Ciorbă de Porc {Sour Pork Soup}

Ciorbă de Porc (pronounced ch-or-bah day pork) utilizes Romania’s most popular protein in this hearty sour soup filled with vegetables, perfect for a cold autumn day when you’re looking for a quick and delicious warm-up. Traditional recipes use borș {borscht} as the souring agent, but since that’s not a very common ingredient to find I’ve replaced it with lemon juice.

Update 05.2021 // Hey! This recipe has been featured in the opening scene of the horror-survival video game Resident Evil 8 Village.

↓ Recipe Below ↓

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Pasta de Cartofi cu Pâine și Zahăr {Romanian Potato Pasta with Bread and Sugar}

Bună băieți. De mult timp, nici un chat!

Hey guys. Long time, no chat!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I could say life got in the way (it did), or I haven’t been cooking Romanian foods as often (I haven’t), but really I just didn’t prioritize blogging as much as I should have. I know my blogging schedule was lax to begin with (every/other Monday), but it became really lax, more like every/other half year.

So sorry. I hope to make From Dill to Dracula more of a priority in my life, because this food—and this country—really do fill me with happiness, joy, and warmth, and I still want to share these feelings and recipes with the world.

Guys… I’m back!

This past weekend, my little—but not so little—sister came to visit this past weekend. I like her more and more as we get older. Here we are out for drinks one evening:

Good people 🙂

And she brought with her the request to make this recipe during her visit. As kids, we affectionately called it Noodlies (pronounced: nude-lees), though I can tell you with great confidence that this is not the authentic name, no matter how fun it is to say. Noodlies. Noo-oo-d-lee-ee-ss.

C’mon, you know what I’m talking about.

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Gomboti / Găluște cu Prune {Plum Dumplings}

Găluște cu Prune {Plum Dumplings} | From Dill To Dracula www.FromDillToDracula.com

I’m back from an unexpected hiatus, where I spent almost all of September, and a bit of October, writing and revising one of my novels. It’s set in 1989 Romania, so I’m able to feature a lot of the dishes on From Dill To Dracula within the story, which is an exciting meld of my two hobbies.

And, well, I’m back! I’m ready to kick off the fall season with fall colors, warm drinks, and these delicious plum dumplings otherwise known as Gomboti (pronounced gom-boat-ee) or Găluște cu Prune (pronounced gah-lou-sh-tay coo proon-ay). To me, everything about these scream fall, and after Milwaukee teased us with a little Summer in October, we’re back in fall temperatures and I’m ready to embrace everything that comes with it.

To be honest, we didn’t have these dumplings very often. I remember my grandma making them a couple of times, but that was enough to hook me. It has to have been at least a decade and a half since I’ve been able to savor the flavor (thanks for the writing tip, Ariana Grande).

By the way, my husband calls these Plumplings, which I don’t have a Romanian translation for, but I’m okay if you call these that, too 🙃

↓ Recipe below ↓

—But first, some pretty pictures—

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