...and chaos ensued

Paris 2024 Olympic Cooking

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 01:33:00 +0000

We are still doing our Olympic Cooking thing, although the oldest was in OH for the summer and we had my nephew living with us for the summer, so the audience was a bit different. We focused on desserts, primarily, this time around. In part because I was in the hospital and recovering when I would normally be planning out the menus and the Olympics snuck up on me this year. It is getting harder and harder not to duplicate more countries, but that's a good thing. As of the end of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, we have been doing this cooking thing for 7 Olympic Games, making 110 Olympic meals/desserts from 74 different countries (obviously some countries have been repeats). See the map below for the countries we covered in each Olympic Games or check out the rest of the blog. For someone who does not enjoy cooking, that is truly a feat to be celebrated! We started out doing a lot more in depth learning about each country, but as the kids grew and time was more valuable, we moved more toward a taste of each place. Yes, some of the recipes have been made multiple times because they have become a favorite of one of us. It's been a journey. During the next Olympics, Chip and I will be empty nesters, so I really don't know if this tradition will continue, but I've had a blast doing it and I do think that my kids (well, maybe two of them, at least!) appreciate what we've done. If you've joined us for the ride, I hope you learned somethings or found some new recipes to try.

Anywho, for Paris 2024 Olympic Cooking, I will just give you brief synopsis of each dish and a link to the recipe we used to prepare it. All 16 countries in one post since I really don't use this platform anymore. Enjoy!

Olympic Cooking, Day 1
Crème Brûlée from France

We had fun with the blowtorch! Obvs this was our French dessert and most of us thought it was yummy. Easy to make and a nice pleasantly light flavor.

RECIPE -> https://natashaskitchen.com/quick-creme-brulee-recipe/

Olympic Cooking, Day 2
Creponné from Algeria

Creponne is supposed to be a lemon sorbet but ours was a bit more of a lemon ice. This may have happened in translation, since the recipe was in French, and though I took French in high school and college, was translated by google. Definitely not for people who do not like lemon, but still pretty good!

RECIPE -> https://www.auxdelicesdupalais.net/article-creponne...

Olympic Cooking, Day 3
Honey Babka from the Ukraine

Honey Babka is good. The flavor is a little like carrot cake without the carrots - a rich, lasting flavor. The texture is dense… Bug says it almost sponge like. Overall, not something we will make with any frequency, but not bad. Heads up that this recipe made A LOT of cake.

RECIPE -> https://www.olgainthekitchen.com/ukrainian-old-fashioned.../

Olympic Cooking, Day 4
Gateau Napolitaines from Mauritius

I may have pink fingers for a few days after this one, but the end result is a sweet treat. These are a sandwich cookie (similar to the Linzer cookies from Austria last Olympics) dipped in frosting. Bug says she liked these but liked the Linzer more. Heads up, a little dab of pink will go a long way! Also, we used jelly because I didn't want to buy more jam, but I think the jam may have been a thicker bond with the cookies. The jelly was a little loose for dipping.

RECIPE -> https://mauritianfoodrecipes.com/all.../gateau-napolitaines/

Olympic Cooking, Day 5
Paraguayan Chipas

Chipas - a bagel-like dense bread made with cheese. These were good, although Ebabe says she would like them more if the cheese was melted on top or stuffed into the center. I told her to call Paraguay and make her suggestions, lol. She didn't take me up on that. These were better warm than cold.

RECIPE -> https://www.sazoned.com/recipes-blog/chipas-sclw2

Olympic Cooking Day 6
Mango Fool from Ghana

I had to substitute arrowroot powder for custard powder, since I could not find that at any of the local grocers, but it worked pretty well. I garnished this with fresh papaya. This is not a sweet dessert, but it is quite flavorful. I also learned that my youngest two and my oldest nephew do not like papaya… more for me.

RECIPE -> https://betumiblog.blogspot.com/.../recipe-31-foolproof...

Olympic Cooking, Day 7
Egyptian Meshabek

Meshabek is essentially funnel cake. Unfortunately I don’t have a squeeze bottle to put the batter in so I could get the typical small spiral dough, but it tasted good even in a larger, chunkier size. Everyone liked them but we all agree a little goes a long way! Tasted a bit like if French toast and croissants blended together and were dipped in a citrus syrup.

RECIPE -> https://cheznermine.com/.../meshabek-vegan-egyptian.../

Olympic Cooking, Day 8
Alfajores with Dulce de Leche from Uruguay

These are really flavorful, but the recipe said to use a biscuit cutter and that frankly seems to be too big in hindsight. These would be perfect if they were an inch in diameter. They were delicious, anyway, but a little too much. The cookie was similar to a shortbread, the dulce de leche was thick and gooey, and the coconut was toasted perfection. They kept well and were enjoyed for several days.

RECIPE -> https://www.duckandroses.com/.../uruguay-alfajores-with.../

Olympic Cooking, Day 9
Bojo Cake from Suriname

Before I tell you about taste, I must say that this is the first time I’ve almost accidentally poisoned myself while preparing an unfamiliar recipe. DO NOT eat raw cassava…. Thankfully I only had a few shreds since it looked like coconut before I googled and realized that it is not to be eaten raw. I’m fine, but it could have been bad. And of course that experience made me hyper concerned about making sure I prepared the recipe correctly. Since no one got sick, I’m guessing I did okay. Whew! If you decide to make this, find a tutorial on how to cut it properly. I ended up boiling the cassava prior to baking, as well.

So Bojo cake was quite flavorful with pineapple, rum soaked raisins, coconut, and cassava, but the texture was a little odd. It felt more like a pineapple pie than a cake. Overall, I probably won’t be making this again, even though I got really good at peeling cassava, but I may make a pineapple upside down cake in the future…

RECIPE -> https://cakieshq.com/recipe/bojo-cake-with-pineapple/

Olympic Cooking, Day 10
German Cherry Streusel Cake

Yummy and I got to use my new springform pan! It tasted a lot like cherry pie. Ebabe wished I had used only sweet cherries, but I used a combination of sweet and tart. If you like things sweeter, omit the tart cherries when making the filling.

RECIPE -> https://germangirlinamerica.com/german-cherry-streusel.../

Olympic Cooking, Day 11
Mofo Gasy from Madagascar

These little muffin like pancakes were a disappointment. I started it at 9:30am, let it rest for 3 hours and it didn’t rise at all… after 7 hours it had only risen a little bit. The dough was very dry, so maybe I made the rice paste too thick?! Plus, I do not own an aebleskiver/appe pan so I had to made do with a mini muffin tin and a pan lid to prepare this on the stove top. I am not a fan of the rice flour/coconut milk flavor, even with the syrup. I saw variations of this recipe using regular flour and if I were to want to torture myself again by making this, I would probably try that. No one really enjoyed these very much but my nephew did say he would eat them for breakfast tomorrow. And I found out afterward that one of my good friends has an aebleskiver pan, so maybe I will try again at a later date.

Win some, lose some.

RECIPE -> https://snehasrecipe.blogspot.com/.../mofo-gasymadagascar...

