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

 

 

The first 2 months...

A few weeks ago, as we sat over another frustrating meal of I don't like this, yuck, blech, etc., I thought about a world map my mom had received in one of her many subscriptions and generously passed on to our family.  I decided I was going to hang up our map and let my boys each pick a country.  Then we would search the internet and choose a traditional meal from that country to make.  I began to post about this adventure on Facebook and was surprised by the interest my friends and family took in our family's endeavor.  So, I decided I would chronicle our journey around the world (via recipes) if not for others' reading enjoyment, at least to have a journal of our family adventure.  Here is the first post of the first 2 months of "Eating Around the World".  It took me a while to catch up on journaling on all our countries so far, but my hope is to post each week going forward.  As a mom of 2 young boys, this may be setting the bar high, but I will try my best!!

The boys' first choices were Iran (Gavin's) and Hawaii (Rory's) (not really a country, but having lived there, I know it is its own country in its own right).  While Hawaii I knew something about, Iran was going to be a whole new world!  All right kids, here goes nothing....!


February 12, 2014:  I found a recipe for Persian Basmati Rice Pilaf (Persia is also known as Iran), to which I added chicken, so as to satisfy my meat-lubber husband and add some protein.

http://www.food.com/recipe/persian-style-basmati-rice-pilaf-169862

I thought that it turned out quite well - yummy!  My husband didn't complain or rave, but he ate it. The boys picked out the chicken and ate some rice.  They love raisins, but cooked apparently does not sit well with them :( Overall, nobody gagged or spit it out. This is considered success when raising two young children!  I also found a book at the library on Iran and I enjoyed reading it to the boys and letting them learn more about the country they picked, what life it like there, what the landscape looks like, their clothes, etc. 


February 14, 2014:  Next up Hawaii.  Well, Hawaii is exciting to everyone, even my 6 year old has figured out it is a popular vacation destination and wants to know when we're taking him!  For Hawaii night, we decided on Kalua Pork.  Here's a before shot.  I was too busy eating and forgot to get the after shot!

http://allrecipes.com/Membership/Signup.aspx?ect=8&lnkid=ret420

My husband loves to get this at our local Hawaiian eatery and I know from living there for a while that it is a traditional dish.  I made sticky white rice to go with it.  I did, unfortunately, forget pineapple :(  A friend asked if I'd included it - maybe next time!  The boys pretty well liked this dish.  They are good meat eaters.  However, my 3 year old's comment about the rice was hilarious - "I don't like this rice because it's white!"  I had to laugh - he is use to the black, red and white rice blend I normally serve!  PS:  Couldn't find a book on Hawaii at the library, though!  Ha, ha.  I'm sure I just needed to delve a bit more, but that's hard to do with two young kids at the library.  The internet is a great alternative :)


February 20, 2014:  So, my friend, Lynn, is from South Africa and she told me if the boys ever picked South Africa to let her know.  Well, the second week, Gavin picked Angola, which is not South Africa, but is still southern Africa.  So, I asked for Lynn's input and she recommended Pap and Sous, served with a brat.  Lynn let me know that Pap (or Phutu, pronounced poo-too) and Sous (a tomato based sauce) variations are common throughout Africa and that maize meal (the phutu) is an African staple.  Lynn said she uses corn masa as a substitute for maize meal, as it is easier to find in America.  This is the corn masa she recommended and I used: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004VLVJ9U?cache=25aec896f9d43c5f6e311103bb857327#ref=mp_s_a_1_1&qid=1392688426&sr=8-1 . 

Here is the recipe Lynn sent me that we used:
http://www.mirimoo.com/2012/10/05/the-perfect-pap-n-sous-phutu-pap-sheba-recipe/

 

It was delicious!  Lynn said the corn masa is good for breakfast, too, so I put a touch of brown sugar on top of the boys', as that's what we do with breakfast Malt O'Meal and it was very similar to Malt O'Meal.  Lynn recommended serving the pap and sous with bratwursts, the nearest to Africa's boerewors.  So, I served brats to Andy and I and let the boys have hotdogs.  The pap and sous was SO good, I couldn't get enough (I ate way more than enough!).  I gobbled up the leftovers, too.  Can't wait to make this again.  The boys enjoyed the pap, too, and of course, the hot dogs!


