Reminders

So, it's been a while since I posted anything reflective on here, but as I sit outside in the middle of the day around my outside fire, I can't resist. Let's say the Spirit is moving me.

I would not call myself a campfire professional by any means, but I've built my share. Since moving here we've had at least 20. I have 5 kids who all like to throw stuff in the fire. So I'm careful. I check the wind. We don't build it big. I hose all the ground around the fire ring. No running inside the fire. Wear shoes. Wear gloves. You get the drill.

So today was no exception. Smallish fire. Pretty still. So when I threw the very last log on, and simultaneously a small gust of wind blew right in my face, I was a little surprised. Then I smelled burnt hair. I was in no pain, so I audibly said "please let that only be my eyebrows. Please not the eyelashes." I guess I was talking to the Lord but He had already made His decision at that point so I ran in the house to see what it was.  I'll relieve any suspense and tell you right now, it wasn't just the eyebrows.

†*************

So, life happens and I got halfway through my story and it's been two weeks. The eyelashes have started to grow back, and now I have poison ivy. On. My. Face. One of my boys is a little more concerned about my looks than even I am, and he asked me if my face was going to look like that "forever."  So, I'm having the same reflection that I had over the eyelashes.  That reflection is glorify God in all things. My eyelids and face weren't burned. Praise God. I would rather have poison ivy than head lice any day of the week. Praise God. I'm almost 40, my looks are not what is important. Praise God.  Sometimes you just need a few plagues to remind you.

Dinnertime

We get an F on photography this year. Dinner was delicious, but we were so into the moment that we didn't even realize we had not taken one. single. photo. Until after three courses in. Oops. Here is the menu, though. 

The appetizer was the little cone things that I burned my fingers on, filled with marinated sushi tuna, seaweed salad, pickled ginger, and a sriracha mayo.  No picture, but tasty.

The second thing we ate was a single mussel on a spoon with a small amount of sauce that had a whole bunch of stuff in it, pickles, capers, shallots, hard-boiled eggs, other stuff.  One bite and you're done.

The third item, blini, are little quarter size potato pancakes that are smooth and delicate with reduced eggplant and roasted peppers to accompany. These were delightful. No picture.

It was at this point that we realized we hadn't taken any pictures. So Russ got out the phone and took a picture of this one, half assembled.  It had basil oil, tomato coulis, a crouton, cherry tomatoes, and is missing the tomato sorbet and the garlic tuille that tops the whole thing off. But you can sort of get the idea.

For the main course the only picture we got was of me cutting up the sea bass. I look so focused here. Not angry. Focused.

This was served with crispy skin, that I ate and liked, on top of a spinach ball the size of a bouncy ball, parsnip and cream puree, and a sauce that sounded like it should have been weird, but was really good. It was mussel stock reduced with a vanilla bean and saffron and then butter and cream added back into it. I think it was the vanilla-mussel combination that I was nervous about.

We forgot to take a picture of the cheese course. But it was a 2" round of brioche with a 1" hole cut out of it, and a quail egg cooked in the middle, salad with a Dijon vinaigrette, and wedges of manchego. Manchego *might* be my favorite cheese. At any rate it is the the cheese that sold me on sheeps milk and started my several year long journey to acquire sheep so that I can have my very own sheeps milk cheese. So much so that I kept cooking lamb and trying to find ways to make us like it so that I could justify owning an animal for cheese that I will get little to no milk out of for only 4 months of the year. But that's another story.

We finally got our act together by dessert, and took more pictures of that than the entire meal. I'm only putting two of them on here though. This shows the souffles that have been baked on a cinnamon cookie, straight out of the oven, along side the cinnamon ice cream that had been cut into discs waiting to be plated.

The tricky thing with this is that the chocolate sauce under the ice cream is warm. The souffle on top of the ice cream is hot. So you have about 5 second to get this to the table before the ice cream in the middle is melting. It still tastes fantastic though. So here is a picture, but it looks lopsided because the ice cream has already started to melt, and we were in a hurry to get this to the table. And eat it. And lick the plate.