Olympic Cooking, Day 12
Pan de Banano from Guatemala

So this was an easy one, but since we are moving Bug back to college over the next two days, I needed easy. Banana bread. Yum. I made it in my loaf pan, but I think that the intent of the recipe is to use a larger, shallower baking pan. I ended up having to bake mine a lot longer than the time in the recipe. We enjoyed this for breakfast before heading out to Indiana.

RECIPE -> https://cultural-bytes.org/pan-de-banano-cooking-with...

Olympic Cooking, Day 13
Milo Godzilla from Singapore

I didn't initially plan on making anything on this day, since we would be travelling for the majority of the day. However, at the hotel last night, I couldn't sleep so I spent some time looking for easy recipes for some of the countries that we haven't explored yet. And voila, this came up. A quick check and yes, Walmart carries the Milo required, so we were good to go once we got home. Milo is apparently a very popular drink in Singapore. The addition of vanilla ice cream makes it a Milo Godzilla. The below recipe makes the Milo Dinosaur and then we added the ice cream on top to upgrade to the Godzilla.

This was sweet and crunchy and enjoyed by my hubby and nephew. I thought it was decent, but I don’t enjoy chocolate and this was definitely rich.

RECIPE -> https://www.greedygirlgourmet.com/milo-dinosaur/

Olympic Cooking, Day 14
Heidelbeerenwahe from Switzerland

This was good. Not super sweet, but would be fantastic a la mode! I think we all liked it, at least those of us at home tonight. The blueberries were the sweetest part. Ebabe added a lot more powdered sugar to the top of hers.

RECIPE -> www.helvetickitchen.com/recipes/heidelbeeren-wahe

Olympic Cooking, Day 15
Paletas de Coco from the Dominican Republic

These coconut milk popsicles are simple to make and a refreshing treat. These are very flavorful and very quick to prepare, other than freezing time. It’s cooler here today than it has been but I would guess these would be amazing on a hot August day.

RECIPE -> https://www.dominicancooking.com/coconut-popsicles...

Olympic Cooking, Day 16
Maho Halwa from Oman

A nutty caramel-like dessert. Tasty. Ebabe didn’t like them very much, but I learned today she doesn’t like nuts. She’s nuts. These got a little gooey after sitting on the counter for a while, but I just stuck them back in the fridge to firm up again.

RECIPE -> http://cookpad.com/us/recipes/12893541-omani-maho-halwa

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Reflections

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 01:11:00 +0000

Someone asked me the other day how long we had been doing the Olympic Cooking thing. We started in 2008 and did crafts and other educational things in addition to cooking. As the kids grew, time to do anything other than cooking got away from us and we transitioned to mostly culinary adventures. At the end of the 2022 Winter Olympics, we have sampled the cuisine of 60 different countries over 94 meals (obviously we have repeated some countries, but not recipes) with adaptations made for dairy-sensitivity for several years and through the struggle of an eating disorder. We have learned more about what flavors we like and what we don't. It’s a load of planning, researching recipes, shopping, plus the time of cooking. Every country we do is/was a participant of the Olympiad when we cooked it. You can search for the labels Olympics and cooking in the sidebar to go to any of the pages. Curious about which countries we have explored, you can check out the google map (layered with each Olympic games as a different color) by clicking below.

Through it all, I still do not like to cook, but I am grateful for my family who taste it all and help me, even when things don't come out as they should. I'm a little sad because this may well be the last Olympic Cooking adventure, since my oldest two will be in college during the next games and my pickiest eater will be the only one still home.

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 17 - Serbia

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 01:01:00 +0000

It's our final 2022 Olympic cooking day!! Phew. We made it all 17 days. Thanks for joining in our adventures.

Today’s country was Serbia. I made Prebranac and Vanilice cookies.

Prebranac is basically Serbian baked beans and I was a bit disappointed with the flavor and texture.  I soaked the beans overnight, boiled them for an hour, and then baked them for 45 minutes, as instructed, but they turned out somewhat crunchy.  I think they probably baked too long.  Flavor wise, I thought they would have more spice to them, but really they just tasted like beans.  No real burst of flavor or spice to speak of.  None of us were impressed. 

The Vanilice are similar to the Austrian Linzer cookies. The cookies themselves aren’t as sweet and we filled these with apricot preserves (and a few with raspberry jam). The recipe I used was found on the Serbian tourism site, but when I clicked the link contained in the recipe, it took me to a very different recipe for Vanilice… hmm. Well, I followed the original one I found since that’s what I had shopped for.  I halved the recipe and we still had a huge amount of cookies.  I also made homemade vanilla sugar since I couldn’t find any in the stores and it is pretty easy.  These were tasty. Not as sweet as the Linzer cookies, but just as good.  It was hard to get them coated in vanilla sugar after they were cooked, whereas the linzer cookies baked with the almond sugar on them. 

Prebranac Recipe -> https://www.worldfoodstory.co.uk/recipe/prebranac-serbian-baked-beans

Vanilice Recipe -> https://www.serbia.com/10-serbian-recipes-everybody-know/
Then scroll down to #6 about halfway.

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 16 - Kazahkstan

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 02:13:00 +0000

We made Chakchak (pronounced shek-shek), a popular honey cake from Kazahkstan. This took a while to make, but I had high hopes after reading some comments that likened chakchak to Rice Krispie treats. I will admit I was disappointed in these. Now, I know we made these a day in advance, but the honey didn’t set, even when they were refrigerated overnight as the recipe suggested. They just have a sort of stale taste. No one hated them, but no one particularly liked them either. Can’t win them all!

Recipe here -> https://petersfoodadventures.com/chak-chak/

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 15 Denmark

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 03:20:00 +0000

Originally we were going to make the Danish Braid tonight so it would be ready for breakfast tomorrow, but it smelled so good, we decided to have some tonight and then again tomorrow for breakfast! We will have our dessert we made for today tomorrow instead.

These were fun to make, but the recipe was very confusing when we got to the step on how to make the braid. We attempted one following the directions. Then we googled how other pastry chefs do it and made two that way. Then K decided she wanted to try something slightly different than the original recipe, but still a regular braid. So we have quite a variety of styles. Can you tell which is which?!

If you make this, I would suggest watching Anna Olson's demo on YouTube, starting at about 1:50 before you try executing the braid portion.

This was very similar to the Poteca Nut Roll we made earlier, but the Danish Braid was sweeter and easier to make. The dough was nice and flaky and the filling was nice and sweet. We all enjoyed this! Also, if you are keeping score, we have now used more than 10 lbs of flour during the last 15 days.

Recipe here -> https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/flaky-danish-braids/

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 14 Norway

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 01:46:00 +0000

Olympic cooking was Norway - Kjøttkaker med brunsaus (Norwegian meatballs in brown sauce) served with boiled potatoes, peas and carrots.

I picked Norway as one of our places to cook from because my hubby is 16% Norwegian, so how could I pass it up?

