Chestnut Season

We made our traditonal chestnut curry from Pai's grandmother's recipe. I wasn't sure how Sebby would react to chestnuts, but he loved them. He particularly loved throwing the shells all over the place.  

Aldi: Let's Discuss

This is a boring post on groceries, but it's all I've got today...

I'm always curious about what other expat moms buy and where. Yeah Aldi is kind of a yucky discount store, but the new one close to me is clean and not headache inducing at all.

 Here's what I get there: 

Frozen pretzel dough- I had cravings for pretzels during pregnancy like nobody's business and now pretzels seem to be everywhere. They're fluffy and hot after a few minutes in the oven. We are a mustard loving family so this is an excellent mustard delivery method. Lederhosen optional :) 

They have lots of random Trader Joe's stuff and a good selection of seeds and nuts. I sprinkle these on salads, use them in homemade granola bars, and to push on the kids when they're hungry. 

Their Fruit and Fiber cereal is crazy inexpensive (like around 1 euro, I think ) and the same as normal brands.

Trader Joes cranberries are 2 euros per bag- or is it 3?- whatever, the fact that we can buy them at all, and don't have to pay a fortune in a specialty store is why this is such good news. Plus, dried cranberries are baby crack for the car, and they don't make crumbs. 

Cheddar cheese is big-kid crack and a good veggie disguiser. 

Lastly, their tortillas are 99c per bag. We never tire of cheddar quesadillas. Never. 

Other good things from Aldi: plain yogurt, creme fraiche, roasted veggie frozen pizza, random German chocolates that look suspect but actually aren't, and Asian stuff.

Am I missing anything? 

Photo Dump

Seb's favorite place to be, aside from right on top of the cats, is standing on the side of the tub. His balance is freaky-good. 

Lord help the person who tries to remove him from the tub. This usually ends in a middle of the morning bath. 

They could both wait this out all day. Seb is waiting for Patches to come in, and Patches is waiting for Seb to let her in. 

This keyboard keeps him busy during Zita's clarinet lesson and Freddy's cello lesson. I never turn it on, but that hasn't stopped him. 

Freddy during his lesson. 

Among all of the Seb photos on my phone, I found this one of the chicken enchiladas that we had last week. Never am I more popular than when I make enchiladas. Everyone's mood is suddenly so light and loving towards me. Too bad they are actually quite labor intensive. (Cook's Illustrated version) 

A friend's new kitten. 

I think this dough turned into cinnamon rolls, but I can't be sure. 

Giving Sen an apple in the high chair buys more time than anything else. 

I've been trying to get a good video of Seb walking all day! but II almost never have my phone with me so it isn't very easy. For baby book purposes, Seb has been walking since last weekend. 

Friday Photo Dump

All six of us are still fighting this cold that does not budge.  No fun. 

Today is Freddy’a first cello lesson,  Zita has tennis,  and Mooji  has a rugby game. Since I can't triplicate myself,  Pai is going to try to catch the end of the rugby game, I'll take Freddy to cello with Seb, and the three of us will catch the end of tennis.  Thank goodness Friday is pizza night. 

Here are a few photos from the week on my phone. We all went to Zita's clarient lesson, but wound up on this bench counting the buses that passed by. 

This has been our favorite treat lately. It's yogurt with frozen raspberries. Sometimes we add vanilla, or mixed berries. 

This was Zita's dinner idea. It's pizza dough cut into squares with portobello mushrooms, broccoli, chicken, and tomato on top. Oh, and poppy seeds too since she saw it on a cooking show. Love this girl and her flare for cooking and baking, 

Freddy doing homework during Zita's clarinet lesson. 

Seb loves a good cuddle with Zita. 

Goin' Native

So much of my cultural identity is tied to the food i cook and serve the family. I use cooking and baking as a way of transporting myself home, and making sure that the kids are fluent in the international language of food. This has left a lot of growing room for their love of some Portuguese staples since my childhood foods do not include classic Potuguese dishes. It's not often that I cook traditional Portuguese meals, and making this reminded me why that is.
Mothers will understand what I mean when I say that the work/ appreciation ratio was a little off balance.
With my trusted slow cooker on hand and three trips to the store under my belt, I decided to tackle couve lombarda com salsicha, aka cabbage and sausages.
 Not pictured : cracked pepper, white wine, bay leaves. One can also add carrots if inclined to do so.

Pre boil the cabbage for a few minutes until it's soft enough to wrap around each sausage. 

Use tooth picks to secure the cabbage leaves around each sausage.

Dump everything in the slow cooker with onions and garlic on the bottom.

Wait a few hours

Serve with rice 

I will not be making this ever again, but it's always good to do something different. 

My Go-To Basic Stir Fry

Whenever I make a stir fry, I use the same ingrdients as a base, and then add to it depending on what I have on hand.

pantry staples:

Sesame oil
Soy
Teriyaki
Vinegar
Fish sauce (not pictured)

fresh:
garlic
onion
lime
ginger
pepper
cilantro

on this particular day, I made it a veggie stir fry by adding green beans and broccoli.