By the end, I could not have eaten another thing. In fact, I think I'm still full. 

Day Before

So, I cooked a lot today. I made mussel stock, and mussels. Reduced tomatoes and pureed them with other ingredients to make a tomato sorbet. Blanched basil to infuse it in olive oil so it would be a vibrant green color. Made these little garlic cracker thingies.

Yet the only photo I took was of the "cornets" that the tuna tartare will go in. I've made these before, they're like little sushi ice cream cones. So tasty. I forgot two things, though. The first thing, was how much batter to use. I did three batches. The first was too thick, the second too thin, the third just right. We will eat all of them. The second thing I forgot, unfortunately, was that in order to make them you have to burn off the first layer of skin on your thumbs and pointer fingers. So that by the time I got to the third and perfect thickness batch I could no longer roll them up without shouting, so that the kids were all running into the kitchen asking what was wrong with me. So here are the pictures. My fingers have finally recovered, you'll be happy to know.

The Boonies

Well, we moved. We seemingly live in the middle of nowhere (although we are only 20 minutes away from a decent city, and I have an enormous grocery 10 minutes from my house). Yet, we have no internet. I do have a smartphone, finally, so we aren't totally off the grid. But we don't have much data, so I won't be blogging much.

However, Russ still has a birthday in the boonies and so I'm going to try to upload some pictures without totally blowing our phone plan.

This year, there are 4 new courses. However, one of them I haven't made since the very first ever birthday dinner when it was just the two of us in my apartment and I didn't know how to cook yet, really. So I'm interested to see if it turns out better now that I have a little more experience in the kitchen.

So far, I've put a bunch of stuff in the freezer. Brioche, chocolate souffles that will be little molten cakes (hopefully), cinnamon ice cream.

Yes, that's white sugar in my ice cream. And 10 egg yolks. We throw caution to the wind for the birthday dinner. 

These cinnamon cookies were delicious. I especially love how you cook them for a few minutes, and then cut them out, so that you are forced to eat all the little scraps on the pan.

There were a few other make ahead things, eggplant "caviar", chocolate sauce, stock. But tomorrow the cooking will ramp up. Now that dessert is made. First things first.

Thi Lien - Vietnam (Part 2 - literature)

This go around we are trying to tie in some relevant literature.  I am searching for books primarily by going to websites written by someone of that nationality who is trying to inform ____-Americans of their heritage. So, in this case for example, I went to a bunch of websites where Vietnamese people were recommending books for other Vietnamese being raised in America to give those kids some insight into their heritage. Then I see if the library has it. This is by no means exhaustive.

Some books we checked out from the Library:

Grandfather's Dream by Holly Keller (part of which is on google books for preview).  Good for the young kids.  Ansley read it to the 3 littles. It's about Vietnamese who stay in Vietnam through and after the war, and the hope they have.

The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam.  This is a memoir of the author, Quang Nhuong Huynh.

Also Water Buffalo Days by the same author.  These two books have the same introduction.  Water Buffalo Days is for a younger reader.  Ansley is reading Water Buffalo Days, Colin is reading The Land I Lost. After they finish we are going to compare and figure out if it's the same story just told at two different reading levels or if there is actually different content. 

 The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland.  Ansley read to the littles. This one was about a family who left Vietnam after the war and their way of remembering their heritage. 


Even though they know about the Vietnam War, at their age I'm trying to stay away from anything too graphic.  I know some kids their age had to live through it, but it's not something I wanted them exposed to yet.  Maybe next time we do this they can read more books on the actual war.

Thi Lien - Vietnam (Part 1 - food)

Since the missions conference we went to was focused on Southeast Asia, we decided to start there.

Thi Lien is a 9 year old Vietnamese girl who lives in a rural mountain village with her family. They are farmers and their village is self sufficient. Ansley picked her out; she is the only girl with 2 older brothers.

We did not really start talking about Vietnam with the food, but we finished the food portion first so that's what the first post will be about.

