Japan: Kite festival

Okay, so last month was Japan in our Around the World in 12 Dishes, but I didn’t get it written then, and these are just too cute for words.  Besides, it’s something that is important to make sure you know about.

Did you know that Michael’s stores host kids’ crafts for free?  I found this out when a local blog, Free Fun in Austin, posted about it, and it just so happened to work with our schedule, so we headed off to make some Japanese kites.


They gave the kids fish to color, and then a piece of card stock to decorate with glitter glue, and sequins.  Princess was in heaven.  I think she might have floated off of her chair, that and added about 5 pounds of glitter glue to her kite.

After they cut out their kite, glued on their fish, and put a ribbon tail on.

I think she likes it, what do you think?
Here’s a great video with some more information about the actual festival.

Japanese Kite Festival, one of several videos about Japan in this series

As a side note, after we went to Target to get new laundry baskets, because our old ones were rather broken down.  I wonder why?

Linking up at:
Around the World in 12 Dishes
iPhone Photo Dump

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Australia

Welcome to "Around The World in 12 Dishes". We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg's footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.
 
href="http://adventuresofmommyness.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Domestic Goddesque, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Mermaids' Makings, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas, Montessori Tidbits, Mummymummymum, The Educators' Spin On It and The Usual Mayhem have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it - to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun!

I have a friend from church who moved to Australia and she writes about their life there.  One of the things I noticed is a lot of cook outs and barbecues.  This works well with my cooking and eating style, so barbecue it was.  I did a quick search and found a recipe for barbecue chicken and smashed potatoes, and then proceeded to completely ignore their recipes.

Barbecue Chicken
Are you ready?  This is super simple.  Defrost about 6 or so chicken breasts in a ziploc bag.  Pour in a bottle of barbecue sauce and a half cup or so of honey.  Let marinate for a while.  Start the grill and grill those babies.  Super hard, I know.

Smashed Potatoes
Does anyone else call their mashed potatoes smushed potatoes?  I do because it amuses me.

Ingredients
several small potatoes (I like the red ones)
butter
salt, garlic, other topping type of things
parmesan

1.  Wash your potatoes and put them in a pan filled with water.  Boil for about 20 minutes or so, until the potatoes are fork tender.  I did not cook mine long enough because I was hungry.  So make sure it’s fairly tender.  Preheat oven to 250.


2.  Smush the potatoes with a potato masher.  This is where I had undercooked it a little, so they didn’t smoosh too well.  More of tried to roll away or fly away and hit unaware people in the face.  Make sure to try any random pieces that fall off and say “Mmmmmm potato.”


3.  Add the butter, garlic powder, salt, whatever toppings you’re putting on.  Cook for 15-20 minutes.  Ours were a hair under done because of my earlier mistake, but the chicken was ready and I was HUNGRY!

4.  After you take them out sprinkle some parmesan cheese on.  Yummy.


5.  Eat.  My boys would say bonus points for stuffing the entire potato or chicken into your mouth.


Maybe enjoy some dinnertime reading as you eat.  By the end of the meal there was nothing left.  Superman ate 3 potatoes and 2 small chicken breasts.  Batman ate 2 potatoes and all of his chicken.  Princess ate large amounts of meat.  At the end of the meal they were scavenging and stealing from other people’s plates.

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Japan

Welcome to "Around The World in 12 Dishes". We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg's footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.

Join up with your book, craft, and food posts.  We’d love to see how you learned about a new culture.

Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids,  Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Make, Do & Friends, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas,Mummymummymum, Rainy Day Mum, Red Ted Art, The Educators' Spin On It and The Outlaw Mom have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it - to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun!

 

Sooooo……..  The month of June, it was exciting and busy.  I think half of the month was spent out of town or getting ready to go out of town, or getting the kids ready to go out of town, or something.  The other half was spent with Jeff working like a madman and not being home.  I had grand plans, and then reality hit.  So I decided to make cookies.  Let me tell you that story.

I’ll call it:

First I saw this WONDERFUL idea for Green Tea White Chocolate cookies.  They were even labeled “easy.”  I thought excellent, we love our “Earl Grey cookie recipe,” so this should be another wonderful find.

 

Then I read the ingredient list.  Matcha powder…… okay, I thought, excellent FIELD TRIP!

We went to the Asian market, and I thought excellent chance to talk about the differences like we did at the Indian Market.  Instead Princess spent the entire store holding her nose saying, “It smells bad in here Mommy.”

 

Then I couldn’t find the matcha powder.  Okay, I thought, substitute, and rather than google a substitute I made it up.

