Our Trip Around the Russia: Final Stop - Let's EAT!

I promised - you do not want to miss this!  What fun is taking a virtual trip to Russia, without stopping to eat?

Our menu:

The Main Course: Chebureki (meat piroshki)  This link takes you to my Pinterest board, so you can see some of the other great Russia ideas/activities I found - but, that we didn't have time for.

I modified the recipe a bit.  First, I completely cheated by using frozen bread dough.  You have my permission to do the same, it worked perfectly!

We also left out all vegetables (on request of  participants).  And, we used ground beef and ground sausage (instead of ground turkey) because that is what was on hand.

 

We subsituted again with the spices - I was out of dill, so we used Italian Seasoning instead.  It was very yummy...maybe not very "Russian"...  Welcome to the way I cook :-)

 

 After our meat mixture was done, we took small handfuls of the meat, and wrapped the bread dough around it - pinching it together. 

When the little meat pockets were complete, we heated cooking oil and fried them until they were golden brown.  Our batch of bread dough made a ton of these, and it was a good thing too.  The older, teenage boys devoured them.  They were a home-run hit!  I already have requests for these to be added to the regular menu plan.

And, for dessert:

Ukraianian Honey Cake

This was wonderful!  I didn't make this one, sorry - no "in process" pictures.  It was spongy and slightly sweet.  Plus, it gave the cooks a chance to use a double-boiler (Christmas present).  If I had made it - it would have been microwaved :-)

 

2 Desserts - for lunch?!  We are really, really loving this type of school! 

 

Shokoladnaya Kalbasa (chocolate sausage) -  All I can say - it didn't last long, so I'm glad I snapped a picture for you.  This was AMAZING!  I think I knocked a couple of kids down to get more before it disappeared!





Truly, one of most memorable meals...ever. If you want learning that is fun, and makes memories that last - take your kiddos into the kitchen - and be sure to leave American food behind!

So,  where does "Our Trip Around the World" go next...   stay tuned!

Our Trip Around the World: Part 3 - The Wild Side!

Okay...I know I promised our next stop was the food.  But, we almost forgot to take a peek at the wildlife! 

We couldn't visit the land of Tundra, Plain, Swamp & Pennisula (our geography vocabulary words - we are making flashcards) without stopping to meet some animals that call Russia home.

 

One of my favorite Usborne books - The World of Animals - a great reference, full color and filled with internet links too!

 

Love how you can use the iPad (not ours, but our friend's) to find information at a touch of a finger, and display it on the TV screen so we can all see it.  This is a "Musk Deer" - it has tusks - wild!

We completed our lapbooking pages that came with Expedition Earth.  We plan to keep them all together in our "Travel Scrapbooks" ,what we've nicknamed their 3 ring binders, and put our lapbook together near the end.

What an amazing collection of animals God created - Lemmings, musk deer, seals...oh MY!

Promise - our next stop is the food...  Trust me, you don't want to miss it!

Our Trip Around the World - Russia Part 2

We had so much fun on our first stop in Russia (want to read about it?)  that we decided to stay a little longer.

This stop we focused a famous composer from Russia - Tchaikovsky.

 

Everyone grabbed a pillow and made themselves comfortable.  I love the Classical Kids CD's - they are a fictional story that includes an introduction to the composer with tons of their music interwoven throughout. It's a great way to expose your children to classical music in a way they will remember!

Next,  we made our own "Faberge Eggs".  Did you know that Czar Alexander III and Nicholas II commissioned these special eggs as Easter gifts?  Approximately 50 eggs were made; 42 have survived.  Since the survival rate of eggs is less than that around here, we choose to use plastic eggs instead!

But, we did get brave - and blew out the yolk on one "real" egg - just to see what it would have been like to work with something so fragile.

 

 

Not too bad for some american amateurs! 

 

We can't leave Russia without experiencing some of it's food.  Better stay tuned!