His Chinese is Showing

Nathan has been in desperate need of a vacation, so he has taken a few days off work this week for a mini “staycation.” He has been wanting to make bao for months now and since cooking is a happy thing for him, he scheduled his maiden voyage into steamed buns for today. He has been peppering me with questions for about a week, everything from ingredients to methods to measurements to equipment. He called twice today and did a FaceTime call once to check on additional details. End result? His bao turned out perfectly! They are beautiful and he assures me that they are also delicious.  He says, “Perks to knowing how to make bao: I don’t have to share with ANYONE.” 😂

I’m incredibly pleased that his heritage matters to him and that he’s taking the time to learn how to cook the food of his people. 😊 Plus, he’s right. When he makes it, he is the boss of the bao!

Food=Love

It is a well-established fact that I love fun food. But what makes food fun? Is it the fact that there is an immense satisfaction in turning something edible into art? Is it because I know that the end result will taste as good as it looks? Is it because it is a fun way to extend the celebration of a holiday? While all of those things are contributing factors, they are only part of the equation for me. The biggest component is the pleasure it brings to the people I love.

Today we took the food=love equation one step further and made edible Valentines. Cookie cutters and a bit of color can work wonders for a simple pancake, and both came into play this morning. My freeze-dried strawberry pancakes turned out more purple than pink, probably due to the wheat flour I use in my pancakes, but they tasted delicious, especially when paired with fresh strawberry hearts and flounces of whipped cream. Next time I might try adding a bit of red food coloring to the batter to see if I can deepen the color, but other than that, the pancakes were a hit. My kids happily partook of the morning love fest, and we all started the day with smiles on our faces. 

Some Things Never Change

As all my kids have grown up, I’ve noticed that they have personality traits and habits that stay with them even as they learn and grow. These are things like the way they hold their fork, their tendency to stand a certain way or their food preferences. Where Malia is concerned, some of those traits were evident before she was ever born. In her ultrasounds, of which there were many due to my age being over 35 and my tendency towards gestational diabetes, she always had her ankles crossed and tucked up tight underneath her little bottom. It made determining her gender troublesome. As a baby, she did the exact same thing. Even when she was old enough to sit up in the highchair, she would cross her ankles ever so daintily. She has hated green beans since her very first mouthful. She is still a people person, talking comfortably with nearly everyone (a tendency that led me to have many conversations about stranger danger when she was just a toddler and preschooler). One of my favorite pictures of Malia as a baby is one where she is laughing. She would throw her head back and give in to glee. She still does that, leaning her head back to she can have a good laugh.

I had another one of those “she is still the same person” moments today. Nathan, Malia and I went out to lunch and then to see a movie. At lunch she was eating chicken fingers and French fries-her typical eating out meal of choice for most of her life (although she is beginning to expand her choices nowadays). She just happened to get one enormously long fry and told me that we should put it on the blog. Five years ago, we went to see Disney on Ice and then out to dinner afterward. Although she is twice as old and twice as tall now, the scenario was identical. 

Some things never change. I think that is one of the things I love the most about the gospel. We know we existed before our earth lives. We know we will continue to exist after this life. We know that our personalities and the knowledge and skills we gain in this life will remain with us. That means that in the eternities, I will still get to watch Malia throw back her head for a good laugh. And she will probably still think an enormous French fry is newsworthy material. I hope she never loses that sense of wonder and whimsy for the interesting things life has to offer and always finds joy in the simple things.

Festive Food-Parts III and IV

Today was a two-fer in terms of fun food. With a limited number of days remaining until Christmas, so many fun ideas to create, and only so many days that all my kids are here, sneaking in a couple fun foods seemed like a good way to go.

After the grand time we had fashioning our gingerbread village last Christmas, we all knew gingerbread in some form or another needed to be on the schedule of festivities again this year. I polled the kids and rather than do miniature houses again, we decided to go big and make giant gingerbread men. My goal was to make them as big as conveniently possible, so I sized up a template to print on an 8.5”x11” sheet of paper. The kids used a knife to cut around their templates, the boys all using a traditional gingerbread man shape and Malia going rogue to turn her gingerbread girl into a dragon girl. The boys and I all thought it looked just like Batgirl, but Malia was adamant that it was a dragon. Both men and dragon girl expanded a bit as they baked, and they turned out pretty gargantuan. I’m really glad I didn’t try to make two on a single cookie sheet. We would have ended up with some crazy conjoined gingerbread.

