Summer heat

Most of the country is currently under high heat warnings.  Temperatures into the triple digits have been causing droughts and wildfires.  Here, in the Capitol Area, we haven't suffered too heavily with the exception of the crazy Derecho storm that swept through rather unexpectedly and forcefully a few weeks ago.  It knocked out power and played havoc with all the telecommunications services.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), T and I escaped the Derecho by accident and were at the beach that fateful weekend.  We drove out to Bethany and kept just barely ahead of the storm.  We got to see crazy wind and rain; for much of the drive, visibility was terrible because of all of the sand flying around.  It was like being in "Twister" the movie!

Today was another scorcher of a day, and right now it looks like a big storm is brewing.  A few weeks back, we'd found out that we are required to switch over to FIOS, so the guy came today to install it.  As seems typical, he arrived around 12:30pm even though the window (which they called, emailed and texted me about several times) was from 8:00am to noon.  Anyway, I took the opportunity as a day to stay in (out of the incredible heat!) and do some experimenting in the kitchen.

I started the morning by making T's lunch which included bell pepper sticks.  He is still making a good effort to eat healthfully, so I have been trying to come up with new and delicious healthful recipes!  I like to have something to dip pepper sticks into, and T is never one to turn down a sauce, so I concocted a sesame-peanut sauce for him.  We'll find out when he gets home if he liked it or not.  I liked it so much that I decided to make another batch of it for Sneetch and me to enjoy as a snack throughout the day.

Sneetch and Mom stopped at Safeway on their way here to pick up some more summer squashes for me.  Sneetch and I made the yummy summer veggie stir fry again and topped it with a little of the delicious sesame-peanut sauce.  Fantastic combo for a super healthful and delicious summer lunch!

Finally, Mom had some bananas that needed to be made into banana bread, so Sneetch and I mixed up a batter using apple sauce and honey instead of oil/butter and sugar.  We also used whole wheat flour and gluten free flour instead of all purpose.  We got three silicone trays worth of mini muffins out of our batter.  I added swirl chocolate chips and oatmeal (and a little extra apple sauce) to the last batch which are by far my favourite!

Sweet-Hot Sesame-Peanut Sauce

Ingredients:
1T peanut butter (I used creamy, but I suppose crunchy might be good too!)
2T sesame oil
1T water
1/2t agave syrup
1t cayenne pepper powder
1t soy sauce

To Make:

1. Mix together everything except the water and cayenne.
2. Add in the water and mix well, then taste.
3. Add in the cayenne a little at a time to get it up to the heat level you like.

Banana Nut Mini Muffins with Chocolate Swirl Chips
 based on this recipe, but this is what I did:

Ingredients:
1/3c unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup honey
1t vanilla extract
2 eggs
4 mashed bananas
1c whole wheat flour
3/4c gluten free all purpose flour
1/2t salt
1t baking soda
1/4c hot water
1/2c chopped filberts

And for the third batch with chocolate swirl chips:
1/4c chocolate swirl chips
1/4c unsweetened applesauce
1/4c oats

To Make:

1. In your stand mixer, mix the eggs, honey, applesauce, bananas and vanilla.
2. Mix in both flours and the salt.
3. In a separate little cup, dissolve the baking soda in the hot water, then add it to the batter.
4. Add in the chopped filberts.
5. Bake the first batch and while the second batch is in the oven, and 1/3 of the batter remains, add in the last 3 ingredients (1/4c chocolate swirl chips, 1/4c unsweetened applesauce, and 1/4c oats).  Mix it up thoroughly.
6. I found that filling the muffin cups to the top made a nice little muffin top that didn't overflow too much on the sides.

Back from the beach!

After we got back from Japan, both T and I needed about a week to get back into East Coast time and routine.  Slowly, the jet lag wore off.  Throughout the week, I took my time unpacking and sluggishly went through all of our many omiyage and personal souvenirs.  We brought home a ton of stuff!

This photo is just the stuff we brought home to give away!

