My Travel Plans

I stated in a previous post, that I may be visiting Croatia or Italy very soon. That may not be happening. Due to my boyfriend's change of job assignment, we may be visiting Hawaii or Aruba instead. Also, there is a very good chance I will be going on a Carribbean cruise with him later in the year. He owns a small business that sponsors a company cruise every year for the owners, their families, and their few employees. I don't know any details yet as the cruise has not yet been booked, but my guess is it will be in Aug. I am really excited. I have never been on a cruise, but have heard they are really fun.

Polish Cooking, Yum!

Ever since my boyfriend returned from Poland, we have been doing a lot of Polish cooking. I think I should have been born Polish, because I love it! Tonight we tried to make perogies, which we were told were hard to make. If you've never had them, they're similar to ravioli (the fresh kind, not the Chef Boyardee canned crap) except with often different toppings and fillings than ravioli, and they're often fried or baked.
Here is an example of perogies, but not an actual picture of the ones we made:


When we started cooking, I was convinced that the recipe would be a flop, but it wasn't.

They really weren't hard to make, just time consuming, To make the outside, we combined flour, sour cream, butter, and water. Then we let the dough sit for 30 minutes. Then, we combined the ingredients for the filling (which involved mashed potatoes, sour kraut, Italian sausage, etc). We rolled the dough out into medium size circles. Then we put some filling on top and folded them over. Then we pressed a fork into the seams to seal them. Finally, we boiled them in salted water for about 3 minutes. Then we removed them from the water and fried them in butter (you can also bake them) until brown and slightly crispy. We served them with some sour cream. They were delicious, and my BF said they tasted just like the ones in Poland.

If I can make them, anyone can make them. Yup! I'm a disaster in the kitchen.

My boyfriend told his co workers in Poland that if they ever visit the US, he will cook them a Polish dinner. One of his co workers is actually going to take him up on his offer next month, and we are going to cook him perogies! How cool!

My Trip to the Beach

Ever since my boyfriend returned from his one year job in Poland, we have been tearing up the town and a couple of states, so to speak. We spent a week at a beach in South Carolina a couple of weeks ago. It was an absolute blast! We did lots of exploring, sun soaking, swimming, and I took a TERRIFYING ride on a speed boat and did some deep sea fishing. Now I have been deep sea fishing once before, but this time we chartered our own boat, and it was a really hot looking speed boat. Call me an amateur, but I have never been out on the ocean in a fast boat.

I was holding on so tightly to my boyfriend, he will probably have white marks on his arm forever, heh heh. We had to be going at least 60 mph over waves, maybe more, who knows. When we finally got to a stopping place, the skipper of the boat constantly kept the boat moving, but he often left the wheel to help us. So we are pretty close to several other boats and the skipper is not even at the wheel of the boat while it is still moving forward. He is helping us with our gear. Luckily, we didn't run into other boats. Whew! We did manage to catch about 30 Spanish Mackerel, which we took home. The whole time we were out on the boat, I was dreading the (death defying) ride back to the marina.

One thing that REALLY surprised me about the experience was all of the tiny boats out in the huge ocean. Many people were in boats so small and close to the water, that I would have almost been afraid to take them out on a lake. Our boat was not huge, but luckily it was not that small. I was also surprised how our skipper and other captains were walking the sides of their boats. It was making me nervous, to be honest. With my luck, our captain would fall off the boat and hit his head and we would have to find our own way back to shore, lol. Yes, I'm a pansy, I know, but I prefer my feet to be planted on the ground. Actually our captain almost lost his balance once, but luckily he never fell overboard.

I have to say, I did not have fun on the fishing trip, but the whole beach experience was a lot of fun.