As in all things, all four of my children created very different gingerbread men people beings. Daniel’s man ended up looking like an ‘80’s punk rocker with multicolored spiked hair. Nathan’s looked an awful lot like Oscar the Grouch with a bit of extra bit of color in his hair. Matthew’s was wearing a rockin’ Christmas suit. And Malia’s did not end up looking like Batgirl. It became a man-eating dragon wearing a pearl necklace and star earrings. I’m so proud that my only daughter has such refined tastes. Of course, she did soften the slaughter by adding a timeless piece of jewelry. And to be completely honest, the whole ginger-dead men thing was all my fault. 😂

At the conclusion of the decorating, Daniel decided that the houses had been more fun, but the giant gingerbread men were still fun. I think it would be great to combine the two-a village of tiny houses terrorized by a giant gingerbread man. (I think there have been side effects associated with raising three boys. Twenty years ago, I don’t think I would have considered having a gingerbread village meet a grisly end a funny idea, but I’ve had to make some mental adjustments to keep up with my boys. 😜)

Once the explosion of buttercream, candy and sprinkles was cleaned up, we moved on to our second course of fun food for the day. My kids ask about five million times a day what we are having for dinner, and today I just told them they would have to wait and see. When that is my response, they all know something fun is on the horizon. Nathan even changed some plans for this evening so he would be here for dinner. He realized what I was creating when he saw me breaking the pretzels, but the rest of the kids were otherwise occupied and didn’t figure it out until the moment of final assembly. Sloppy joes with a few additions became a tasty bevy of Santa’s helpers. Yes, they did look more like dogs than reindeer, but a little imagination solved that problem. After our cadre of reindeer was completed, my crew hunkered down and ate every last antler. Seriously, I thought there would be some leftovers. I was wrong.

As for my kitchen, it is jam packed full of Christmas goodness. These are the moments when I wish I had just a bit more counter space. I’m so grateful my crew is willing to clean up when my creativity explodes all over the place. I have definitely made a lot of dirty dishes over the course of the past two days and there are more to come. But my clan will all be well fed time and time again over the course of the week and they know it, so they don’t usually complain too much. 😉

Festive Food-Part II

With waffles on the menu at least weekly around here, they have begun to creep their way into our fun food repertoire. The only wrinkle is that most of the ideas I see online use round waffle irons and ours is square. But with a few adjustments, I can usually find a way to make things work out. Thus was the story with this morning’s Belgian reindeer. The first ones were a bit disproportionate, but they improved in the second generation. And even the weird looking ones tasted good, so I consider that a success. 😉

Festive Food-Part I

Tis the season for fun food. Actually, it’s always the season for fun food around here, but the Christmas season gives me a reason to peruse Pinterest for some new ideas. My incentive, other than the fact that I just enjoy it, is that if I don’t do something new, my kids will wonder what is wrong with me. 😜

During the course of our international pancake experimentation over the summer, my kids discovered that they really like crepes and the many crepe-like European pancakes that we tested. With that fact in the back of my brain, I was thrilled to discover a simple yet festive way to create a Christmas tree from crepes. With a bit of food coloring and an assortment of fruity baubles to decorate our crepe-mas trees, we had a lovely breakfast. There was also whipped cream on hand, the dairy and non-dairy versions. Malia doesn’t usually eat a big breakfast, but she ate two full trees worth of crepes and I certainly can’t say that I blame her. They were delicious.

I have a feeling that crepes may be making another appearance on our menu fairly soon. Maybe I should add a crepe pan to my Christmas wish list…

Bite Me

This evening we enjoyed our last Halloween themed treat for this year. It was a simple one to create, just a bit of fancy jam work on frosted cupcakes, but highly effective. The only things we were missing were the actual fangs. I have other fun things to make, but they will have to wait for next year. 

 

Up next: pie! The traditional treat of Thanksgiving!