Served as shown, this was delicious and had great flavor. Eaten without gravy, Ebabe said the meat was mostly flavorless. The gravy reminded me of the sauce we make when we have stroganoff, but without the mushrooms. Oh, we did not use the gjtost (brown goat cheese) that was optional, mostly because I inadvertently left it off my shopping list. Recipe here -> https://food52.com/recipes/6239-mom-s-norwegian-meatballs-with-gravy-kjottkaker-med-brunsaus

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 13 Argentina

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 03:20:00 +0000

Another day of Olympic cooking down, just a few more to go. Today we experienced Argentinian Chocotorte.

I had to order Chocolinas from Amazon for this one and had to find dulce de leche at the grocery store. I will admit I used twice the amount of cookies as the recipe suggested, but I ended up with 8 layers instead of the 4 they suggested as a minimum. I am neither a chocolate fan, a caramel fan, nor a coffee fan, but this wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Larry said it was very rich. K and E both said it reminded them of fudge pop tarts. The Chocolinas absorb the flavors and it's very similar to the texture of a regular cake.

This is a no-bake, easy to make recipe. You can find the recipe here -> https://www.authenticfoodquest.com/chocotorta-recipe-argentina-cake/

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 12 Trinidad

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 03:42:00 +0000

Olympic Cooking Day 12 - Trinidad Doubles served with Cucumber and Bandhania Chutney and Mango Colatas.

I specifically planned Trinidad’s meal for today because K had her World Music concert tonight and played double steel pans.

This was good. The bread was delicious and the channa was tasty without too much spice and quite filling. It's also vegetarian, so we will be making this again when our vegetarian is home from college. Even the picky eater said she liked this, although she said she wouldn’t pick it over Mac & cheese.

This did take a bit of prep work, but if you plan ahead, it was easy to put together, although I could not fry the dough in a ball shape to save my life. For the mango colata, I used coconut milk, frozen mango, and pineapple juice. No recipe, just blended it together for a fresh flavor. Trinidad Doubles recipe here -> https://cookingwithria.com/2018/12/how-to-make-trinidad-doubles-detailed-recipe-instructions.html

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 11 Austria

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 01:18:00 +0000

For Olympic Cooking today we enjoyed Austrian Raspberry Linzer Kekse.

YUM! These reminded me a bit of Jammie Dodgers, but sweeter. Chip said they tasted like pop tarts with all the "glittery sparkles" on them. These were pretty easy to make, though a bit time consuming because the recipe makes so many I had to bake them in batches. I would definitely make these again, maybe for a holiday or special occasion. They fit well with the Valentine's Day theme!

Recipe here -> https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/raspberry-linzer-cookies

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 10 Macedonia

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 01:04:00 +0000

Macedonian Kebapi with yoghurt sauce and Shopska salad for dinner today. Pretty easy and not hard to make, it just has to marinate for a while before you cook it.  

 
Chip loved the seasoning of the meat and thought it was a similar in taste to a Brat. It was full of flavor and a bit spicy for my taste, but with the dipping sauce, it was just about perfect.  Even Ebabe didn’t hate it, although she didn’t know it had lamb in it...  

The salad was good. Bug said it needed a little more something, but she couldn’t place what.  I didn’t find it lacking at all.  

Kebapi Recipe -> https://diethood.com/macedonian-kebapi

Shopska Recipe -> https://diethood.com/shopska-salad-macedonian-chopped-salad/

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 9 Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 02:56:00 +0000

Today we made a Croatian Poteca (po-teet-sa) Nut Roll. This is traditionally a special occasion dessert or breakfast, rather like a coffee cake.

This recipe seemed to make a very large portion.

You roll out the dough into a 20x30" rectangle!

If I made this again, I will half the dough and make two smaller rolls. The center of the dough was not fully cooked, I believe because of its size. 🙁

The filling is quite tasty and as a whole, I felt this was very sweet and rich in flavors. Chip thought it was okay but a little on the bitter side.

Recipe here -> https://tasteofhome.com/recipes/poteca-nut-roll/

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 8 Nigeria

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 03:33:00 +0000

Today's Olympic culinary adventure was to make Nigerian Coconut Candy 

I never knew how difficult it is to crack open, skin, and grate coconut. Chip used a screwdriver, a hammer, and a chisel to get the meaty part ready for me to grate. FYI coconut oil is a bit slippery. Two cuts and a grated knuckle later, we had our coconut ready to turn into candy.

I will admit I expected the caramelized sugar to turn a golden color like the original recipe showed. It did not. Maybe I did something wrong, but I boiled and stirred that stuff for a good 20 minutes straight (with my hand in a hot pad!).

This tastes like very sweet coconut. Shocking, right?  Delicious in moderation unless you don’t like coconut like Ebabe.  

Recipe here-> https://dobbyssignature.com/how-to-make-nigerian-coconut-candy/

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 7 Australia

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 23:35:00 +0000

Australia was day 7 of Olympic Cooking 2022. We made meat pie.

I think all of us but the youngest liked this. The bottom crust was a little tough (this was on me bc I used Filo dough instead of shortcrust dough because I couldn’t find it and I had filo dough on hand.  I think the layers dried out too much before I assembled the pie.  This was full of rich flavor and the crust (at least the top part) was tasty!  

Recipe here-> https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/.../aussie-meat.../34l4qr5q

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 6 Cyprus

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 02:24:00 +0000

Cyprus was our Olympic cultural flavor adventure for today. We had Melomakaronas.

This recipe made A LOT of cookies and therefore took up a lot of counter and table space as the various batches cooled, glazed, and set. I had to alter the recipe slightly as we don't have cognac and I couldn't bring myself to buy a bottle since it's rather expensive. So I subbed orange juice as the recipe suggested. I thought these are really tasty. The cookie is not too sweet, but it’s dipped in a honey glaze and sprinkled with toasted ground walnuts, so it’s got a rich favor without being overly sweet. E didn’t care for these and K said they tasted similar to the biscotti from a few days ago. Recipe here-> https://tasteofhome.com/recipes/melomakarona

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 5 Iceland

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 02:55:00 +0000

Today we ate Skyr Cake from Iceland.

I prepared this on Sunday because it has to set in the fridge overnight and was looking forward to trying it, since it seemed very similar to the frozen yogurt pie I enjoy. Skyr is a bit like yogurt, but is apparently a soft cheese. So this was a little like a cheesecake. I was a bit put off by the raw egg being added, since this is a refrigerated dessert, not cooked at all.

Anyway, I can honestly say that none of us really liked this. It has a firm tofu consistency and texture and not much flavor, other than the chocolate digestive biscuits that make up the crust.  If you want to try this, I would recommend adding some sugar to the recipe or using whipped cream rather than heavy cream to give it some sweetness.

On the plus side, Ebabe made the crust and it was nice to have her helping!

Recipe here -> http://www.wanderingwagars.com/easy-icelandic-recipes/

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 4 Belarus

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 01:12:00 +0000

Tonight, after looking at our evenings for the next few days, I had to pivot a bit, so our Olympic country ended up being Belarus, which was originally scheduled to be tomorrow. Ah well.

We had Draniki, which are potato pancakes, served with applesauce.  I added some shredded ham (which was suggested on a different draniki recipe) into the mix for some protein prior to frying.  