 

It’s green tea cookies, the matcha powder is green tea.  I’ll buy jasmine tea and grind it up.  No problem.

 

I cleaned out the coffee grinder of all the visible coffee grounds and ground up the loose jasmine tea.  The powder was not green, like I’m assuming matcha powder is.

 

But, I went on.  Next I discovered I didn’t have the white chocolate like I thought, but I had dark chocolate and mint chips.  No problem, I’ll substitute that also.

 

So, we started to make the cookies.  Can you see where I might have gone wrong?

 

Then I hauled over my 500 pound mixer to the other counter because it made for a better picture.  I nearly dropped it on my toe breaking it because I tripped over a bowl of water on the ground from the girls cleaning the tea set.

 

Princess added in the materials, missing about half a cup of flour on the counter, her dress, and anywhere but the bowl.

 

No problem, I just added in some more flour.

 

Then we baked the cookies.  Mine aren’t a pretty green color.  Nor are they pretty and round.  They’re more of an oblong shape, and they’re kind of lumpy.

 

Our guest, who’s Mom is a wonderful baker, and makes AMAZING cookies, looked at the cookies and very politely said, “No thank you.”  I couldn’t blame her.

 

Princess happily ate one, and said, “Yummy!”  When I asked if she wanted another she said, “No thank you.”

 

So, they sat there.  They were dry……  They didn’t taste particularly sweet.  They did taste like mint.

 

The girls did enjoy drinking tea, and looking at the tea set Jeff got from Japan.  But the cookies, epic fail.

 

So, when I actually made a meal.  I wimped out.  I got some pre-marinated chicken teriyaki and cooked that.  Then I made some plain white rice that I know the kids liked and made that.

 

And that is my tale.  I’ve learned that if I’m thinking “No problem,” it really is a problem.

So………  I’m hoping someone had a successful meal for Japan, because it certainly wasn’t me.

Around the World in 12 Dishes: India

Welcome to "Around The World in 12 Dishes". As we travel around the world we’re going to learn about 12 different countries as we eat 12 different dishes. 

Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Make, Do & Friends, Mermaids' Makings, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas, Mummymummymum, Rainy Day Mum, Red Ted Art and The Educators' Spin On It have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it - to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun!

 

I’m gonna start this off by saying I’m not a big fan of Indian food.  Mainly because I don’t like curry.  So my personal mission was to find something that didn’t involve curry.  And I did.

But to make it I needed tandori paste.  So, we went to our local Indian grocery.

We explored the differences between our grocery store and what they have.  It’s a fun experience.  They have many of the same things, but have a few interesting additions.  Namely spices, and specialty items.  I highly encourage you to go check out the different cultural grocery stores.  I know my area has Mexican, Asian, and Indian.  I look forward to seeing what others we have.  We’ve now gone to the Asian and Indian markets.

But, we got the items we needed: tandori paste, and I got some more sesame oil.  I love to use that for cooking.  It’s got a great flavor.

INGREDIENTS: chicken breasts, tandori paste, cucumbers, onion, yogurt



1.  Pound the chicken to about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thickness.  Princess quite happily helped me pound it flat.

Side note, this is a good time to trim off the fat, it wasn’t included in the directions.






2.  Measure out 1/4 cup of tandroi paste.  Pour into galon sized ziploc bag.  Measure out 1 cup of plain yogurt.

3.  Smush it all together.  This was quite popular with Princess.

4.  Mince 1/2 onion.  Add into the sauce.  Then put in chicken breasts and let marinate for several hours.

5.  While it’s marinating take about 1 cup of plain yogurt, the cucumber peeled and diced, and 1/4 cup of minced onion together for the sauce.

6.  Cook the chicken.  You can grill it or cook in oven at 375 for 10 minutes or so.


Serve with pita bread or rice.  I was lucky and had a friend make fresh pitas for me (SCORE!).

END RESULT: While they kids enjoyed cooking it, after I tried it, and discovered it was almost too spicy for me.  I did not serve it to the kids.  I knew that would be a horrible idea.  Horrible, horrible idea.  So, I can’t give you their opinion.  I knew they would not like it.
Have you ever had a recipe you were sure was going to work go so horribly wrong?
 

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Around the World in 12 Dishes: Russia

Welcome to "Around The World in 12 Dishes". We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg's footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.

Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids,  Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Make, Do & Friends, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas,Mummymummymum, Rainy Day Mum, Red Ted Art, The Educators' Spin On It and The Outlaw Mom have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it - to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun!

