Breakfast from Guam

Last night while trying to decide what to do for breakfast this morning Chuck came up with a dish from Guam that looked so good we had to try it. The dish was Guam fried rice with a soft fried egg on top and it was so good. Everyone really liked it and it was very filling. The egg could have even been a sunny side up and still be as good but you want it runny because it adds a lot of richness. The recipe called for bacon or spam. We choose to use spam. I also had to sub red onions for green onions. 

Another Hobby of Amber’s

I have many hobbies, too many if you ask Chuck. ? One of my favorites is counted cross-stitch and I like to do medium size projects. Some of these take a few months but normally they take about a year to a year in a half. I am a fidgety person and like to have something to do with my hands when I am watching movies or TV and counted cross-stitch is perfect for that.

This project took a little over a year. I finished it on Sept 27, 2015. It is now framed and hangs on our wall. The first picture is before the detail was added. I always think seeing the difference between a detailed and an undetailed piece is very cool.

Zimbabwe for breakfast

The random country generator popped up as Zimbabwe and after searching for a while I decided on Bot Une Dovi and scrambled eggs in tomato sauce. They were both very simple to make and I thought they tasted really good but for Chuck and the kids, they were not a big hit. I did add a little bit of sugar to the Bot Une Dovi. 

A great afternoon

I started looking at pictures since the last blog post in Aug 2015 and the first one to catch my eye was one from Aug 14, 2015. Chuck was at work and the girls and I decided to go for a drive. At every traffic light, I would ask them should we go left or right and then go the way they told me to. We would Switch which kid got to pick the direction each time. We did this until we came to a strip mall that had a playground and a food court. The food was awful but they had so much fun it did not matter at all.

New favorite dinner

I wanted to share our new favorite dinner night. Chuck has been working noon to 9PM for the past couple weeks which means I have to make dinner and put the kids to bed. This would not be too bad if after I picked them up I got us all home before 6PM, but alas this can not be. All of this has resulted in a lot of fast or make ahead dinners. So last week, after a very hard day at work I was not in the mood to really cook and was out of bread and I came up with the idea of doing experimental noodle night.

I cooked up some noodles and a jar of alfredo sauce, opened a can of tuna, a jar of capers, a jar of artichoke hearts, cut up cherry tomatoes, some smoked cheddar cheese, added some leftover vegetable mix and there you have it. I told the girls to try each thing with the noodles and see which one was the best. They loved it and had a ton of fun tasting each thing with the noodles. P’s favorite was capers (which shocked me because she hates pickles) and p’s favorite was the cherry tomatoes. I loved mixing everything together expect for the tuna. The tuna would have been great if it was fresh and not canned. The girls are now asking for it all the time and also asking if we can add different things to try with noodles next time. I called my mom and told her about the dinner and she has now requested that we do it on her next dinner night at our house. So this Wednesday night we are going to try it with broccoli, asparagus, bacon, shrimp, spinach and Gouda. I can’t wait to find out what the favorites will be this week.

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Sorry the picture came out very blurry and I had only taken the one to show Chuck what I was talking about. Please tell me in the comments what you think would be good to add for the next experimental noodle night.

Another Dr. Who cake

I am sorry to say that I have not yet watched even one Dr Who episode. But many of our friends are big fans of the series, and a couple of them are on the list of people who I try to make a birthday cake for every year. Last year for this wonderful girl I made a game controller cake. This year she requested anything Dr. Who. After some time I remembered that she had dressed as a Dalek for Halloween last year, and decided to give that a try.

I started out with the round topsy turvy cake pans that I own but had not used for anything yet. I did pound cake on the bottom and chocolate on the top to have the best of both worlds.

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For color, I used the spray gold glitter. I then used sugar paper, molding fondant, and a little bit of brushed on glitter. For the appendages I used a very small kids whisk and 2 dowels with aluminum foil and fondant.