Jack Pumpkinhead

Growing up, some of my favorite books were the Oz series by L. Frank Baum. Unbeknownst to most people, there are actually fourteen books in the original series which starts with the most well-known, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The second book in the series, The Marvelous Land of Oz, features a character by the name of Jack Pumpkinhead. He is a man made of wood with a carved pumpkin for a head who is brought to life by the magical Powder of Life. Whenever I see a classic jack o’lantern, it reminds me of Jack Pumpkinhead.

This evening’s Halloween themed FHE treat was highly reminiscent of Jack. The pumpkin cut out cookies and tinted cream cheese frosting of these tasty sandwich cookies had the iconic jack o’lantern smile. It was a delightfully tasty treat served with a generous helping of childhood nostalgia. It has been a while since I’ve turned the pages of these beloved novels. Maybe it’s time for me to revisit the magical land of Oz.

 

A Zombie State of Mind

While I don’t fall into the group of folks who have definitely spent the past year and a half preparing for the zombie apocalypse (not that preparedness is bad, I just don’t remember the scriptures including zombies as harbingers of the last days), this evening’s treat gave us a chance to experience life from a zombie point of view. We nibbled on some super tasty brains, and if all brains tasted as nice as these ones, I might consider moonlighting as a zombie once in a while. But real brains can’t possibly taste like strawberry rice crispy treats, so I guess if there is really a zombie uprising, I’ll fight on the side of humanity. 😜

 

Halloween Treats-Season 2

I had so much fun creating a series of Halloween themed treats for FHE last year that I decided to do it again. As always, Pinterest was my go-to location for finding fun ideas and I have gathered up a new assortment of tasty and spooky goodies for this year.

I don’t generally go in for blood, guts, and gore. I don’t like scary movies and I hate haunted houses. I know some people love the adrenaline rush that being scared gives them, but I just hate it. It makes me feel…icky and ill at ease. Being scared feels like the opposite of what I generally strive to achieve in my life-peace, calm, joy, and contentment. Having said that, when I saw the idea for this evening’s treat it made me laugh so I decided to include it. Malia has been asking for cinnamon rolls anyway, so why not make them our first Halloween sweet of the season? And if they just happen to look like bloody intestines, that’s in keeping with this month’s treat theme, right? I’ll admit that I felt a bit like a mad scientist as I was adding the icing to our gruesome treat, but it was still fun. 😉 And despite their appearance, they were still delicious.

 

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

None of the big holidays would seem complete around here without some fun food. With Easter on the horizon, our family home evening treat was destined to be Easter themed. The kids are on spring break this week, so they were on hand to help create this evening’s delectable dessert. Malia was the only one who helped me shape the cookies, but Matthew hopped on over to help when it was time to decorate. The cookies were very easy to create. The hard part was making everyone wait to sample them. They turned out super cute and just as tasty. Hooray for fun food!

 

Year of the Ox

One of the ways my family celebrates our Chinese heritage is celebrating Chinese New Year. The actual lunar new year was on February 12, but today would have been the day my family gathered for our traditional big family feast in honor of the day. With our current need to social distance, I decided we were still going to celebrate. However, cooking a dozen courses all by myself seemed daunting so instead of creating one enormous feast where just one bite of everything would make me so full I felt like barfing, I decided to spread the feast out over an entire week. My immediate family was totally on board with the endeavor, of course, so we’ve spent the past week enjoying Chinese cuisine.

While I was pondering how to structure our menu for the week, I realized that while I know how to cook all the Chinese fare, I don’t usually bother with the exception of teriyaki and a variety of stir fries. I know my mom will make things for our Sunday dinners fairly regularly, so I just enjoy it on those occasions. But the accompanying light bulb was the fact that if I don’t teach my kids how to cook these traditional dishes, they will lose that part of their culture. That is something I definitely don’t want to happen, so as often as possible, I included the kids in the creation of the past week’s meals.

We started our weeklong ethnic food experience with the sweet courses, because who doesn’t like to eat dessert first once in a while? Our treat for family home evening on Monday was Chinese almond cookies and gau. The cookies are always a favorite around here, but gau receives more mixed reviews. Daniel, Nathan and I like it while Kevin, Matthew and Malia give it a hard pass. And I’m ok with that. It is actually pretty weird by American standards. I did learn that due to our high altitude, gau doesn’t cook well if you try to steam it the same way you would at sea level. But once I consulted with my mom and broke out the pressure cooker, it came out just right.
 