Most of these recipes came from an Asian cookbook that I have.  It appears to be authentic, because you can't find a lot of the ingredients in a normal grocery store.  Plus is isn't loaded full of sugar and other stuff which would lend to a more American palate.  I didn't check the translation of the dishes, this is what was listed. Everything except the traditional Bahn Mi was from the cookbook.  

We ate (not all in the same meal):

bo nuong vi - Lemongrass Grilled Beef.  This was tasty, but no veggies.  Just the beef.  But the marinade was really good. 

goi cuo'n - Vietnamese Spring Rolls.  Apparently traditional Vietnamese Spring Rolls are fried, and have the vegetables on the side.  So these are an unfried - veggies inside version.

pho- Beef Noodle Soup.  The broth for this soup was amazing.  I had never made stock with anise, clove, and cinnamon, and the spices totally perked up an otherwise plain dish.  This is the dish that is highlighted as the traditional meal that Thi Lien eats with her family.  Not sure if they put all the spices in it or not. This soup has a wide rice noodle, and I'm not a fan of noodles, but I loved the broth.

bahn mi chien tom - shrimp toasts.  These were really pretty good.  I think at least one person in the family really like at least one of the dishes that we made, this one had the highest score.  I have no idea how traditional it is, but you sort of chop the shrimp with some spices until it's kind of a paste, and then spread it on a baguette and fry it.  The baguette is a french influence.... since Vietnam was once a French colony it's possible. In the picture, there is one sort of burned one, and one that wasn't burned :)

bahn mi - Head Cheese Sandwich.  This wasn't that bad.  I may or may not have made the head cheese right, but my daughter ate the entire sandwich and asked for seconds, I would have eaten all of mine if I hadn't filled up on the shrimp toasts, and R.  says he ate 3 big bites of his and it "wasn't bad."  The other boys did not like so much. We put dijon mustard, sauerkraut, and cucumbers on the sandwiches.

Even though I love cooking new and different foods, I am glad that we are done with this for a couple of weeks.  The Philippines are next up and I have some organs I need to get out of the freezer. Thankful for a little break.

Virtual File Cabinet

I'm going to switch gears (sort of) for a little bit on the blog, and use it to store some ideas for school-related activities.  Mainly because I deplore the amount of space that a file cabinet takes up, and then once you need something it takes forever to find it, even if it's filed, which who has time to do that anyway?  If I save it to the computer, and the computer dies, it's gone.  So here we are.  

In case you are interested in the back story, because there is always a very long back story, a few years ago we were gifted this fabulous book: 

This book profiles children in countries all over the world, telling about their typical day, families, school, religion, games they play, food they eat, etc.  At the time, none of my children were school age, and it was too nice a book to let them rip the pages out of, so it sat on a shelf for a while.  Then when my oldest started Kindergarten, we got it out and just sort of read through it together.  We read almost every kid, and took several days to do it, so that we ended up going through one or two kids a week and we would talk about it.  Towards the end of this little endeavor I started trying to cook some of the dishes from other countries.  Mainly because I was tired of them complaining about food, so when we would study a kid who was from Africa and ate hot mash 3 times a day, I'd point that out and serve hot mash for dinner one night and then hope to drive home a point.  Evidently this exercise did not stick. For long. 

Fast forward to now ending 3rd grade, 2nd grade, and another Kinder, plus two 4-year olds, and the book has resurfaced; due largely to the fact that we will be done with our 2014-2015 curriculum in exactly one week (at which point I am throwing myself a party). Since it's not summer yet, I didn't feel like we could quite call it a wrap, but didn't want to start next year already.  After attending a missions conference a few weeks ago, I was inspired. So here we are.  

I had the kids go through and pick out 10 (which may be expanded at a later date) kids whose culture we will try to study a little more in depth than last time.  I'm going to keep track of what countries we study, any reading material, recipes, art projects, etc.  that we do related to said countries so that if the book should resurface in yet another 3 years, I'll have some record of what we did, what worked, what didn't, etc.  If you follow this little series of posts, I hope you find it informative and inspirational.