Recipe here ->https://foreignfork.com/potato-pancakes/

These were very tasty (K said it tasted just like breakfast), but it drove home the point that I am just not good at frying things in oil.  I ended up burning my finger with oil splatter, and many of the draniki didn't hold together very well. I later realized this was potentially because I forgot to add in the corn starch to the recipe... whoops.  However, I amazingly did NOT set off the smoke detectors today! Hooray!   

Here's what the mix looked like prior to frying, just so you can see to compare, if you make this.

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 3 Malta

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 03:08:00 +0000

Today's Olympic Country was Malta. We made Kusksu and Ħobż Malti (Maltese Soup & Bread).

Both were very good.  The soup was hearty and tasty.  The bread tasted like bread... weird, right?!  Part of the fun is making it from scratch, though and it always tastes slightly better when you put the time and energy into making it (well, if it turns out well, that is!).

Bug did most of the bread making and we made sure to start that a day in advance, since it was very time consuming.  

Recipe for soup -> https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/soup/bean-soup/maltese-soup-kusksu.html

Recipe for bread -> https://www.europeancuisines.com/Malta-Maltese-Hobz-Malti-Maltese-Bread-Recipe

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 2 Italy

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 02:46:00 +0000

Our Olympic recipe today was Italian Almond Biscotti. Turned out pretty good. It’s a bit sweet, but perfect with a cup of hot chocolate.

Recipe here -> http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/almond-biscotti

Bug helped with making the recipe... practice for her FACS cooking class at school. She did an excellent job.

The youngest had a small bite and said it tasted too coconutty… Uhm. There’s no coconut in it, weirdo! Everyone else liked it.

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Host Country China Day

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 23:53:00 +0000

We are doing this a little differently this time, with one kid at college and the pickier eaters at home, and with me working outside the home. So, many of the recipes we are attempting during the Beijing Olympics are desserts, not full meals. Also, I will probably just give you our opinions and a link to the original recipe, unless we altered it somehow.

Today was China Day, since it was the opening day of the 2022 Olympics. Today’s country was China, since they are the hosts. We had Chinese food from the local restaurant and homemade Chinese Mango Pudding for dessert, using this recipe -> www.dessertnowdinnerlater.com/chinese-mango-pudding/

It was pretty good, although one kid didn’t like it at all and refused to eat more than one bite and one didn’t like the texture very much, but thought the flavor was good.  

What I learned from the preparation was that if you try to use cheesecloth to strain mango purée instead of the fine mesh strainer the recipe suggests, you will have a very sticky, cold mess on your hands… literally.

Guest Post: Climate Change Communication Activity

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 19:54:00 +0000

Guest post from my oldest daughter, who put together this activity about communicating climate change to younger children for one of her Environmental Science classes and wanted to share it with parents who might be looking for ways to start this discussion. Art work was done by my daughter and my preschool age niece.

Climate change is a pressing issue that impacts us all, but it is also complex and can be confusing. This set of activities is designed to teach children about certain impacts of climate change in a simplified way and articulate small actions they can take to lessen their own environmental impacts and contribute to mitigating the climate crisis. It includes art activities meant to maintain interest and engagement. Following the lesson script, the activities take about 30-40 minutes to complete.

(To skip the preamble and see the lesson plan, click here.)

Introduction (For Parents or Educators):

We have all heard about climate change: it’s on the news, and it’s a hot political topic in the modern world. It is easy to feel hopeless about a crisis this all-encompassing, but nonetheless, we have to do something. And that something cannot be to solely rely on advancements in technology as our savior. Ultimately, the climate crisis is a social problem that requires social solutions. Some have come to categorize the climate crisis as a “super wicked problem,” meaning that 1) time is running out, 2) those who cause the problem are the ones implementing a solution, 3) a central authority to address the issue is either weak or nonexistent, and 4) there is irrational discounting of the future that leads to a lack of solutions being implemented now. In order to combat a “super wicked problem,” we need “sticky” solutions, ones that are difficult to wriggle out of when times get tough (Reidy 2013).

Usually, the term “sticky” solution is used in the context of legislation. However, in teaching children about climate change and encouraging them to make small changes in their lives to aid the mitigation cause, we instill values that tend to stay with a child throughout their lives. Therefore, teaching about climate change and mitigation during childhood is, in a way, a sticky solution, and one that could be very helpful in curbing the oncoming climate crisis.

Beyond just teaching about climate change, this lesson/set of activities was designed to promote the four things Anderson (2014, 18-19) determined were vital in order to save the environment: generating genuine care for the environment, encouraging learning, valuing diversity and tolerance, and understanding that we are all in this together. The activities encourage empathy, asking the child to put themselves in the shoes of vulnerable communities. With a focus on glacial melt and sea level rise, the activities draw on the stories of two such vulnerable communities: indigenous people in the Andes Mountains (information retrieved from Bolin 2009) and island communities in the Pacific Ocean (information retrieved from McNamera and Gibson 2009). For more information, check out the works cited at the bottom of the post.

What You’ll Need:

A paper coffee filter
Washable markers
A spray-bottle
A cup with water
A pitcher to pour more water into the partially full cup
A tape measure or yardstick
A sheet of paper to draw on

The script laid out below is designed for preschool and elementary school children, and with slight alteration can work with any age group. You don’t have to follow the script exactly, but the script is written in a way that is intended to emphasize empathy, and skipping over any of the stories in the script would likely detract from that goal.

Lesson Script:

What is your favorite thing about nature?

Well, we want to make sure that sticks around then, don’t we! That way your friends, family, and people in the future can enjoy it as much as you do! But there are things that we do that hurt the planet might make it so that we can’t enjoy _(insert their answer)_ in the future!

Right now, there are things that we do that are making the planet warmer than usual. It might not feel like it all the time, because it can still be cold outside, but there are places in the world where it is really, really hot even when it is cold for you.

And even if it is not super, super hot outside, there can still be problems! Let’s think about it this way. Is it warm right now? No! We’re inside, so the temperature is comfy; it’s not too hot or too cold. But what happens if we put a piece of ice on the table? Even though it isn’t super hot, the ice will still melt. That’s because ice needs to be cold in order to stay ice.

Okay, now I want you to close your eyes and imagine the BIGGEST piece of ice you can imagine. This ice is just HUGE! Bigger than you! Bigger even than this room! Super, super big. When we have ice that big, we call it a glacier. There are glaciers in some of the coldest parts of the world. But those cold places are getting less cold, and do you remember what happens to ice when it gets less cold? It melts.

(Here’s where I started the first activity. Make sure to use washable markers for this part!)

So we’re going to do a little art project now. This is called a coffee filter. It feels pretty funny, right? It’s really thin paper. But we’re going to use it for our project. First, you have to flatten it out. Once it’s all flat, we can draw on it! Let’s try to draw a glacier. How big would your glacier be? What kind of animals or plants are around your glacier?

(While we draw, continue the conversation.)