 

On Tuesday we enjoyed Hawaiian style chicken long rice. While it may not be traditional Chinese fare, my mom grew up in Hawaii so elements from other cultures are mixed up in our traditions. When they are as tasty as chicken long rice, I feel like it is a boon rather than a diluting of the traditions. And it is a reflection of my family heritage. Matthew and Malia absolutely love this particular dish which means I made lots so there would be enough to go around. And I made Malia earn her portion. She sat and shredded all the chicken once it was cooked.

 

Dinner on Wednesday was composed of Chinese chicken salad and shumai. Malia was my sous chef again and help me assemble all the shumai. They are supposed to end up looking like little meat filled baskets, but she thinks outside the box (or the dumpling) and decided she liked them much better shaped as little flowers. They were definitely cute, but due to the fact that they had shrimp in them, she didn’t actually end up liking them. Next time I make them I might have to be a nice mom and leave the shrimp out of a few so she can actually enjoy the fruits of her labor. But for those of us who like seafood, they were delicious. Definitely something we want to see on our menu again.

 

Thursday was our fried rice day. This is a meal that we have more regularly, but I don’t make it the way you usually see it in restaurants around here-rice with some ham, peas and egg. I make it the way my mom taught me-rice with some ham, a plentiful amount of various tasty stir fried veggies and egg. That way it is a full meal rather than just a side dish. I always make one big pan with all the fixings and one small one without the egg so Matthew can enjoy it as well.

We celebrated the arrival of the weekend by eating stir fry noodles with char siu pork on Friday. While I was in the planning phases of this big adventure, I discovered that the char siu seasoning packets I’ve always used have a cross contact warning for peanuts, so I made the char siu from scratch this time. Let me tell you, it was well worth the extra time. It was absolutely delicious. Matthew told me that we never need to use the packets again and I agree with him whole heartedly. We broke with tradition again because didn’t use the traditional egg noodles. Matthew can’t eat them which is why we ditched them, but the egg-free yakisoba noodles we used instead were entirely delicious. Because of the egg noodles, this is one dish Matthew can never eat when we gather with my family. That was a huge perk to doing our food celebration on our own-Matthew could eat everything. 

Saturday was dim sum day. With everyone at home (including Daniel), I had plenty of helpers when it came to creating all our tasty morsels. We enjoyed char siu bao, sweet bean paste bao, wontons with sweet and sour sauce, banana fritters, egg rolls and potstickers. We purchased the egg rolls and potstickers, but everything else was home made.

Throughout the course of the day, I discovered that when my children are involved, Chinese cooking lessons can also double as entertainment. While making bao, Nathan lost his grip and ended up with a bao floor taco. He also managed to create a bao dinosaur which is funny because he was actually trying to make a normal bao and as his attempts headed south, he turned his food into art. The other kids did pretty well with the bao and after several years of practice, I managed to create a couple that look pretty darn close to the traditional twisted top. 

 

While Nathan struggled with bao, he did just fine folding wontons. Of course, he has had lots of practice there so he had some past skills to fall back on. Malia was terribly dismayed with the sad results of her first wonton, but by her third she had it all figured out. Matthew’s first attempt was laughable, but his second was just fine. However, he is a (nearly) 14-year-old boy and he got bored making normal wontons so he got creative and we ended up with an Eiffel Tower wonton. As for Daniel, origami genius extraordinaire, he made beautiful wontons from the get go.

I think dim sum night was my favorite of the week. Yes, there is a lot of manual labor involved. But not only did we eat the foods that we generally eat least frequently, but all my little clan was here. And we all worked together to create our meal. And we talked and laughed and celebrated our heritage and had a fabulous time. And yes. I did in fact eat too much. But not so much that I felt like barfing. So that’s a plus. 😜

 

This evening we finished our weeklong celebration with our family favorite broccoli beef. We also celebrated Matthew’s birthday, but that is another post. After the whirlwind of activity that was dim sum day, today was a nice, calm day. It was wonderful to have all my kiddos here. I know that in coming years, these moments will become fewer and farther between, so I intend to enjoy them whenever they occur. And while the social aspect of celebrating with our extended family was missed, I actually really enjoyed spreading the food out so I could enjoy each and every dish. Having said that, I’m really starting to crave a good burger. 😉