February 23, 2014:  Rory chose Greenland for our next country.  Well, I was a little anxious about this one, especially when I read that reindeer and polar bear have been traditional fare in Greenland... hmmm, well, decided I couldn't do that to my kids.  Plus, as my friend Lynn pointed out, polar bear are endangered!  My boys are much better than I was about eating seafood as a kid, and seafood was pretty much the only other traditional fare in Greenland!  So, I found a website called A Taste of Greenland and a recipe for Baked Cod with Potato Leek Soup.  It sounded blah, but I decided to go for it.  Surprise!  It was actually very good!!  My boys did eat the cod, but only a bite of soup :(  The only version of potato they'll eat is french fries, and really they don't even eat much of those.  One thing I loved about this recipe was using ingredients I have hardly, if ever used, like leeks and shallots.  I know these aren't very unusual, but I just don't use them much.  Discovering new foods or ones I don't regularly use has been another surprisingly fun aspect of this journey.  I also subbed canola oil for the grapeseed oil when I discovered it was $8 for a bottle - thank you Google Search and iPhone for finding me a substitute right there in the grocery store aisle!  Plus, I already had canola oil at home - score!  I also totally screwed up blanching the chives and forgot to mix them with oil, too.  So, I chopped up some new, unbalanced chives and just threw them on top.  Here is the recipe I used:

http://atasteofgreenland.com/blog/baked-cod-in-potato-leak-soup/

 

The picture came out pretty nice, too (though I can't get it to rotate!) - it's hard to get a nice picture of food!  Props to those who do that for a living - I think I have better luck with toddlers!


February 28, 2014:  Gavin's pick this week was Canada!  At first, I thought, great, Canada!  That should be easy - we live only a few hours south of Canada, been to B.C. multiple times...  then I realized that the only thing I know about Canadian food is Canadian bacon and Cadbury chocolates, which are really more British than Canadian!  Had I ever even had traditional Canadian food during my visits across the border?  The two main dishes I found and debated between were poutine (french fries, with gravy and cheese curds on top) or a donair (made famous in Nova Scotia).  The kids would probably eat the poutine, separated by ingredient (though I thought - and have heard - it's delicious).  I decided to go with the Donair, thinking I'd have less heartache at dinner.  Yes, I know, suppose to be widening my kids' tastebuds, but sometimes I just prefer less stress, and knew I'd have better luck with the donair!  The donair is basically a meat sandwich with a sweet sauce inside a pita.  The meat is formed somewhat like a meatloaf and sliced.  Though the recipe did not call for red bell pepper, the picture showed what appeared to be pepper slices.  I did not have any pepper, but added some spinach for a little bit of veggies in mine.  I don't think I ended up with the right type of pita - mine were pretty thin and not very soft, which I think is the better choice having looked at more pictures online now.  The boys loved the meat (they are total men - they love meat!), but wouldn't try the sauce no matter how hard I tried to convince them - it was basically straight sugar!  Silly boys!  I was happy with the outcome and would be up for trying it again.  My friend Steph's husband is from Toronto, I believe, and she said she has had them many times and that they are very popular in eastern Canada.  Oh, Canada!  Thank you for a fun meal!  Here is the recipe I used:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/the-original-donair-from-the-east-coast-of-canada/

The picture is pretty bad, but it is what it is!

Rory's next pick of the week was Sweden.  As usual, I perused the internet for traditional Swedish food and ultimately did decide on... yes, you guessed it, Swedish Meatballs!  Apparently, these are truly a traditional food in Sweden and can vary by household in their recipe.  The recipe I used was from a Swedish website:

http://sweden.se/culture/classic-swedish-food-meatballs/

We served them with boiled potatoes and some lingonberries (found jarred in the international section of our grocery store).  My husband's best friend, Bjorn, is originally from Sweden and is my older son's godfather.  Rory immediately asked upon picking Sweden if we could have Bjorn and his family over for dinner and if we could have Swedish Fish for dessert :)  Not sure if Swedish Fish were actually Swedish or not... so, I had to do some internet researching and found that, in fact, they are Swedish!  They were first manufactured by a Swedish company, Malaco, and became available in the US in the 1950's when Malaco was looking to increase their business to North America.  A manufacturer by the name of Cadbury Adams now owns and distributes Swedish Fish in America, but Malaco still makes them in Sweden.  However, in Sweden they are called "pastellfiskar" ("pale-colored fishes").  My Swedish Fish history was found here:  http://mentalfloss.com/article/23125/brief-history-swedish-fish.

I did not learn this info on Swedish Fish until after we ate our Swedish Meal, so I will have to include it as dessert at our next Swedish meal!  Hopefully Bjorn and his family can join us then, as they weren't available the week we had our Swedish Meatballs.  Instead of Swedish Fish for dessert, we actually had the Swedish ginger cookies called Anna's.  They are so yummy.  I use to eat them growing up. 

The meatballs turned out so-so.  The taste was good, but the texture was weird.  The recipe called for putting the meat through a food processor, which I don't have.  So, I started to do this in batches in my Magic Bullet mixer, but it was turning the meat really soft and mushy. I stopped after the first batch and mixed it back in with the not "processed" meat.  It was hard to shape the balls, but I managed to do so.  If I make this again, I won't put the meat through a processor, or I will try it once I have a real food processor.  My husband and my kids both enjoyed the meal, so maybe I'm just being too hard on myself!