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It was not perfect. It should have been taller, and I could have found a better way to do the vents; but everyone knew what it was on sight and the birthday girl really seemed to love it. Plus I think it was done in the true BBC way, which is, “hmmmm… what do I have around here that I can use to make this?”.

When it came time to sing I decided that it needed a hat, which I really think made the cake.

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International Day Arizona

We picked to do Arizona because Chris and Misti were going there for vacation. I get asked often why we do states as well as countries, and the answer is that many states are as big or bigger than some countries. Plus each state has it’s own culture, traditions, and food. It seems like some even have their own language.

Since they had just gotten back from Arizona, Misti gave me ideas on what to make for food and they brought some yummy prickly pear jelly and tea for us to try.

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We also had raw prickly pear, tomatillo quesadillas, Native American Fry bread, black bean and corn salad, and corn cake.

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p really liked the raw prickly pear but not so much the tomatillo. She let each person have a piece of prickly pear, and then she finished off the plate.

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I know –  “Where is the meat?!” –  well don’t worry; we made up for it with dinner. We ordered carry out from Mission BBQ, meaning the food all day was amazing.

We colored flags.

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Chris and Misti shared lots of pictures from their trip and even had some great stories to share. They took some beautiful pictures. We learned a few things about the insects and animal life in Arizona, and that a favorite quote is that mountain is not as close as you think it is. One of the things they told us about was a tour they went on that was down in a canyon. P was able to relate it to the cavern tour we had gone though earlier in the week.

Our next International day will be in July and it will be France. If you have a recipe, picture, or story please share.

 

International Day Jordan

Every international day we all learn something new. With Jordan both Chuck and I were very surprised and happy to find out that though the years Jordan has compromised a lot to try and keep the peace in that area of the world. This was something that neither of us had known and it was wonderful to learn.

Their culture demands a level of of hospitality I don’t believe we could handle. We read about tribes that require 3 days of hosting someone as a guest before you can even start to talk business. Having lived my whole life in the USA, I could most likely not coupe with that. We just run on a way too fast pace.

We enjoyed a lovely lunch of Jordanian Mansaf, Fatayer Jibneh, falafel, hummus (we did not make the hummus) and Kanafeh for desert.

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We colored flags.

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Google maps was not a big help but we did find a lot of pictures that people had taken of Jordan and we read a bunch of facts and listened to some interesting music. All and all it was very nice for us as well as the kids to learn new things.

International Day Brazil

I could just write this up and act like it has not been months since we posted, but we all know that is not true. Its been months and tons of things have happened, and I could come up with lots of reasons why we have not posted but that does not change it. So here is the post on International Day Brazil, and maybe we will write up the rest of it soon.

First, we were able to do something a little different for Brazil. We are lucky enough to be friends with a wonderful couple that spends a lot of time with the wife’s family in Brazil. We sent them a message about what foods would be good to make for a typical meal, and they were a great resource.

We started off with lots of fresh fruit for a light breakfast.

IMG_20150301_115216Chris and Misti showed up just in time for coloring flags after dress up of course.

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IMG_20150301_115208Poor Shari broke her arm but she still manged to help out.

IMG_20150301_115751 Lunch was amazing, Fruit, cheese bread ( pão de queijo), Crispy potato salad (salpicao) with the chicken on the side of course, and a very yummy Brazilian Lemonade. We tried to make brigadeiro but we failed They tasted good but were way too sticky, and what we really did was make a very large sticky mess.

The rest of the day was spent driving the streets on Google, learning a few fact about Brazil and looking at some very cool pictures of the rain forest and beaches.

IMG_20150301_182535For dinner we made Picadnho’ A Brasiliera with black beans and rice. One cool thing about this dinner is that Chuck had eaten black beans as a kid and had never liked them, but he loved this meal. Since International day Brazil we have added them to our usual meals.

The following International day was Jordan and hopefully I will write in up this week or next but don’t hold me too that since both P’s and my Birthday are this week. Wish me luck.