With warm weather upon us, I am going to be making a lot more veggie and salad dinners. Sorry boys!

Ginger Cookies

Let's talk about ginger for a moment. These past two weeks will go down in family history as the week that I put ginger in everything. These cookies were the umpteeth and last ginger laced delicacy I made as Zita suggested that she was more than done with ginger.

This is the first time I made ginger cookies, and it most certainly won't be the last. There's nothing to it.

This recipe is molasses free:
http://www.food.com/recipe/molasses-free-gingerbread-343321

I used a teaspoon to measure out the refrigerated dough.

One can make two versions using the same dough. For crispy tea-dunking ginger snap style cookies, turn off the oven after 7-8 minutes and leave the cookies to harden.

For chewy bendy melt-in-your-mouth ginger goodness (shown above), remove cookies from the oven promptly before they are too brown (around 8 min., but know your oven!) and allow to cool off the baking sheet.

I'll save the rest of my gingery cooking for another post. Happy Weekend!

Pumpkin Pancakes

These are the best way to get a pumpkin pie fix for breakfast. Sugar is not pictured below because I originally didn't add any. After tasting the batter, I decided it needed a few spoonfuls of brown sugar. I also used 2 cups of white flour, not just one.

 Gotta love the color.

 Freddy is partial to snowmen and Mickey Mouse pancakes.

 No pancake of mine is complete without fruit.

Seb supervised the whole process from his Bjorn until he got a little bit fed up with our amateur cooking style. 

 Zita rescued him, but he still was so very worried! His worried face can break even the hardest of hearts.

Coffee Ice Cream

Coffee is the one ice cream flavor that our favorite ice cream place, Santini, doesn't do very well. Freddy and I set out to make the perfect coffee ice cream- not too creamy, and not too icey. We came pretty close:

1 cup milk heated slowly on the stove

Mix two eggs with 2/3 cups sugar and then mix together with the warm milk

Reheat milk, eggs, and sugar until it thickens and add 2 tbs instant coffee, then allow to cool completely.

Stir in vanilla extract and 2 cups cream.

It can either go straight to the freezer at this stage or get mixed in an ice cream maker.

I was so happy with the final result that today I want to try re-creating a frappaccino ( my iPad keeps trying to change that word into "craps vino") .

We also used this basic recipe to make raspberry nectarine ice cream. We just substituted the coffee and vanilla for one nectarine and 2 tsp raspberry extract, plus two drops Wilton's pink food coloring. Also yummy.

5 Minute Prep Lunch

Roll out puff pastry and lightly score into medium sized squares.

Add smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and basil  (there are endless possibilities for toppings, this just happens to have been what I had in the fridge) 

Bake until pastry is golden brown

One plate had a discrete pile of cherry tomatoes when lunch was over, but it was an overall crowd pleaser. I served  it with a mixed green salad.

I make different versions of this all the time and never go without a puff pastry roll in the fridge.  I'm hard pressed to think of an occasion when puff pastry would be inappropriate.

Strawberry Jam Time!

I don't have room for a single extra empty jar on my designated jar and mixing bowl shelf. With apricots not quite here, and strawberries filling my fridge, there was only one thing to do.

Perfect Dinner

on a hot Spring evening: shredded rotisserie chicken, cucumber, tomato, cilantro, and cheese on a corn tortilla. I miss my California avocados somethin' fierce.

Chicken in a Pot

I had this great idea that a good old fashioned chicken soup would be just the thing to start the week off right.

So I bought a chicken and brought it home without really thinking about how the chicken would get from its full animal state to a non-animal looking soup. I got out meat scissors and tried to cut the chicken up. I heard cracks and there was a squirting of juices so I stopped right there in a reaction similar to my recent toad spotting in the Alentejo.

I threw the chicken in the pot with cilantro, onion, and salt. Now, I'm just kinda hoping I'll take the lid off in 2 hours and something magical will have happened, letters will be floating on the surface, and children will come running to declare me the best chicken soup maker ever.

Any helpful hints here?

Not Gazpacho Season Yet

We're having a reversal of seasons here, and these drizzly days have gotten me thinking about good old chunky American stews and soups.

With two heads of broccoli in the fridge, I googled broccoli cheddar soup and made the first recipe that came up- the Almost Famous recipe on Foodnetwork.com. Of course I altered it, by using mostly milk instead of half and half, and by using only half the amount of cheddar called for, but it was still a comforting bowl of fattening, delicious, perfect-for-a-drizzly-day soup.

Here are the photos:

milk. butter, onions, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and 2 bay leaves

Lots of broccoli and 1 chopped carrot

I could have eaten it like this, but the kids prefer pureed soups to chunky soups.

The cheese was wisked in at the very end. It got thumbs down from Freddy, and thumbs up from everyone else.