Thai Goodness....

Tonight on the dinner Menu:
Thai Curry
Brown Rice
Tofu "Steaks"

AHHHHH!!!

If there was ONE type of cuisine that I could go in and bother the cooks and apprentice under them, it would be Thai food. Now, I can make it pretty well, I wish it tasted more like restaurant Thai food though. It was pretty amazing. I need to go to one of those lovely Asian stores and get me some more ingredients, especially for Thai fresh rolls, which I will feature at a later time. ;)

The ingredients for the curry go as follows:
Yellow curry paste
oil
onions
garlic
ginger (FRESH!!!)
carrots
yellow zucchini (that *I* grew!!!) :)
potatoes
broccoli
and
coconut milk
Plus a little fresh mint, cilantro, and basil in it, and a little basil garnish.

It was amazing deliciousness... :D Of course it leaves me wishing I had some coconut sticky rice topped with mango for dessert, although I've tried that before with some success and need the ACTUAL ingredients next time.

My tofu steaks I got from a Weight Watchers magazine, it's just tofu pressed between paper towels until a lot of the moisture is absorbed, then salt and pepper them and cook on a grill pan sprayed with Pam so they get those lovely grill marks. (Please remove the paper towels before cooking...)

My grill pans, one of the best presents I've received, besides my bike and my children. :D

A look at the amazingness.

BTW: Annalena LOVED it, and the tofu steaks, which kind of cracks me up because there's not much too them, and since it was the first time I had made them like this before I guess I'll have to do it again for her benefit, maybe with a bit more than salt and pepper next time. Zaylie and Kirsten liked it, not as much as Annalena who got seconds... :)

Caramel....

Try #1: So on Monday I decided to make caramel sauce. I have seen it made on cooking shows, and a recipe in particular looked good and fairly easy. This turned out to be a complete failure. Making any kind of candy product is always hard, but there's a fine point between good caramel and burnt caramel. First thing is you boil sugar and water together until the water is basically dissolved and the sugar turns golden, this is where failure probably most often occurs... Then when that's boiled down you turn off the heat and add heavy cream and butter and stir wildly until incorporated and beautiful. Well, I didn't let it caramelize enough, so I ended up with a sweet cream and butter sauce. Not cool. So I boiled it down until it became thick, well then when it cooled it got hard and crystallized. Sigh.

Try #2: To the rescue, brother Lars, the chef. We made the second batch together, with his advice we ended up with an amazing caramel sauce that was delicious. I ate it on ice cream yesterday morning. Yes, not the healthiest breakfast, but it was tasty.

Lesson learned: Ask Lars first.

I didn't bother taking pictures because the first batch made me so sad...

I'm okay now. :)

Cupcakes....

So, yesterday I committed an unpardonable sin.... I bought cake mix... I feel that cake mix is something the devil created so that we wouldn't ever learn how to bake and be truly creative and learn how to make a delicious cake. Maybe I'm over-reacting a little. I was lazy. Which probably 99% of the people who buy cake mix are, plus maybe cake is just a receptacle for frosting, I don't know... But I bought it, and made mini cupcakes with the girls today.

Now, the consolation is that I DID make my own frosting. Which is a truly SECRET recipe... So secret they post it on the back of powdered sugar boxes everywhere. I can't tell you which brand or it will spoil the secret. It is the BEST frosting recipe I've ever used. Ever. I'm not the best froster of cupcakes, usually it ends up looking like a pile of poo (which is why my chocolate cupcakes are nicknamed "poo cakes") which, despite the horrible name these cupcakes are eaten so quickly there are no leftovers no matter how large of a batch I make. :( sadness.

These are not diet friendly. No baked goods should be... And since they are mini cupcakes, I can eat more... ;)

You can thank my daughters for the lovely display of sprinkles. Crunch. Crunch.

Cure for Boredom...

I was on facebook one day asking for advice to cure boredom, well, okay, it was only yesterday that I asked, what is a cheap or free hobby that I could be doing?? (Oh yeah, BESIDES raising and homeschooling 3 children...) When my dear friend Tina suggested starting a blog chronicling the fact that my kids eat basically whatever I put in front of them while your kids are sitting there still crying over the fact that their canned spaghetti sauce has chunks. But whatever, so my kids are adventurous, and I love bragging about the fact that they'll eat Indian food for breakfast. There are things they don't like, sure, but they like trying new things.

So, this will be a chronicle of our eating adventures, me trying new recipes, maybe even posting a few, if you're lucky.

Of course this isn't without dilemma, I'm on weight watchers, I've lost 30 pounds (thank you very much!) and I have to not only make stuff to feed a hungry husband and small children, but me, who is on a "diet" of sorts.

So, here goes nothin'...

My Babies <3