By the weekend through, I managed to make it to (and through) my Saturday morning ballet class and the next morning, we picked 10 lbs of blueberries at our favourite local pick your own orchard.

Look at those giant, sweet blueberries!

Since then, we've spent three consecutive weekends at the beach.  I spent a whole week there with my friend Feder and I turned 28!  it's been a comfortable and relaxing mid summer.  Now we're back home.  T's back at work and I'm busy trying to tackle all those "I'll do it later" projects accumulated throughout the year so that I can have a nice, clean slate of a to do list by the time Fall classes begin.

My youngest sister, Sneetch has been helping me get all my inventory photographed so I can stock my Etsy store and I've listed books on Amazon to try to decrease our book collection a little.  So far, so good!

In other news, today Sneetch and I made a variation of a veggie stir-fry type dish Feder taught me to make while we were at the beach.  I've never been a fan of squash/zucchini type veggies, but this dish has made me change my mind!  It's super simple to cook up and nearly zero points on the Weight Watchers program!  Here's the recipe, as I made it, if you can call it a recipe; it's super simple!

Summer veggie stir fry!

Delicious Summer Veggie Stir Fry

Ingredients:
1/2 t olive oil
1/2 t butter
1 yellow squash (long and not too bulbous at the bottom = fewer seeds = better)
1 zucchini squash
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 cob of cooked, fresh, sweet corn

To Make:

1. Wash the squashes and cut off the ends (I cut off about 1/2 an inch from each end).  Cut in half lengthwise and then slice, making half circles about 1/4" thick.
2. Wash and cut up the peppers, removing all the insides and seeds.  Pieces should be bite size.
3. Break the corn cob in half and pick off all the corn  kernels.  If the corn is cooked right, you should be able to easily pick off a row or two of kernels one at a time and then remove entire rows at one go.
4. Time to cook!  In a large frying pan, heat the oil and butter together over med-high heat.  Toss in the squash half circles and allow to cook until slightly soft; but not translucent!  Stir infrequently so that some pieces get a nice golden brown colour.
5. Add in the pepper pieces and cook until slightly soft.  The peppers should add a nice, light crunch.
6. When squashes and peppers are just about done, toss in the corn kernels and turn off heat, leaving the pan on the burner.
7. Enjoy warm or at room temperature!

For the week while I was at the beach, I prepped a pork shoulder for T to make himself some pulled pork.  A concoction of my own imagination, the pork came out pretty well, but there was a whole lot of it and we returned to at least 6 servings of it in the fridge.  So Sneetch and I enjoyed our veggies with a serving of pulled pork on top; yum!

New year, new ideas

Well I thought this would be a place for me to journal about my random life musings and other such interesting bits. But apparently even fulfilling one of my life's most outlandish dreams - getting married in Disney World - wasn't enough to encourage me to blog regularly. Oh well. New year, new ideas and a new take on blogging.

In the past few months, I've become quite hooked on a new (-ish) site called Pinterest. Those of you net-savvy folks (assuming anyone is still reading this thing) will know what I'm talking about. It's a great site where you create your own virtual pin boards. You can pin any website with an image thereby keeping a little reminder for yourself to go back and look at something cool you saw before. I have found it particularly useful in my quest for quick, delicious and nutritious meals to feed myself and T. I also think it will be useful to get me back into blogging. When all else fails (basically when I have nothing interesting going on) I will be making food. So in between gems of genius brilliance (do I still have any?), you'll be introduced to the variety of recipes I'm trying.

To start things off, we have a heavily modified Indian recipe. I originally had something like this at work. One of the perks of working in a place where someone lives is that you sometimes get to try their food. :) Turning to Google for some variations on this dish, I found that it is called by a wide variety of names in addition to being prepared very differently depending on the origins of the cook.