Here's how it turned out:

Next up was Gavin's pick, the largest country in the world, Russia!  It was fun to remind them that the Winter Olympics had just been held there and what the Olympics is all about.  I made pork Shashlik, which is a traditional Russian shishkabob.  They required grilling and my husband, the grill master, ended up having to go out before dinner.  So, I asked him to heat up the grill for me (I'm NOT the grill master).  I did do the grilling that night, though, and my oldest was very impressed by this and told me I did a good job.  I worried whether the pork was cooked all the way even though the thermometer said they were, so I gave them an extra "nuke" in the microwave, too.  Pork always makes me nervous, but I Googled yet again and confirmed a little bit of pink in pork is ok :-/  Maybe all that worrying made me think they were not the best, but my kids ate it up and my husband raved about the leftovers (and it is near impossible to get him to eat leftovers!).  So, I guess they must have been ok :)  Of course, these were probably the coolest looking recipe so far - all kabobed and all - but I forgot to get a picture :(


Rory's next pick wasn't very far from his last, which was Sweden.  This time, he picked neighboring Finland.  The food in Sweden and Finland seemed pretty similar from my research and I suppose that would make sense.  For Finland, we chose Smoked Salmon and Karjalan Pies, which are savory, rice porridge filled pastries.  They took A LOT of work, though I enjoyed the process.  The taste was so-so.  No idea if I got it right?  The recipe I used had great reviews including raves for being traditional.  It did say you could serve the with ham or with butter, which I didn't do.  So, maybe next time.  None of my boys/men were too crazy about them, so I ate a lot of leftovers :(  Oh well!  The smoked salmon I cheated on - I bought it from one of our favorite spots, Larry's Smokehouse :)  The salmon was delicious, as always, and the boys are good about eating salmon - they actually seem to enjoy it!

Here's the recipe for karjalan pies:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/karjalan-pies/

And, a link to Larry's website:  http://www.larryssmokehouse.com/

Here's how our dinner turned out: 

New Zealand was Gavin's next pick.  That sounded exciting - somewhere I'd love to go and even the kids like the idea of somewhere warm and sunny with beaches to play on.  I figured New Zealand would be a seafood kind of night and it was.  We decided on fish and chips.  I'm sure this is a Bristish colonization influence, but I want the boys to experience more of what a traditional meal is today in the countries we're picking.  So, if they went there today, what they would find on a typical menu, not what they would find hundreds of years ago.  So, I've been saying traditional, but maybe that's not the right word... modern traditional?  Maybe.  Well, in this case, from what I read, fish and chips are quite popular (maybe popular's the word) in New Zealand.  I hardly ever deep fry anything and do not own a deep fryer.  Once, years ago, I was frying something in a skillet with a bunch of oil and caught the oil on fire - very scary moment!  So, I was anxious about frying the fish, but I managed to do it sans a fire - yeah!  They actually turned out SO yummy.  I was very pleased with myself :)  My husband loved them and the boys ate them, too ("loved" would be admitting too much for them!).  I took the easy out on the chips (heck, I might never get the food on the table if I did it all from scratch!), so I made frozen fries.  I really don't care for frozen fries because they always seem to go limp, and this time was no exception.  Anyone want a half used bag of frozen french fries??  Our other side to this meal was kiwi.  I learned something I didn't know about kiwi - it has been a commercial crop in New Zealand for almost 80 years (though it is native to China).  Another fact we also learned - New Zealanders are called Kiwis, but not after the fruit - rather after a flightless bird, native to New Zealand, called the Kiwi.  My husband and I use to eat kiwi all the time.  I think we had it at some point and our oldest refused to eat it and I guess it had been a while since I'd bought it.  Well, my oldest loved it this time and ate a whole kiwi to himself!  He also told us that they sell it at the cafeteria at school and now he eats it there!  Yeah!  Score at least 1 point for this eating adventure!  Ha, ha.  We all also enjoyed looking at gorgeous pictures of New Zealand on the internet.  I hope I make it there one day!  Here is the recipe we used and a picture of our results:

http://tvnz.co.nz/masterchef-new-zealand/beer-battered-fish-and-chips-3416488

Rory picked China for his choice this week.  I was excited for this - a fare we know in America, right?  But, then I thought, well, is the Chinese food we eat in America really what they eat in China?  So, I did some research online and from what I found, Chinese restaurants in America have altered their dishes to a more American palate.  However, some similarities do exist or are traditional.  I went looking for a dish that we would find in China (maybe) and this is the one we chose, Beef Chow Fun:

http://chinesefood.about.com/od/beef/r/beefchowfun.htm

I picked it because it sounded, well, fun, and I hoped that the name might encourage my children!  It also sounded yummy.  Whether it is truly eaten in China - I've never been there, but the internet says it is ;)  I had to buy a lot of ingredients I don't typically use like black bean sauce and oyster sauce, so I will need to make a point of making this again and/or finding other dishes to use them in!  Well, our beef chow fun turned out to be delicious - my husband raved about it and the boys enjoyed it, too.  I did add carrots and broccoli to add more vegetables, but did include the baby corn it called for, as well.  The carrots and American broccoli may not be traditional, but I did read that real Chinese food has more vegetables than American Chinese food.  So, maybe I did make it more authentic :)  It was definitely a repeat, that is for sure!

So, Gavin picked Iceland for his next country.  I hope you like fish, kid!  I was a little lazy and cheap about this one and chose based on what we had in the freezer - salmon!  I read that salmon is found in Iceland rivers, so that's what we went with.  However, the only salmon recipe I found that wasn't for cold salmon, which I blatantly admit I didn't want or feel like trying (lazy mommy day!), was this one, Icelandic Salmon:

http://www.food.com/recipe/icelandic-salmon-grill-234748 

I could not find any proof that this was Icelandic in any way other than the name it was given :)  But, there is salmon in Iceland and we went with it.  Not my best effort, I am willing to admit.  I prefer to get a recipe from a website from that country or based on someone's appraisal that it was just like their grandma use to make in the old country.  This did not past either of these tests... oh well... it tasted really good, so I'm cool with that.  We had also told the boys about the story that the Vikings named Greenland its name in order to attract more explorers or immigrants to Greenland over Iceland, which the Vikings wished to keep to themselves.  We both were sure we remembered learning this in school, but was it true?  I looked it up and there is believed to be some truth to it.  Iceland lesson of the week :)

April 3, 2014

Today we are making Chicken Bryani Potjie, potjiekos are popular stews in Namibia, a Southern African country and Rory's pick this week.

http://www.shonaskitchen.co.za/recipes-CHICKEN-BRYANI-POTJIE-823.html

Potjiekos are typically cooked in a 3-legged pot over an open fire.  I'm thinking we made need to try this again this summer in our fire pit!  For today, I'm doing it in a large pot on the stove.  The process for cooking this recipe is pretty time consuming, so I had to start it early this morning in order to have time to eat it before our first baseball practice of the year!  I thought I could quickly put together the marinade before I had to leave for preschool (my working day, too, so I needed to be on time).  I hit a snag, though, when I realized the recipe was not calling for marsala wine, as I'd first thought, but red masala (no "r").  Oh no, what is that, I thought, looking at the clock.  Praying I could make it somehow from ingredients at home, I quickly Googled it (secretly hoping it really was marsala wine - it was not!).  I did find a recipe
(http://k--ravings.blogspot.com/2011/06/red-masala.html) and I basically had what it took to make it - I did not have the pastes listed, but had the spices.  I did not have time for calculating measurements and knew I didn't need as much as it called for, so I quickly gaged what smaller proportions would be and went for it.  It smelled good and made just enough for 2 tsp (10 ml by the way  - why can't America get on the metric system like the rest of the world?  Oh well, I am learning a lot!  Thank goodness for Google measurement converters!).  I threw in the red masala concoction with the rest of the marinade ingredients and quickly cleaned and cut the chicken, poured the marinade on top and put it the fridge.  Finger crossed!  It would have more than the 2 hours minimum needed to marinade while we were out and about with activities.  When we did return, I walked into a house smelling so absolutely wonderful!  I'm sure most of it was from the spills of spices left behind on our rush out the door to preschool, but it was fabulous.  I just knew this meal was going to be delicious.   I am so far very impressed with African dishes - yum!  Love all the spices - cumin, coriander, turmeric, we need more of these in American fare.  Quite the intensive recipe, especially while trying to finish it up with 2 kids clambering in and out and a husband getting ready for his first practice as head coach.  When I saw how expensive cardamom was ($18 for a bottle), I found a substitute suggestion of mixing equal parts cinnamon and nutmeg (or cinnamon and ginger), so I saved some pennies with that alternative.  Alas, it all came together and it was yummy and so aromatic.   Rory, my big boy, even tried a few bites of lentils!  Yeah, small steps.  Gavin didn't, but they both enjoyed the chicken.  I thought it was a tiny bit dry and I realized I drained the tomatoes, which it did not say to do, so maybe that could have made a difference.  Otherwise, I was very impressed with another African dish.  We also looked up Namibia and learned they are a free republic since 1990.  The boys also enjoyed the pictures of Namibians, of their land (desert like) and of the huge animals roaming the plains.