So, Jeff and I have different tastes in meals.  Usually if I absolutely love a meal, then he’s rather indifferent or dislikes it (spaghetti), and vice versa for me.  So, I’m always happy to find meals we can both like, beef stroganoff is one of those.

 

Now, I am quite sure that my way of making it has absolutely nothing to do with Russia, but it’s popular here, so that’s what counts for dinner.  Now for learning about other cultures………

 

Ingredients: 3 pounds or so of stew meat, 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, 2 cloves of minced garlic (1 teaspon of the pre-minced kind), 1 cup of sour cream, egg noodles

1.  Brown the stew meat, then pour it into your slow cooker.

1b.  Pose as a soldier, and explain to your Mom that you plan on being a soldier or a hero when you grow up.  This is a VERY IMPORTANT STEP.

 

2.  Add in 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, do not add in broth like we’re doing here.  This will lead to runny sauce, and help you remember to CHECK THE RECIPE, NOT MAKE IT FROM MEMORY.  my bad, it’s a wonder my kids don’t die of food poisoning sometimes.  Okay, not really, I’m not that bad of a cook, but there are times……

 

3.  Add in the garlic, and whatever other random spices you decide to add in.  This is where I drive Jeff nuts because it really is random.  My go to: basil, oregano, or thyme (not really appropriate for Russia, more Italian).

 

4.  TURN ON YOUR SLOW COOKER.  This is a very important step.  If you don’t do this you will come back at the end of the day and discover raw meat.  That doesn’t work so well………..  You think I’m kidding, dinner that night was going to the grocery store and picking up frozen food.  Low for 8 hours, high for 4.

5.  Shortly before serving add in the sour cream and stir.

 

6.  Serve over hot egg noodles.

It earned 3 thumbs up when I asked their opinion, and the boys went back for seconds.  Nothing left at the end.  Total win.

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Sweden

Welcome to "Around The World in 12 Dishes".  We’re traveling around the world with a culinary flair, and a few crafts along the way. 
Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids,  Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Make, Do & Friends, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas,Mummymummymum, Rainy Day Mum, Red Ted Art, The Educators' Spin On It and The Outlaw Mom have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it - to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun!
This month is SWEDEN!  I theoretically have Swedish ancestors, but aside from a 4th grade report on them I don’t know too much.

So naturally I went to IKEA for some inspiration…….

And after much playing in the various “houses,” I found my inspiration:

Swedish Meatballs!  Almost everyone in my family loves them.  I’m horrible at making them (My one attempt as a newly wed ended up with softball sized meatballs that needless to say were burned on the outside and raw on the inside).  So, why not?

I found a recipe at Simply Recipes and got started, since I really didn’t stick to the recipe I’ll give you my version.

1/2 yellow onion chopped up really small
quart size ziploc bag stuffed full of tortilla chips (this would be where I improvised)
2 eggs
1 bound sausage
1 pound hamburger meat
discover there’s no nutmeg, cardamom like you thought you had, so substitute 1 teaspoon dill mixture  (only to find the nutmeg the next day)
1 teaspoon black pepper


1.  Take your bag of chips and pound them into submission with your meat mallet.  Once they’re the consistency of crumbs add them in with the sausage and the pork.


2.  Smash together the meat, chopped onion, and the chip crumbs.  I found my Pampered Chef Pastry Cutter to work great for this type of mixing.


3.  Add the eggs and your spices.  Smush it up some more.

4.  Make sure their hands are well washed (yes Princess go wash them now), and form the meatballs into little balls.

5.  Bake at 400 for 10 minutes or so.  If they’re not all the way done they’ll finish in the sauce.

SAUCE

6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup flour
1 quart beef stock
1/2 to 3/4 cup of sour cream (I probably used closer to 1 cup, that was my container size)

1.  Melt the butter, when the butter is melted add in the flour.  Let that saute for a little bit.  The website gives a very precise definition of what it should look like.  My flour was an odd mixture of white and whole wheat, so it didn’t look like the pictures did.

2.  Add in the beef stock and let it simmer down.  Here’s where I went wrong.  I misremembered how much a quart is and added in roughly twice the amount of beef broth.  Big soupy mess that just wasn’t really boiling down.

3.  Eventually add in the sour cream and just pretend I meant to make soup.

Serve with meatballs, hot egg noodles, and sauce.  It got a rousing cheer from the monsters, so all is well.

To explain the thumbs up and down.  They all agreed the meatballs were good, the sauce was mostly good, but the boys did not like the linginberry jelly I had them all try.  That got a thumbs down.

Stay tuned, and hopefully I’ll get some super cute Dala horse cookies made, fingers crossed.