The Land Down Under

6-2-2014:  Rory was very excited about Australia and kept asking me when it was going to be Australia night (our schedule had been hectic and I was a little slow in getting this one made).  Finally, we got to it!  I had found a CNN article entitled "Australian food: 40 dishes locals like to call their own".  Number 21 was Sausage Rolls and the article said it is the lunch choice of many Australians.  I then found a great Australian website called Kidspot with meals for kids - perfect!  We chose to make their Snazzy Sausage Rolls.  They turned out quite well and were SO yummy!  Gavin helped make them and the kids loved them - yeah!  My hubby loved them, too - bonus!  I loved that ours looked just like the picture on the website, too (pats on back!).  The extra bonus was that the meat mixture included veggies, including carrot, potato, leek, tomato sauce and a pepper.  The mixture was wrapped up in puff pastry.  I forgot to add the egg wash on top for a nice finish, I guess, but they turned out great without it.  I have some extra meat I froze and will be glad to have it on hand so we can make these yummy rolls again!  Thank you, Land Down Under, for a successful meal!

 

http://www.kidspot.com.au/best-recipes/Australian+58/Snazzy-sausage-rolls-recipe+2498.htm

Peru AND Kazakhstan?!

5-19-2014:  Well, Gavin is moving laterally now; he's moved just over from his last pick of Brazil to Peru!  This was actually a country combo night, as we chose to include Rory's pick, Kazakhstan, as well.  You don't get much different than those two countries!  I have to admit, Kazakhstan's popular food made me a little queasy.  Horse meat is apparently one of their main ingredients and I thought I'd be hard pressed to find that in the U.S. - as an edible, anyway.  Nor could I stomach the idea, though I realize, many countries eat other kinds of meat that we are not use to in America.  Anyway, we decided to go with a popular Kazakh bread roll instead, called Baursak.  The ingredient measurements were a bit difficult to follow (like "a glass" of sour milk), but I guess I figured it out (I just added enough to make the dough pliable) because they turned out pretty good.  Peru, I have to admit, I found more appetizing!  Though, they too have their own unique meat choices...  We chose to make Pollo a la brasa.  By coincidence, our next door neighbors had just returned from a trip to Peru, so it was neat to incorporate that into our learning about the country.  We enjoyed looking at pictures online and in library books from both countries.  We cooked the whole roasted chicken on the grill, though the recommendation was in a fire pit.  We do have a fire pit, but we opted to do it on the grill - I would like to try it in the fire pit sometime, though (for now, we have only managed to do smores on the pit!).  I had just read about a Guy Fieri method of cooking whole roasted chickens where you remove the breast bone and grill it very flat by laying a wrapped brick on top of the chicken.  It cooks the chicken more quickly and more evenly.  So, that's what we did!  The chicken turned out quite well.  Could maybe have been a bit more flavorful, but... our family all enjoyed it, so that is good by me!  We also enjoyed the Baursak - I had a hard time keeping myself from popping those down!  Typical for me, the carb lover :(  Overall, a successful, combo country night!

http://perudelights.com/pollo-a-la-brasa-a-golden-passion/

http://www.bestrealty.kz/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=186:baursaki&lang=en

Mmmm... Brazil!

5-7-2014:  We've landed in South America!  Yeah!  I've been eagerly awaiting some scrumptious food from this part of our world.  Plus, my friend and food enthusiast, Gistete, is from Brazil, Gavin's pick this week.  I immediately messaged her and said, Gisete, Gavin picked Brazil!  Recipe suggestions, please!  Her suggestion was feijoada, calling it a staple and iconic dish of Brazil.  As she described it, it's like a stew made with beans and different kinds of meat cooked together, and eaten with a side of rice and collard greens.  I found a recipe

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Beans-Pork-Rice-Collards

and got the approval on it from Gistete.  She did let me know that the meats did not need to be smoked (and that she prefers that they are not).  She said the vinaigrette is not necessary, but does give a nice balance to the meal.  She also said they rarely make the garlic version of the rice -usually just plain.  This all sounded good to a busy mom like me!  I was excited to be able to find the Portuguese sausage at our regular grocery store, too.  I happened to have a ham hock frozen from Christmas (thanks to my mom who recommended I save it and picked all the bits off!!)  So, in all, I made the feijoada, the rice and the collards.  It was all so delicious!!  FYI though, the sausage is spicy!  The boys enjoyed the meat and each tried ONE bean!  I could tell they didn't mind them, but couldn't convince them to eat more!  Rory tried one bit of collards and thought they were gross!  Well, I'll admit, I use to think collards were gross as a kid, too (I'm from the south!), but love them now!!  My husband loved all of it, too, collards included, and actually ate leftovers, which is virtually unheard of from him!  Woopie!  This was a somewhat labor intensive dish - lots of ingredients - but definitely worth it.  Here's how it turned out:

A Taste of Americana! The Good Ol' USA!