It’s pretty hard to imagine that much ice melting, right? But it’s happening right now! Glaciers are melting all over the world, and this makes life really difficult for people who live by the glaciers. For example, there are people that live on some pretty big mountains called the Andes mountains. The Andes mountains also have glaciers on them, but those glaciers are melting pretty fast. The people that live there use water from the glaciers to grow their food and to drink. But because the glaciers are melting so fast, they’re not able to get the water they need to drink and to water their plants. The melting of the glaciers can also cause rock falls, landslides, and floods that make it dangerous to go about their lives. That’s why the glaciers melting is a problem.

Alright, are you done drawing your glacier? Let’s see it!

(Here you can compliment or make comments on their drawing.)

Okay, now we’re going to do something to your drawing to make it look like it’s melting, just like the glaciers. Is that okay?

(If it’s not alright or the kid(s) are hesitant to ‘ruin’ their drawing, have them just scribble something onto a different coffee filter.)

So now we take this spray bottle and carefully spray some water on your drawing until the paper is all wet. See how the lines you made are starting to blur a bit? It’s kind of like your drawing is melting, just like the glaciers! Pretty cool, right? Now we have to let it sit so it can dry.

Okay, let’s think about what happens when ice melts. What does that ice turn into? Right, water. So if lots of ice is melting all over the world, what happens then? Now we have a lot more water. Where does that water go? Eventually, it ends up in the oceans. But the more water you put in the ocean, the higher the ocean goes.

(Here, you can use a visual of a cup to make this point. Make sure the cup has some water in it already, but be ready to add more water to the cup as well.)

It’s like this cup. Right now, there’s some water already in the cup, and that’s fine. But if we pour more water in, like water from melted ice, then the cup might eventually overflow with water. The ocean is just a GIANT cup that can hold a lot more water. If we put too much water in, it will eventually overflow and go onto the land.

So what’s bad about the ocean getting bigger? Well, if it gets too big, it can be a problem for people that live close to the water. Right now, sea level rise is expected to be over two feet in some places by the year 2050. That’s not that far from now! You’ll be _(calculate their age)_ years old then.

(Here, you’ll need the measuring stick or whatever you’re using to measure height).

Let’s compare how tall you are to how much taller the ocean could be in 30 years.

(Measure out two feet either directly against the child or against the wall. If you choose to mark it against the wall, I recommend marking it using a sticky note, but a piece of paper with tape or some other easily removable adhesive works, too.)

So, this is two feet. If you stand next to it, you can see how tall the ocean will be for people that live right by the edge of the ocean. That’s pretty crazy, isn’t it! Imagine having to live your life surrounded by that much water!

(Here is where we start the second art activity.)

Okay let’s get some paper and our art supplies back out, because we’re going to try to draw what our lives would look like if we had to live in that much water. Would you be swimming with some fish? Would you share your lunch with some crabs?

(While we draw, continue the conversation.)

So what we are drawing right now is an imagined version of what life would be like. But if you had to live like that every day, it wouldn’t be very fun. How would we get from place to place? Roads and homes would be flooded.

The situation is even worse for people that live on islands. They have nowhere to go! If we let the ocean overflow too much, their entire island – everything they have ever known – could be forced underwater. Most of the people that live on islands don’t want to leave, though, even if it is safer for them to leave. They are attached to their home land, because that is their land and their culture. Nobody wants to be forced to move. And that’s why we all should try to help stop glaciers melting and ocean levels rising.

Alright, let’s see what you have drawn!

(Here, again, do a show and tell and let them explain what is happening in the picture. Make comments and compliments to encourage and engage them.)

If we want to help stop the glaciers from melting so fast and making the oceans rise so much, what can we do? Well, there are certain small things that you, your friends, and your family can all do to help slow the rate at which the Earth is getting warmer. Do you have any ideas of what you can do?

(Let them answer about things they may already know to do to help protect the planet. Here are some examples you can bring up if they don’t mention it: turning off lights whenever possible, turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth or even washing your hands to prevent the wasting of water, biking or walking instead of riding a car, don’t let food go to waste, use reusable bags when shopping. There are, of course, other actions that adults can take, but there are the easiest for kids to get in on the action.)

Lucky for us, we have two very cool art pieces that we can use as reminders. You can hang one up by a light switch to remind you to turn off the lights when you don’t need them. You can put one by the sink to remember to turn the faucet off whenever possible. Whenever you see your drawings, remember all the things you can do to help protect the planet – and help protect the people we talked about today that are affected most by climate change.

Works Cited:

Anderson, E. N. 2014. “Introduction.” In Caring for Place: Ecology, Ideology, and Emotion in Traditional Landscape Management, edited by E. N. Anderson, 14-47. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

Bolin, Inge. 2009. “The Glaciers of the Andes are Melting: Indigenous and Anthropological Knowledge Merge in Restoring Water Resources.” In Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Action, edited by S. A. Crate and M. Nuttall, 228-239. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

McNamera, Karen Elizabeth and Chris Gibson. 2009. “‘We do not want to leave our land’: Pacific ambassadors at the United Nations resist the category of ‘climate refugees.’” Geoforum 40: 475-483.

Reidy, Chris. 2013. “Climate Change is a Super Wicked Problem.” Plantcentric (blog). May 28, 2013. https://medium.com/@chrisjriedy/climate-change-is-a-super-wicked-problem-b2e2b77d947d.

Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 11, Puerto Rico

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 05:50:00 +0000

Today is the final day of Olympic Cooking 2018 and I am not sad about it. I am sort of sad the games are coming to a close though. I enjoy watching sports I wouldn't normally see and cheering for athletes from around the world.

For our final day, we celebrated Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico had one athlete who competed in the Men's Giant Slalom. The territory has not competed in the Winter Olympics since 2002, but received a temporary membership to the Winter Sports Federation, allowing them to compete in these games.

My original meal plan consisted of Monfongo (recipe from Savvy Mujer), Chicharonnes de Pollo (recipe from The Noshery), and Helado de Coco (recipe from La Casa de Sweets). Having quite a bit of cucumber left over from yesterday and realizing the need for a vegetable with our meal, I found a recipe for a cucumber salad (Ensalada de Pepino) from ABCdeSavilla and translated it from Spanish using google. It turned out pretty good!

The Verdict: We enjoyed the flavors of the various dishes today. The Monfongo was good, the chicken was the perfect combination of crispy and juicy, and the helado de coco was a great finale! The ensalada de pepino was tasty, but since the recipe didn't specify amounts of ingredients to add, I had to wing it and the yogurt sauce wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. It was still good, but the cucumbers without the sauce were better than with it.

Mofongo

Ingredients

4 large green plantains

2 cups of canola oil (for frying)

2 cups chicken broth

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

¼ cup olive oil

½ teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions

Peel the plantains and cut in rounds of about 1 inch.

Fry the plantains in hot oil. It will take about 5-7 minutes to get them golden.

Drain on paper towels.

In a big bowl or mortar, crush the garlic cloves

Add the plantains and bacon, olive oil and crush them. Mash or beat until it forms a “lumpy mash potato” consistency.

Add chicken stock to moisten the mixture as needed.

Use a small bowl to form and pack the mofongo.