The noodles used are very similar to the Chinese feng-si or bean floss noodles. They are also sometimes called bean or rice vermicelli. So we'll call this dish

Veggie Vermicelli

Ingredients:
1T butter or ghee (you can use canola oil too)
1t mustard seeds
1.5t cumin seeds
1t ground ginger
1t minced garlic
1/4t turmeric
2t salt
1.5c roasted vermicelli noodles (the Indian variety which are cut to 1" lengths)
2.5 c hot water
1c finely chopped veggies (I used sweet baby peas and baby carrots)

To Make:
1) Heat the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, ginger and garlic.
2) When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add in the turmeric and salt. Saute for about a minute, stirring to make sure the turmeric is evenly distributed.
3) Add in the roasted vermicelli noodles (if you have the non-roasted type, you will need to add in a separate step of roasting them here - basically you will just stir them around in the pot until they turn golden before adding water)
4) Pour in the hot water. Some recipes insisted that the water be boiling, but I haven't found that it makes much of a difference except that it takes a little longer.
5) Stirring occasionally, cook over high or medium high heat until the noodles absorb all the water. When just over half the water is absorbed, add in the veggies - this prevents them getting too soggy and releasing too many of their sugars into the noodles.

Serve at whatever temperature you like. The flavours come together most after the noodles have cooled down, but you could heat them up again if you prefer. I have thought about adding some dry toasted tofu bits or peanuts just for some protein. I'll let you know if I try either.

Year of the rabbit

Click to see more photos from our CNY dinner celebration

Thursday was Chinese New Year. Usually, being the rather un-Asians we are, we don't celebrate or anything. This year, we decided to change it up and have a little dinner party. It was a sort of last minute thing, but I think we did a pretty good job. T, Tuzi and I were joined by my two sisters, Mom, Feder and my sister's friend. So, we had a total of eight diners; quite auspicious! [Eight is an auspicious number in Chinese superstition.]

I made a very "semi-homemade" meal of nee gao (rice ovalettes with chicken and pea leaves), chicken stir fry (chicken, chicken sausage and baby bok choy; sauce based on this recipe), gai lan (Chinese broccoli), rice and long life noodle soup (lo mein style noodles with baby bok choy and mini dumplings in chicken soup). For dessert, I procured a dozen fresh dan tats (egg custard tartlets) and Mom and Sneetch brought a variety of ice cream mochis.

For other party fun, we had white rabbit candies, calcium fortified lollipops (donno, Mom found them), tangerines with leaves on, and I made each of our guests a hong bao (red envelope) filled with chocolate coins. :)

On the wedding front, no real crafting has yet begun. However, we did receive all the paper products for our invitations this week. The design is complete also, so this week will be invitation production week!

Busy, busy, busy

T and I have been quite the busy bees lately. Since we got back from our short break, we've been constantly working on stuff! We are preparing for my upcoming craft fair, the Downtown Holiday Market, which is in 3 weeks. Crafting has been going at a fairly steady pace, though it will be slowed significantly when we leave for our Thanksgiving vacation on Tuesday. Meanwhile, I have to prepare for my upcoming Montessori weekend seminar, and T has class all day, every day this weekend. Of course, I've also been working on lessons for the classroom and have plans for little "love leaves" as Thanksgiving goodies for the children.

This week, I created 2 new lessons for the children. A corn painting lesson is on the shelves until Thanksgiving break, and I prepared a special rainy day activity for the Lunch Bunchers on Thursday.
Corn painting involves a printout of a corn image, (with individual kernels), qtips cut in half, a green coloured pencil and a yellow stamp pad. The children use the qtip to stamp little yellow circles into each of the kernels. Then they colour the leaves green. If desired, they can cut out the whole corn shape, which can then be posted on our landscape bulletin boards as though it's growing out of the ground.

For our rainy day activity, I made cinnamon clay for the children to make an aromatic garland for the classroom. I brought letter and leaf shaped cookie cutters and we spelled out "give thanks" with a few leaves for spacers. The children loved the activity (since we no longer have play dough out on the shelves) and it made the classroom smell delicious. Of course, the children took home the extra clay.

