do if you like.

I shared a photo of this recipe a couple of weeks ago when we were battling croup in the house.

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"Polish" Roasted Chicken

We are finally starting to feel better in my house so I am going to share this roasted chicken recipe I had made a few days ago and head out to a local farm for some Autumnal fun with the toddler.

My "Polish" Roasted Chicken recipe is just one version of the same idea.  Certain ingredients are quintessential in Polish cuisine (can you spot them in this recipe?) and many typical recipes in the USA are either influenced by the large mass of Polish immigrants over the years or by another country's immigrants who share similar styles.

The recipe for Roasted Chicken is always very easy and comforting for many.



Ingredients:

1 Chicken for roasting, rinsed well inside and out
2-3 Garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 a stick of Butter
1 tablespoon Paprika
Salt and Pepper


Stuffing:

enough Bread for stuffing (depends on the size of the chicken, this one only held 4 slices)
1 Egg
1 tablespoon of Marjoram, Curly Parsley, or Dill
1 chicken liver, chopped finely
1/4 stick of Butter or 2 tablespoons of chicken broth or bacon fat
Salt and Pepper


Prep the chicken:

Preheat oven to 400-425 degrees. 

Sprinkle salt, pepper, and paprika all over the outside of the chicken. 

Rub the inside cavity with the garlic cloves and place inside. 

Place pats of butter under the skin next to the breast meat.



Prep the stuffing:

Mix the ingredients together. 

Stuff inside chicken. 

Use a very thin slice of bread end, if you like, to help seal in the stuffing.  This is a trick my grandmother-in-law, our Busia, used to use. 

Truss the chicken if you do that.  I usually just tuck in the wings because I have two small children and never enough time.



Place stuffed chicken in roasting pan with a little bit of water on the bottom.  Add washed potatoes and onions around the outside, if you like.

Bake for about 15 minutes then turn down the temperature to 350 degrees and roast for an additional 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of your chicken.  The meat should reach an internal temperature of 180 degrees.

A trick my mother taught me to know when a chicken was done was to see how the drumstick felt.  If it felt as though you could easily pull it right off to eat, the chicken was definitely done.  I did this trick and my older daughter started squeaking right away for the drumstick.

You can serve this with a basic gravy made from the juices in the bottom of the pan if you like or a Hunter's Gravy (pictured here, recipe to come later) or mushroom gravy.

Smacznego!

Forgive the less than perfect photos, I was dealing with a croupy toddler and feeling under the weather myself.

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Photos of Some of Our Cooking Last Weekend

We are battling a nasty bout of croup at my house at this moment.  I hope you will forgive me as I will today just be sharing photos of some of the items I cooked here the past few days.  Recipes will be shared as we start feeling better.

"Glazed Porkloin", also known as Applesauce Pork Roast or Pieczony Schab

"Polish" Roasted Chicken stuffed and baked with potatoes and onions

The drumstick my 5 year old stole off the chicken before I could photograph it all together...

Cheese bread

Kuchen or Placek made with three different plum varieties and a new recipe I found in a handwriting I don't recognize...

Cheesecake stuffed Carrot cupcakes...

My Tati (Dad's) Polish Tomato Soup...

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and have a wonderful week. 

Na razie...

Pork Chops in Sauerkraut or Schab w Kiszonej Kapuście

The temperature here dropped again.  We had a couple of wonderful East Coast Spring days recently.  Now, it is cold with the temperatures in the 40's and 50's with a strong wind whipping across the prairie to the lake. 

The wind and temperatures seem to contradict the recent deer birth my husband witnessed and the Easter bushes blooming outside of my window.

It seems to be the perfect time to make a simple meal out of Pork and Sauerkraut, two of my kitchen staples that I lean on during winter months to get me through to summer.  Schab w Kiszonej Kapuscie is a recipe my mother made when I was little, so it is a family classic.

I can remember her making this dish once when we were living in our 2 bedroom apartment and a blizzard was blowing outside.  My brother and I played Indiana Jones in the living room, fighting Nazis hunting for the Holy Grail.  We both were Indiana Jones.

We didn't know what Nazis were but we knew their accents were supposed to be German and we knew they were mean in the movie.  My mother had of course reminded us that the character Elsa was Austrian and that we had lived there once for a while.  I always am reminded by that movie that I would like one day to revisit that small village in Austria...



Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of Sunflower Oil or Butter
6 pieces of Pork Chops
1/2 sweet Onion, diced
1 clove Garlic, minced
1 33 oz jar of Sauerkraut, drained (I like "with carrots")
1 Bay Leaf
1 pint of Chicken Broth*, or enough to cover all ingredients in pan
Caraway seeds
Marjoram
1 Apple, peeled, cored and diced
Salt and Pepper to taste
Optional:  Dried Polish Mushrooms. I added Oyster Mushrooms, roughly chopped


In a large deep frying pan, warm oil and brown pork chops on each side.  Set aside. 

Add onions and garlic and cook on medium until translucent, scraping off the brown bits on the bottom of the pan.

Add sauerkraut.  Mix in caraway seeds, Bay Leaf, and marjoram.  If using mushrooms, add now.  Place the pork chops on top.  Pour broth on top.  Allow to simmer while covered with lid, for 15 minutes.

Add apple and stir in.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Recover and simmer for an additional 15 minutes, until apple has softened.

Serve with mashed potatoes.

Smacznego!

* I have heard of people using Apple Juice instead.



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