Note: I made one mofongo without the bacon for my daughter who doesn't eat meat. She said it tasted good, but I noticed it was definitely more bland.

Chicharrones de Pollo

Ingredients

Seasoning
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp vinegar
2 tsp orange or lime juice
1 tsp oregano
1 3/4 tsp salt
2 peppercorns
4 garlic cloves

Chicken
3 lbs bone-in skin on, chicken thighs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 envelope sazon
1/4 tsp pepper
vegetable oil for frying

Directions

Combine all the seasoning ingredients and mash it all together, set aside.

Trim off any excess skin from the chicken, but do not remove the skin. Lay the chicken in a glass dish (do not use metal as it could react with the vinegar) and pour seasoning over the chicken, massage the seasoning evenly into the chicken. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours.

When ready to prepare chicken, heat enough oil to cover chicken in a dutch oven to 400 degrees.

While the oil heats combine flour, sazon and pepper in a large ziploc bag, and shake to combine ingredients. In batches, place chicken in flour bag and shake until well coated.

Shake off excess flour and place on baking grid until all chicken pieces are coated.

When oil reaches 400 degrees, fry chicken pieces in batches for 3 minutes.

Remove from oil and drain on a plate lined with paper towels. Lower the heat of the oil to 300 degrees and place all chicken back in the pot, cover and fry for 10 minutes. Remove chicken from oil and drain in paper towel lined plate.

Raise the heat again to 400 degrees and fry the chicken in batches until they turn a dark golden brown, without burning. Remove the chicken from oil and drain on a paper towel lined plate.

Ensalada Refrescante de Pepino

Ingredients

2 cucumbers

Rice Vinegar

Soy Sauce

Sesame Seeds

Natural Yogurt

Dried Mint Leaves

Dried Basil

Lemon Juice

1 TBSP Sugar

Salt

Olive Oil

Chopped Walnuts

Directions

Use a mandolin to cut the cucumber into very thin slices. Combine a small amount of water, rice vinegar, a few drops of soy sauce, and a spoonful of sugar. Add to sliced cucumbers and marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

Meanwhile, prepare the yogurt sauce. Mix together the yogurt with a few drops of lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, and a handful of chopped mint and basil.

To serve, arrange the cucumber slices in a dish with a little of the marinade liquid. Sprinkle with a few sesame seeds. Place a spoonful of the yogurt sauce and top with a small amount of the chopped walnuts.

Helado de Coco

Ingredients

2 cups Coconut Milk
2 cups Half-and-half
¾ cups Sugar

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk together the coconut milk, half-and-half, and sugar.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze for 1–2 hours, or until the mixture is very cold.

Remove from the freezer and pour into your ice cream machine. Freeze in the ice cream maker for 15–20 minutes, or until the sorbet is nice and creamy.

Scoop the sorbet into a container, and freeze for at least 2–3 more hours or overnight.

Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 10, Spain

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 04:45:00 +0000

Today was Spain day. Spain has won two bronze medals during the games this year, one in men's figure skating and one in snowboarding. My oldest is in her 2nd year of Spanish and was given an extra credit assignment to go to a restaurant and try four tapas. She cleared it with her teacher that we could make the four tapas at home, so this meal was a double whammy! Our Spanish tapas menu consisted of Croquetas de Pollo Con Curcuma, Rollos de Pepino, Pan Con Tomate, and Manchego Dulce de Manzana. The original recipe for theCroquetas de Pollo Con Curcuma and the Rollos de Pepino are found on the Spanish Recipes by Nuria blog, the Pan Con Tomate is from the Mutt and Chops blog and the Manchego Dulce de Manzana recipe is from the Honest Cooking blog.

The Verdict: Honestly, I probably won't make any of them again. The Croquetas de Pollo were rather bland and none of us particularly liked them. They reminded me a lot of the Coxhina from Brazil we made during the last Olympics. We didn't particularly care for those either! The Rollos de Pepino were good, but I'm not a huge salmon fan. I would eat them again, but I'm not sure that I'd make it as a roll versus chopping everything up as a salad. The Pan Con Tomate was pretty good. We enjoyed it, but thought we would enjoy it more if it were crispy on top. Lastly, the dulce de manzana was almost too sweet. It was toned down a little bit by the manchego cheese, but none of us are fancy cheese lovers, so we could live without this. Overall, it was a good experience to try a lot of foods at once like this, but we aren't huge fans of these particular tapas.

Croquetas de Pollo Con Curcuma

Ingredients

chicken breast - either roasted or boiled.

3 TBSP of wheat flour

2 medium size onions

2 cups of milk

ground nutmeg

½ tsp turmeric powder
olive oil

1 egg

breadcrumbs

salt

Instructions

Cut the chicken breast in very small pieces. Peel and dice the onion into small pieces.

Saute the onions in olive oil in a large pan over low heat until translucent, then add the chicken. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes, then add the flour. Stir and cook for another 5 minutes, then slowly add the milk little by little while stirring. Add nutmeg to taste and the turmeric. Stir some more.

When you get a thick dough that doesn't get stick to the pan's wall, it means that it's done. Taste and add some salt, if needed.

Remove from heat, cover with a towel or cloth and allow to cool. Once pan has cooled to touch, place in the fridge and allow to completely cool (this might take up to two hours, depending on how large your pan is).

Once is completely cold, heat olive oil in the bottom of a pan to fry the croquettes.

Put egg in a bowl and beat it. Fill another bowl with breadcrumbs.

Shape the croquettes with your hands, dredge though the egg and then coat in breadcrumbs. Fry until golden, remove from oil and place on paper towel to absorb extra oil. Serve warm.

Rollos de Pepino

Ingredients

2 boiled eggs
2 medium kumatos
1 green onion,
1/2 package of smoked salmon
1 green pepper
2 Spanish Cucumbers
some poppy seeds
extra virgin olive oil
balsamic aka modena vinegar
sea salt

Instructions

Dice the vegetables and marinate them with the vinegar and olive oil. While marinating, dice the eggs. Cut the cucumber into thin strips with a mandolin. Layer the cucumber, salmon and a spoonful of the vegetables/egg, roll it up and hold in place with a toothpick. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Pan Con Tomate

Ingredients

1 fresh loaf ciabatta bread

2 large, ripe quality tomatoes 2 TBSP olive oil

1 clove large garlic, cut in half, divided

Salt

Fresh cracked pepper

Instructions

Start by grating two large, ripe tomatoes, cut into halves, into a small-mesh strainer, placed over a bowl for draining. Rotate the tomato halves every so many sweeps while grating, shredding all the flesh down to the skin. Then discard the skin.

Allow the tomato pulp to drain for about 30 minutes or so.

The drainage bowl will collect a relatively large amount of tomato water. About 6-8 ounces. Discard it, reserve it for a different use, or drink it.

Once drained, season the tomato pulp with olive oil, salt, and cracked black pepper to taste.

Add half the garlic to the tomato paste using a microplane.

After the tomato pulp is seasoned, cut the ciabatta loaf into two long halves and place it on a grill or in the oven in broiler mode. Grill until the bread achieves a beautifully charred look, without developing a black, burned aspect. About 1 minute or so under the broiler.