4-29-2014:  "O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties.  Above the fruited plain!  America!  America!  God shed his grace on thee!"  Tonight was Gavin's pick and, surprise, it was the United States of America!  Well, the first words out of everyone's mouth that we mentioned this pick to was "hamburgers and hotdogs"!  That was my first thought, too, and that's what we made.  Not much to explain on this one - pure Americana!  Rory also wanted peanut butter and jelly!  Americana kid staple - I'm sure we fully cover that one, as he eats it almost daily :)  My husband cooked this night, as I was still at work.  His parents joined us, as well, and his dad (grandpa or "Gps") captured this night's photo:

Only a hamburger in this picture (and a little bit of Mexico with the beer and tortilla chips!)  However, we did have hotdogs, too, and french fries (hmmm, it was a multi-cultural kind of night!)  It was a beautiful day, so my husband grilled, too, which is also very much a staple event in American culture - we eagerly wait for summer to grill, or the brave, like my hubby, will even brave the rain and snow to grill!  It was fun to celebrate our own country!  No recipe to share, but basically the hotdogs were store bought, served on buns, and can pretty much be topped with anything you want, but the traditional condiments are usually mustard only, ketchup only, or mustard and ketchup.  Also, many enjoy pickle relish and/or onions on their hotdog.  I prefer mustard and relish myself.  We bought frozen hamburger patties, but they could be rolled and patted from fresh ground beef.  I like to use super lean ground beef.  Also, served on a bun, a hamburger bun, often topped with cheddar cheese, and condiment of your choice.  The traditional condiments are mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard.  Many also add pickle slices.  However, hamburgers in the USA are served in many, many different ways and is definitely an "art" to be creative with in our cuisine (swiss cheese and mushrooms, blue cheese filled, you name it!).  God bless America!  It was a good night!

Japan!

4-28-14:  Rory didn’t even look at the map for his next country pick – he just decided he wanted Japan!  I did sigh a bit of relief on this one, since we all generally like the Japanese food we are use to in our country.  Plus, when I looked for truly popular dishes in Japan, many were familiar.  I debated between tonkatsu and yakitori.  I love tonkatsu, but my kids can be so strange about breading (why?!).  I decided to go with yakitori and thought my husband would enjoy a chance to grill them.  Turned out to be a really nice day, perfect for grilling!  The yakitori turned out really well, but I think I made about a pound of chicken (versus the ½ pound the recipe called for), but didn’t double my sauce.  So, I had to quickly make some more sauce for my husband to baste the chicken with while grilling.  Also, I figured out that I need to have the chicken skewered and ready for dipping in the sauce before making the sauce.  I let the sauce sit for a while and it congealed.  I added a little water and whisked it and it “came back to life”.  I also made sticky, white rice (basmati rice) to go with it.  Since the recipe called for sake, I decided my husband and I would try some sake, too, just to drink.  I had it years ago and had no desire to repeat.  I heard from my mother-in-law that when she had it, it was served warm.  It also said on the bottle to warm it.  So, I did.  Again, I have no desire to repeat it!  Yuck!  The bottle does have a few other recipes on it, like using sake to make a screwdriver.  So, maayyybe, I'll try it again in a mixed drink.  We also looked up some kids facts about Japan on the internet.  Rory was eager to know their national sport – sumo!  My husband guessed baseball, and he was right, too, because it is their biggest spectator sport.  My little t-ballers were excited to hear this.  We also looked at pictures of busy Tokyo and of beautiful Mount Fuji.  We would definitely make the yakitori again – found it on a neat website created by a young gal in Japan:

http://www.japanfoodaddict.com/chicken/chicken-yakitori/

Here’s how it turned out:

Madagascar... one of our favorite movies :)

April 21, 2014:  So, I have to first explain the title of this post.  When we were looking at Google images of Madagascar, almost every other picture was of the kids cartoon movie "Madagascar".  Kind of made me laugh and also think, how sad, this is what America's search engine pulls up for Madagascar and what does that say about us?!  Well, my kids loved it, of course :)  Well, Madagascar was Gavin's choice.  I found a great website from The University of Pennsylvania with tons of great recipes, basically a whole feast of Madagascar food:

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Cookbook/Madagascar.html

We made the Varenga (roasted, shredded beef), the Sakay (hot red pepper sauce, which Andy enjoyed) and the Vary Amin Anana (rice with vegetables).  It was all SO good.  Andy and I couldn't stop saying "mmmm!"  Rory seemed to like the meat at first, but then Gavin said he didn't think it was very good and then of course Rory started to complain.  Well, ultimately they did eat it.  They both ate the rice, too, but of course, picked out the vegetables.  The rice, I thought, was delicious - a bit like fried rice, but not.  Just really yummy.  I already had some leftover basmati white rice from Easter brunch, so instead of adding the cooked vegetables in with the rice as it cooked (per the recipe), I added the rice into the pan I had the vegetables cooking in, added a little water to keep the rice moist, then I just cooked it all together on low for a few minutes.  I'm sure it would be even more flavorful if you completely cooked the rice with the vegetables.  I did not make the full fruit compote (couldn't find the lichee nuts!), but I did serve strawberries and Cara Cara oranges, and strawberries and oranges were two of the fruits in the compote recipe.  The only tweak I would make is to half the amount of salt in the Varenga recipe.  It was a little too salty for my taste (and I wondered when I saw it called for 2 Tbs!).  This is definitely a re-make!

I forgot to get the original meal's picture, which wasn't as liquid filled, but I did capture my leftover plate the next day: 

Besides the pictures of the movie, "Madagascar", we did note that the real pictures of the gorgeous beaches in Madagascar really did validate the beauty of the cartoon beaches in the movie.  The beaches are gorgeous!!  I also happened to discover at the library a series of videos called My Life on the Farm, and found 3 on countries we have "visited" in our meals:  Sweden, Iceland, and Madagascar!  Each video is told by a native, young child of that country.  So, we watched all of the videos - only 13 minutes long, which was about 8 minutes longer than the boys wanted to watch, but at least they got a snippet of what life looks like in those countries.  The most notable differences Rory noted from Madagascar was that the boy did not wear shoes while harvesting rice for his family (because he didn't want his shoes to get muddy!) and that his water came from a well with a bucket.  I asked Rory where his water came from and he pointed to the refrigerator dispenser :)  I then explained the blessing that is to be able get our water so easily.

Mongolia or bust

April 19, 2014:  When Rory said Mongolia, I immediately thought, ooohhh, wouldn't it be nice not to have to cook and to go to The Mongolian Grill instead?  I really wanted to do this, but then I thought, I bet The Mongolian Grill is nothing like real Mongolian food.  Did a little research and confirmed my suspicions :(  Neither is Mongolian BBQ apparently.  So, I set out to find a true Mongolian dish.  The one I picked was called Buuz, a steamed dumpling found throughout Mongolia and consumed regularly, but especially on their New Year's.  The dumpling outside, which is made from a basic flour and water mixture, is traditionally folded in various, but specific ways.  My folding method turned out to be however I could manage to get the sticky dough to stay together!  I had my doubts these were going to turn out and was running a list through my head of alternate, quick dinners we could have should they end up a disaster!  I used my double boiler to do the steaming.  I also used ground beef in place of mutton.  Per About.com:  "Older sheep is called mutton and has a much stronger flavor and tougher meat that many find distasteful."  I just couldn't do mutton and honestly can't do lamb anyway.  Ok, I admit it, I was a picky kid.  I have grown up a lot in my willingness to try things, but so far, lamb is not one.  So, lean ground beef it was!  Well, despite my fears as I loaded the double boiler, our buuz turned out quite well!  In fact, Rory finished his off long before the rest of us!  We served them with ketchup to dip (per recipe suggestion).  Rory loved them!  Gavin finally ate his when I allowed him to take the meat out of the dumpling.  He also tried one bite of the dumpling, but that was all I could get!  Well, at least he tried it.  My husband enjoyed them, as well.  My pound of ground beef doubled the recipe, so I froze what I didn't cook and am hoping I can steam them later??  We'll see.  We looked at images of Mongolia on Google.  It is very barren looking, desert like in most of the pictures we saw, but with snow peaked mountains.  Per Wikipedia, it is hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.  I was surprised to see there are large, metropolitan cities like Ulaanbataar, their capital.  30% are still nomadic or semi-nomadic, however, most living on less than a $1.25/day.  The latter is how I pictured Mongolia.  However, the larger of the population do live in the capital.  Definitely interesting to learn more about the world!  Well, I was pleasantly surprised at our yummy buuz and would definitely try them again.  They are very similar to the Chinese pot stickers, in fact, they are probably about the same.  Here is the recipe I used and a look at how they turned out:

http://www.mongolfood.info/en/recipes/buuz.html