Eating Ethnic Foods While Using up Homestead Products

Pirogi - A Polish Food using potatoes and sauerkraut.

 I had mentioned before on here that we were planning on watching the Olympics (we really enjoy them!) and then eating foods based on what country got gold in the event that we had chosen for the day. We were able to choose a different style of event for each day with only one repeat. The menu has been based on the previous day's event.

  To be honest I thought (and kind of hoped- because I want them to win!) that we would be eating a lot of American food but that hasn't been the case. So far in the events we had picked out we haven't had an American gold yet. That's all right though as far as the eating is concerned - we have found some yummy recipes and what I have been most excited about is how well many of them work for using up things that we already have on hand and how they have used up the fruit of ours and my parents (as they share much with us) homesteads.

 So just in case you might ever struggle with knowing how to use up "all that cabbage" or need to figure out more creative ways to use potatoes, I encourage you to check out some of the traditional (and even what many of them eat now) foods from other countries - particularly the European ones.

  The other thing that I enjoyed about many of the recipes that I found was the lack of using a can of this or a box of that. So often when I will check out a recipe anymore (like on Pinterest and even in many cookbooks) they will use short cut foods which will actually make it more complicated for me as I don't buy those foods and then I need to figure out how to make the shortcut item first and then proceed with the rest of the recipe.

Here are some of the things we have been eating:

For Russia (opening day we had their food) -

• Blini  A nice thin pancake that used plenty of eggs from our chickens. We also put raspberries in them that we had picked this summer and froze and then for lunch we ate them filled with a fish spread that we made from the fish we had harvested.
• Cabbage Rolls. Using cabbage of course!

For Canada -

• Canadian Hash browns which were just little chunks of potato fried up with a little bit of onion and then we served eggs with them.
• Jiggs Dinner Using Potatoes, cabbage and other wholesome foods.
• Tourtiere - A meat pie

For Poland -

• Potato Pancakes
• Pirogi
• Sauerkraut

For Germany-

•  Gutte Kuchen which used Raspberry jam that we made this summer and I was also able to customize it well for Valentines day.
• Sauerkraut (again - the kids aren't so sure about this but I am happy to use up what we made this summer).
• Boiled Eggs.

For Belarus-

• Cabbage Salad
• Pickles

For Austria-

• Homemade bread (We buy lots of wheat locally so bread is always economical and easy to add to the menu.)
• Knodel - a good way to use up old bread. 

 For the Czech Republic -

• Apple Tart (Jablkovy Dort) using apples put up this fall.

That isn't all the recipes we've used, foods we have eaten or even countries that we have eaten recipes from but they are the ones that I can remember that best used foods that we had in abundance. I just thought it would be fun to share with you how exploring recipes from other countries has actually worked well to use up some of the foods that we have a lot of. If you also have lots of your own homegrown food you might find it fun to try as well.

The Homestead Barn Hop