Then brush one half of the garlic over the grilled top of the bread halves, covering the entire surfaces.

Spread the seasoned tomato paste over the garlic-rubbed grilled bread.

Cut it into 2-inch or so strips, garnish with fresh chopped Italian parsley and serve immediately.

Manchego Dulce de Manzana

Ingredients

1.25 lbs apples (tart or tangy variety to offset sweetness of sugar)

1 lemon

0.4 cup apple cider

1 lb sugar

manchego cheese

Instructions

Peel the lemon and get rid of as much pith as you can. Cut in half and extract the pips. Juice the lemon.

Peel and core the apples. Cut into large chunks and sprinkle with some of the lemon juice to prevent them from browning. Add the cider and sugar, stir to mix. Process the mixture in a food processor until smooth.

Put the pureed fruit in a heavy saucepan. Turn on the heat to low and simmer 35-40 minutes uncovered, stirring often.

To determine if it is done, take a teaspoonful of the mixture and drop it on a plate. Wait until it's cold. If the drop is firm enough to the touch and detaches from the plate in one piece when pushed with your finger (a lot more solid than jam consistency), then it's done. If the pureé is too soft, just proceed with the simmering 2-5 minutes longer or as long as needed.

When it is ready, pour the paste into a shallow container large or small enough to form it into the shape of a thin ingot and let it cool completely. We cooled it overnight.

Slice the cheese and slice similarly sized pieces of the apple paste. Top the cheese with the dulce de manzana.

Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 9, Bosnia

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Sat, 24 Feb 2018 03:13:00 +0000

Today we experienced a bit of Bosnian cuisine. First off, Bosnia is short for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it gained its independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. Bosnia has four athletes, one male and one female competing in Alpine Skiing and another male and female participating in cross country skiing.
Our menu for the day was Chicken Paprikash served with boiled, mashed potatoes and Cupavci for dessert. The recipe for the chicken came from That's All Jas blog, which is a recipe blog written by a Bosnia expat. The recipe for the Cupavci came from Baking With Sibella blog, also written by a Bosnia expat.

So I knew we had a busy day today and decided to get a start on the food preparation yesterday. I began the process of making the cupavci, following along to the directions I had copied from the blog to a google document where I store all the International recipes I use for the Olympics. Thus began another cooking misadventure... Issue one, I didn't read the directions all the way through to fully understand what to do before I started. Issue two, I attempted to translate the recipe into US measurements/temperatures, apparently not overly successfully. The cake seemed done after 25 minutes baking at 385F, but once it had fully cooled, I realized that the center was not finished.

I tried to put it back in the oven to continue baking, but that didn't work. Issue three, I didn't refer back to the original blog, which had pictures, to clarify what to do. When the recipe said to cut the cake horizontally, I cut it down the center, not the correct way (see above photo). Anyway, even with all the craziness and my inability to read/follow directions, the cake turned out okay. While it doesn't look like the original poster's pictures, the flavors were good. Anyway, please use the link above to access the recipe. I'll link to it below, but will let you go to the original post to see the step-by-step pictures if you want to make it yourself.

The Verdict: We liked the Chicken Paprikash, although the youngest thought it was a little spicy. The cupavci was good, too, although I don't particularly care for chocolate. It tasted very rich to me, but the coconut was a good foil for the chocolate flavor.

Chicken Paprikash

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts

2 large onion, chopped
2 green bell pepper sliced
2 red bell pepper, sliced
2 clove garlic, diced
2 TBSP paprika, preferably Hungarian
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce
2 cups chicken broth
2 TBSP sour cream
2 TBSP flour
2 TBSP dried basil
3-4 TBSP oil
Vegeta (salt) and black pepper to taste

Directions

Cut chicken into strips.

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add chopped onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent for 3-4 minutes.

Place chicken strips in the pan with onions and season with Vegeta, pepper, and paprika. Let the chicken cook until done, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and sliced peppers. Cook 10 minutes or until peppers are softened but not overcooked.

Sprinkle the chicken and peppers with flour and stir to combine. Add tomato sauce, broth, basil, and red pepper flakes. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes or until sauce thickens. Stir in sour cream.

Serve over mashed potatoes.

Čupavci

please visit Baking with Sibella to get the recipe and see the photos of the right way to prepare it!

Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 8, Norway

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 02:46:00 +0000

Today we wanted to explore a bit of our Norse heritage. There are a lot of Norwegians competing in the Winter Olympics this year. If you are watching any of the coverage, I'm sure you've seen some of them, particularly in skiing events.

Our menu today is Kalruletter and Sot Suppe. Kalruletter is a meat-filled cabbage roll with gravy, served with boiled potatoes and carrots and sot suppe (literally translated: sweet soup) is a fruit dish. The recipe for the Kalruletter is primarily from Arctic Grub blog with the cabbage prep parts and baking directions taken from the Thanks for the Food blog. I had originally planned on following the later recipe, but when I googled Kalruletter for an image search, most had a white or brown gravy and not a tomato topping. So, this morning I switched gears and decided to follow the Arctic Grub recipe, except for the cabbage part, which I had already done. The Sot Suppe recipe came from Cheap Recipe Blog.

The Verdict: The Kalruletter (cabbage rolls) was a success! Chip even commented how much the filling tasted like the meatballs he had years ago at the Norway pavilion at Disney World - and that was without him knowing we were having Norwegian food today. (He got home right as we were sitting down to eat and had missed the introduction.) While we enjoyed the rolls, by the time we got to our 3rd kalruletter, the cabbage was a bit much. Therefore, I would say that I would make this again, but only put about 1/2 the meat mixture into the cabbage and cook the other half as meatballs. The dill gravy was a nice compliment to the flavor of the meat. The Sot Suppe was a favorite for my youngest and I thought it was tasty, but the other two girls thought it was too sweet and Chip didn't like the flavors of the fruit. It was thicker than I anticipated, and Ebabe kept saying it looked like fruit slime... and it was sort of true!

Kålruletter

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey (you can use pork, beef, or chicken instead, if you prefer)

2 tsp salt

1 egg

2 TBSP fresh parsley, chopped fine

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground ginger

2 TBSP cornstarch or potato starch

about 1/2 cup heavy cream or milk

1 onion, peeled and diced
2 TBSP butter for sauteing onion

2 heads of cabbage

water

salt for water

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add in salt. You will want to add in about 1 tablespoon per 2 liters (about 8 cups) of water. Once the water is boiling, add one whole head of cabbage and allow it to boil for 5-7 minutes, or until the outer layers turn slightly transparent.

Remove the entire head of cabbage from the water and allow it to cool off on a baking sheet until cool enough to handle. Repeat the same process for each head of cabbage.

Once the cabbage had cooled off enough to touch with your bare hands, remove the leaves from the core. They should be quite flexible and easily malleable, but if you get some resistance from the vein of the cabbage leaf when you try to bend it, shave it down with a paring knife. You should be able to get 16-20 leaves of cabbage.

