I am an old home school mom. We educated our kids from kindergarten till high school, then set them loose on the regular school systems. When the kids were little, I think the oldest was 4th or 5th grade, we decided to study and “travel” to various countries around the world. We had a blast with this project. First we would go to the library and collect as much information about the country as we could. We used National Geographic videos, kids books with lots of pictures, and fact books. We looked at the art, and listened to the music. We ended the project for each country with a demonstration of art, music and information shared with my husband, around a meal we had cooked of traditional foods.
I can’t remember which country we started with, maybe England or Germany. I do remember that we all hated the Australian throat singing, and we loved learning about Masai warriors. My husband helped collect a few of the recipes. He had a work colleague that knew Russian foods, either from a mother in law or wife. He sent us an excellent recipe for Russian Stroganoff, which I will share here.
Eating around the world was my favorite part of the project, although we didn’t always do a great job with the meals. We are all lovers of Indian food, give us a good curry and we are happy, but in this project we somehow picked all bad recipes. Or maybe the problem was with the cooks. We had more leftovers than we could handle, and no one wanted to eat any of it.
The library is the best resource for these kind of fun educational projects. Once we had collected all the resources we needed, we would try to figure out how long a flight from our home in Georgia would take to the country. We drew the flag, filled in maps and created passports with stamps. We watched videos, listened to music and created art. This project was adaptable to the ages of all the kids. Somewhere I have a picture of the three kids holding Masai warrior shields and trying to look fierce. I have always wanted to travel, and to travel everywhere. I think I enjoyed myself more than the kids. After they went to bed I would read more books and stories about each chosen country. I loved the travel videos more than the kids did. They enjoyed the crafts and art projects more than I. We all loved to eat.
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Beef Stroganoff - Russian style
Ingredients
1 lb sirloin steak, cut into thin strips 1 ea clove of garlic, minced
4 tbs all-purpose flour 1 tbs tomato paste
2 ts salt 1 ea beef broth, 10 oz can
4 tbs butter 1 ea beef broth, 10 oz can
1 ea mushrooms, drained, 3 oz can sliced 1 cup sour cream
2 ea onion chopped 1 x hot buttered noodles
Directions
Coat beef strips with 1 tbs flour and salt. Brown beef strips quickly in 1 tbs butter in a skillet. Add mushrooms, onion, and garlic; cook until onion is crisp-tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove meat and mushrooms from pan. Add 2 tbs butter to the pan drippings; blend in 3 tbs flour. Add tomato paste. stir in broth. Stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Return meat and mushrooms to skillet. Stir in sour cream; cook slowly until heated through. Do not boil. Serve over hot buttered noodles.
We love this recipe. I don’t remember who gave it to my husband, and I have no idea why the ingredient list includes the letters ea. I guess they stand for each, but I’m not sure. Anyway, eat and enjoy! And eat while reading War and Peace or Brothers Karamozov.
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