Mama Vuong

My husband always ooh and aahs at his mom's cooking. And I can't blame him. She's amazing. I won't even bother replicating her dishes. There's just no point. We went over for dinner the other day and she made Vietnamese eggrolls, a Vietnamese salad and chicken porridge and it was so good. I will never able to make eggrolls or porridge like her, but the salad is easy enough!

Ingredients for the salad:
shredded cabbage
shredded lettuce
shredded carrots
shredded red onions
shredded chicken
cilantro

dressing:
nguc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce)
sesame oil
a little sugar
a squeeze of lemon

toss together and top with dried onions. Delicious.

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

I made 3 cupcakes this weekend. The first was a lemongrass cupcake, but the flavor of lemongrass didn't come through. The milk is steeped with lemongrass, but the flavor is so subtle that you can't taste it as you're eating it-you kind of get a hint of it after you've taken that first bite and even then you're not so sure what the flavor is. Overall-it gets a score of a 0. So I moved on to the pink lemonade cupcake. I've been wanting to make this one for a while and I'm glad I finally did. These cupcakes are beautiful to look at. The pink color is absolutely adorable. The texture of the cupcake was perfect, but the flavor was just okay. I think the artificial flavor of the pink lemonade concentrate was what made it taste a little strange. I don't think I'll be making this cupcake over again.

The Oinkster

I had the day off for MLK's birthday and it was the best day off I've had in a while. My brother and I started the day off with a trip to Starbucks. That's just what we do when my brother's home from school. Then for lunch we all headed out to the Oinkster for lunch. There's something about the Oinkster that I love. The idea of slow fast food is genius. I had the BBQ pulled pork sandwich and I must say I was a little disappointed. It was good, but a bit salty and the flavor was just okay. I should've gotten the oinkster pastrami. Their Ube shake was delicious and I'm not even big on ube. Keagan got his first taste of pastrami thanks to Uncle Chris. His facial expression was priceless, but he kept pulling Uncle's arm for more.

A Hectic Start to the New Year

My husband and Keagan took a fall down the stairs yesterday. Tommy slipped on his pajama pants and took a fall. He decided to take Keagan to the ER with my mom just to make sure he was okay. After the x-rays, we were assured that Keagan was fine and had no broken parts. Phew! But later he wasn't putting any weight on his left leg at home so we were a little concerned-as anyone would be. We received a phone call today saying that they found a hairline fracture on his femur! So we rushed home from work and headed to the orthopedic department and they decided to put on a full leg cast. Keagan cried as they put it on, but once we picked him up he was happy go lucky again. It's the smallest cast I've ever seen. It's almost kind of cute. So sad....but so cute. 2 weeks with this cast. Poor little guy!

cocoa nibs

What are they? They're the shell of the cocoa bean. These are roasted and broken into little bits and they are delicious. My little sister bought me 2 bags of them from the well known chocolate shop in Seattle called Theo. The bag itself is beautiful. I've made a few things with these tiny bits of goodness. I was inspired by my favorite blogger Orangette. I made her cocoa nib sables and they were decent. They were actually quite disgusting fresh out of the oven. I know-fresh baked cookies-Gross? Yes. My husband didn't even like them and he likes anything with sugar. Definitely better when they sat out for a bit. She said so herself in her blog that they were better the next day and in this case, it was very true. Here's her recipe. They were good cookies, but not my favorite. It's a nice butter shortbread type of cookies, rolled into a log and refrigerated overnight. The speckles of cocoa nibs are nice though. They're pure cocoa flavor without any of the sugar.

Whole Wheat Sables with Cocoa Nibs (from Orangette.blogspot.com)

2 cups (9 oz.) whole wheat pastry flour, OR 1 cup (4.5 oz.) all-purpose flour plus 1 scant cup (4 oz.) whole wheat flour
14 Tbsp. (1 ¾ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
½ cup (3 ½ oz.) sugar
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup (about 1 ¼ oz.) roasted cacao nibs

If using the two flours, combine them in a bowl, and mix with a whisk or fork.

In a medium bowl, with a large spoon or an electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar, salt, and vanilla until smooth and creamy but not fluffy, about 1 minute (with the mixer). Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, and add the nibs. Beat briefly to incorporate. Add the flour, and mix until just incorporated. Scrap the dough into a mass and, if necessary, knead it a little with your hands to make sure that the flour is completely incorporated. Form the dough into a 12-by-2-inch log. Wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Use a sharp knife to cut the cold dough log into ¼-inch-thick slices. Place the cookies at least 1 ½ inches apart on the prepared sheet pans.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until the cookies are light golden brown at the edges, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking time. Cool the cookies for a minute on the pans, then transfer them (with or without their parchment) to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

These cookies are good on the first day, but they’re best with a little age, after at least a day or two. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a month.

Yield: about 48 cookies

New Years Day

In Japanese we say Akemashite omedetou!

I headed over to my mom's at 8:00 to have our traditional new years breakfast and watch the rose parade.

Breakfast was beautiful. From the sweet black beans to pickled radishes, sashimi, ozouni (mochi soup), kimpira gobo (burdock root), fish cakes, and dried fish, my mom spent much of the past days creating each dish. Our names were written on our chopstick holders.

The festivities at my grandmother's house began at 1:00 and we usually have about 20 people come. The food is outrageous. Traditional Japanese food. Not only is the food delicious, but the way it is presented is something else. Each piece is strategically placed. We spent the afternoon/evening eating and chatting and spending time with each other, while watching the football game.

Hopefully this is but a glimpse of what the new year has in store for our family.

Happy New Year Everyone!

New Years Eve

It's hard to believe this year is over. It really came up fast.

I've been stressing about tonight because of the little one. What if he won't sleep? What if he wakes up? The stresses that go along with sleep training! We decided to brave it and just bring him everywhere with us. I'm glad we did.

In the morning we made mochi (Japanese rice cakes) at my moms. It's hot and fresh out of the mochi machine and we shape them into a ball-like shape. There is nothing like fresh mochi. I can't quite explain it, but it is warm and chewy and delicious. I could eat 10 in one sitting if I could. We stole a piece here and there, dipped them in different things like butter or a sweet soysauce concoction or even with a sweet radish and soy sauce dip.

My mom was busy in the kitchen preparing for the new year-TONS of traditional food being made, which one day I'll have to learn how to make.

The rest of our day:
We spent the first part of our evening visiting the Toshimas. They got to meet Keagan for the first time. It's been a meeting long overdue! It was brief, but we got to see the girls and Reiko and Scott too so it was nice!

We headed over to my grandmother's house for ramen and hung out for a bit. At the end of the year it is tradition to have toshi koshi soba. Long noodles representing long life, but we kind of cheat and have ramen. I ended up having 2 servings. What a fatty!

Then it was off to the Lees for our annual New Years Eve celebration. As we get older, our parties aren't as crazy as they once were and I think I like it that way. We now have kids running around and lots of mommy talk going on. It's nice having lots of mommy friends. Keagan slept the entire time as we rang in the new year over a bottle or two or three of bubbly.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope for a year filled with new adventures and time spent with loved ones!