Saute the onions over medium heat with the 2 tbsp of butter, plenty of salt and a dash of sugar. They should be caramelized and browned, adjust heat and avoid stirring too much but don’t let them burn. It will take about 15 minutes or so.

Combine the ground turkey with the sauteed onion, egg, salt, pepper, spices, parsley, cornstarch and cream/milk, either by hand or pulse in a food processor.

Next, add a lump of filling into the middle of the leaf, and wrap the edges of the leaf around the meat as to form a parcel or mini-burrito. Repeat this process until all the meat and leaves have been used. I made 20, using about 2-3 TBSP of meat mixture per leaf.

Place all of your cabbage parcels into a baking dish. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 375F for 35-40 minutes.

Serve the kålruletter with boiled potatoes and carrots and white gravy (recipe below).

White Gravy with Dill Recipe

2 cups milk

3 tbsp flour

3 tbsp butter

1-2 tbsp freshly chopped dill

salt, pepper, freshly ground nutmeg

In a small sauce pot over medium heat, pour in the milk and heat up until warm.

Place the butter into a shallow sauce pan over medium heat, as soon as it has melted add in the flour and whisk until combined.

Gradually add in the warm milk, while constantly whisking until smooth and a bit thick or until it has the consistency you want from the gravy (add more milk if it gets too thick).

Season with dill, salt, pepper and ground nutmeg.

Norwegian Sot Suppe

Ingredients

5 cups water

1/4 cup large pearl tapioca

1 cup chopped prunes

1/2 cup raisins

1 cup mixed dried fruit, chopped (we used cherries, pears, nectarines,

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Zest from a lemon

1 TBSP lemon juice

Directions

Soak tapioca in a pot with the water overnight.

In the morning, add fruit, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest to the pot of tapioca.

Cook over medium-high heat in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan until tapioca is clear and the fruit is tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add lemon juice. Allow to cool. Store in refrigerator

Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 7, Timor Leste

noreply@blogger.com (abbysae) — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 04:15:00 +0000

If you are like me, you have never heard of Timor Leste, or East Timor. This small island nation located between Indonesia and Australia is a relatively new nation, gaining independence from Portugal in 1975 before being taken over by Indonesia and eventually becoming a sovreign state in 2002. I stumbled across it when I was doing research on countries that are participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics and was somewhat intrigued since I had never even heard the name before. You can read a bit more about Timor Leste here.

Timor Leste has one alpine skier competing in the games this year. This is somewhat ironic in that the official language of Timor, Tetum, does not have a word for skiing. Yohan Goncalves Goutt's first slalom run will take place in two days, on Thursday, Feb. 22nd.

Our menu for Timor Leste was Batar Da’an and rujak. The recipe for Batar Da'an came from the 196 Flavor blog and the Rujak recipe came from the International Cuisine site. The kids and I thought the Batar Da'an was tasty and while we weren't overly fond of the dressing, we enjoyed the combination of flavors in the rujak(fruit salad). Chip didn't like either one. I will say that while it was initially filling, I was hungry again within an hour.

Batar Da'an

INGREDIENTS

1 lb fresh or frozen corn
½ lb dried mung beans
2 lb squash butternut squash, peeled and diced
4 cups water
2 onions, diced
8 garlic cloves, minced
3 TBSP olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Prior to cooking, soak the mung beans in water for at least 10 hours, overnight is best.

Drain the mung beans, then boil them for 10 to 15 minutes in a large amount of water.
Meanwhile, sauté onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat for 6-8 minutes in a dutch oven or large pot. Add water, squash, beans and corn to the onion and garlic and increase heat to high. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until squash is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Rujak

INGREDIENTS

1 orange sliced
1 mango, diced
2 cups watermelon diced
2 bananas, sliced
1 pear, diced
1 cup grapes
Whipped cream
½ cup toasted nuts

For the dressing: 2 green chillis (dice into very small pieces) 1 TBSP brown sugar 2 TBSP lemon or lime juice 2 TBSP fish sauce

DIRECTIONS

Mix all the fruit ingredients together. Set aside. Mix up the dressing and pour over the top. Add whipped cream and nuts.

...and chaos ensued

Paris 2024 Olympic Cooking

Olympic Cooking, Day 1 Crème Brûlée from France

Olympic Cooking, Day 2 Creponné from Algeria

Olympic Cooking, Day 3 Honey Babka from the Ukraine

Olympic Cooking, Day 4 Gateau Napolitaines from Mauritius

Olympic Cooking, Day 5 Paraguayan Chipas

Olympic Cooking Day 6 Mango Fool from Ghana

Olympic Cooking, Day 7 Egyptian Meshabek

Olympic Cooking, Day 8 Alfajores with Dulce de Leche from Uruguay

Olympic Cooking, Day 9 Bojo Cake from Suriname

Olympic Cooking, Day 10 German Cherry Streusel Cake

Olympic Cooking, Day 11 Mofo Gasy from Madagascar

Olympic Cooking, Day 12 Pan de Banano from Guatemala

Olympic Cooking, Day 13Milo Godzilla from Singapore

Olympic Cooking, Day 14 Heidelbeerenwahe from Switzerland

Olympic Cooking, Day 15 Paletas de Coco from the Dominican Republic

Olympic Cooking, Day 16 Maho Halwa from Oman

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Reflections

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 17 - Serbia

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 16 - Kazahkstan

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 15 Denmark

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 14 Norway

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 13 Argentina

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 12 Trinidad

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 11 Austria

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 10 Macedonia

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 9 Croatia

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 8 Nigeria

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 7 Australia

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 6 Cyprus

Olympic Cooking 2022, Day 5 Iceland

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 4 Belarus

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 3 Malta

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Day 2 Italy

Olympic Cooking 2022 - Host Country China Day

Guest Post: Climate Change Communication Activity

Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 11, Puerto Rico

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Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 10, Spain

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Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 9, Bosnia

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Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 8, Norway

Kålruletter

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Olympic Cooking 2018 - Day 7, Timor Leste

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Olympic Cooking, Day 1
Crème Brûlée from France

Olympic Cooking, Day 2
Creponné from Algeria

Olympic Cooking, Day 3
Honey Babka from the Ukraine

Olympic Cooking, Day 4
Gateau Napolitaines from Mauritius

Olympic Cooking, Day 5
Paraguayan Chipas

Olympic Cooking Day 6
Mango Fool from Ghana

Olympic Cooking, Day 7
Egyptian Meshabek

Olympic Cooking, Day 8
Alfajores with Dulce de Leche from Uruguay

Olympic Cooking, Day 9
Bojo Cake from Suriname

Olympic Cooking, Day 10
German Cherry Streusel Cake

Olympic Cooking, Day 11
Mofo Gasy from Madagascar

Olympic Cooking, Day 12
Pan de Banano from Guatemala

Olympic Cooking, Day 13
Milo Godzilla from Singapore

Olympic Cooking, Day 14
Heidelbeerenwahe from Switzerland

Olympic Cooking, Day 15
Paletas de Coco from the Dominican Republic

Olympic Cooking, Day 16
Maho Halwa from Oman