Cinnamon Clay Recipe

Ingredients:
2 bottles ground cinnamon
1 bottle white school glue
1 cup applesauce
1 cup flour

In a large bowl, mix the applesauce and as much of the glue as you can dump out of the bottle. In a separate, smaller bowl, combine one and a half bottles of cinnamon with about half the cup of flour. This will help make it easier to mix into the applesauce/glue mixture. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. The cinnamon will cause billowing dusty clouds if you add too much at once. When all the dry ingredients have been mixed in, if it is still sticky, add more flour. Flour a clean surface well and knead the dough. It should be approximately the same consistency as Crayola Model Magic, only heavier. Separate dough into balls for distribution to children and pat flat with the palm of your hand. Use cookie cutters to make shapes.

I made a test batch of letters which were slightly less than 0.25" thick. They were a little brittle, so with the children, we made our shapes 0.25" thick. They are drying over the weekend, hopefully they'll be done by Monday so we can string them up!

Rainy days = yummy soup!

The weather around here has been kind of funky. The old "April showers bring May flowers" seems to have extended a week beyond. Besides the weather, we've had a few cases of closed up, sore throat, sniffly nosed blahs. In an attempt to remedy both of these, I decided to make T and myself some French Onion Soup. I read numerous recipes before deciding on my own mash-up way to go about concocting some soup. Fortunately, my research paid off and T even commented that my version was "just like you get in restaurants!"

French Onion Soup Recipe:

You'll need:
1 32oz box beef broth (low sodium is fine)
1 package shredded mozzarella cheese
1 baguette (day old is fine)
1.5-2 cups chopped onions
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 T dried thyme
Worcestershire sauce (phewf that was fun to spell!)
4 oven-safe bowls for serving

How to make it:
1) Chop the onions into 1/4" strips. We bought some great little ones at the Farmer's Market 5 in a ziplock bag for $1.
2) In a medium sized pot, melt the butter and add the thyme to season it as it melts.
3) Set your oven shelf to the lower/middle level and preheat the broiler to low.
4) Add the onion pieces to the pot, stirring regularly until the onions are just about translucent. Meanwhile, slice the baguette into 1/2" slices.
5) Pour in the red wine, a splash of the Worcestershire sauce and the crumbs from the baguette.
6) Add the entire box of beef broth to the onions and let simmer for 20 minutes (a little longer is ok), stir regularly to keep the onions from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
7) Cover a cookie sheet with a SilPat or tinfoil and arrange your four bowls on top.
8) Evenly ladle soup into the bowls. Arrange slices of baguette on top, in one layer. Do not push the slices into the soup to soak them; this will happen in the oven.
9) Sprinkle mozzarella over the bread (and off the sides of the bowls, if you like).
10) Place the whole cookie sheet with bowls on top in the oven for about 10 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and the pieces on the bowl edges are browned.
11) Serve and enjoy - but be careful - the bowls are super hot!

*Photo from: http://www.displayit-info.com/food/dinner2.html

Rain, rain, wash the pollen away!

Our summer days have been temporarily replaced by rainy, somewhat drear-some weather. The silver lining is a great one; the rain is going to relieve us of the 1600+ ppi pollen count. Phewf! In celebration of the hot weather yesterday (and knowing the forecast for today), T and I decided to have our old favourite summery dinner. We came up with the recipe for this delicious and nutritious tuna pasta in college. It's the perfect, light, cool summer meal; especially when followed by some slices of yummy watermelon. Here's the recipe:

Tuna Pasta (college style)
Makes 6 large servings

Ingredients:
1 box whole wheat twirly pasta (or some other shape that will hold the sauce well)
2 cans tuna, drained and rinsed
1 large bell pepper (any colour) diced
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
2 T dijon mustard
3 T French mustard (the kind that comes in the yellow squeeze bottles)
1/4 c Italian dressing

To Make:
1) Cook the pasta according to box instructions.
2) Meanwhile, drain and rinse the tuna, and dice the pepper.
3) In a large bowl (enough to hold all the ingredientes), mix the 2 mustards with the dressing.
4) Drain and rinse the pasta in cold water, then add all of it to the dressing bowl.
5) Toss to coat and then add the pepper pieces and peas.
6) Serve at room temperature, or chilled. Enjoy!