The boys are actually getting to be somewhat helpful in the kitchen. Now they can work together to set the table for every meal and Aaron can actually do a few simple jobs that are truly helpful to me. They can make scrambled eggs together and Aaron can peel carrots, both with supervision of course. Aaron can also get his own breakfast of granola and milk and make his own PB&J sandwich. Aaron can also help Andrew enough to get him these meals too.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Cooking Mini Camp
The boys are actually getting to be somewhat helpful in the kitchen. Now they can work together to set the table for every meal and Aaron can actually do a few simple jobs that are truly helpful to me. They can make scrambled eggs together and Aaron can peel carrots, both with supervision of course. Aaron can also get his own breakfast of granola and milk and make his own PB&J sandwich. Aaron can also help Andrew enough to get him these meals too.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Mandarin Mondays: 杨梅 (Chinese Waxberry)
One of our favorite seasonal fruits this time of year is the Chinese Waxberry or Chinese Bayberry. Although since we have only known these in China, we never call them that and only use the Mandarin name yángméi (杨梅). These taste like a cross between a raspberry and a cranberry to us. Our boys absolutely love them, which sometimes surprises the Chinese people, because they can be quite tart.
Recently, Nate took the boys to pick some growing in our apartment complex. This batch wasn't all the way ripe so they were more sour than usual. I ended up boiling, mashing, straining out the pits, and then adding sugar to make yángméi pancake syrup. It turned out great and the boys were super excited with their special pancake sauce.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Easy Holiday Breakfasts
This isn't quite as deluxe as making a huge fresh breakfast with eggs, pancakes, sausage, etc., but it is still delicious and takes any stress anyway from having to prepare breakfast on the morning of a holiday. We didn't have to go anywhere or meet anyone this Christmas morning (except of on Skype), but for those holidays in the past where we have been rushing out the door mid-morning, this breakfast plan has been a real sanity saver.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Studying America
We are still continuing our American facts calendar and singing songs about America. Aaron has learned quite a few facts and songs this month, and Andrew likes to chime in too. It is really neat to hear Aaron requesting to sing The Star Spangled Banner, presidents song, state song, Battle Hymn of the Republic, and America the "Beauty" (as he calls it). Don't let him convince you though that it was Thomas Andrew Jefferson that wrote the Declaration of Independence though, as Thomas Jefferson really has no middle name. Aaron just throws that in when he is feeling silly. I love that he is learning so much but is still a funny three-year-old.
I'm looking forward to continuing with this theme slowly for the rest of July and starting to plan our next unit study for August: D is for Dinosaurs. Although whenever Aaron sees me starting to work on it, he wants to do everything right now.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Family Friday: Dinner, Grocery, and Bus Adventures
Yesterday, we had the opportunity to visit the extremely nice Chinese-American gentleman who hosted us the night we first arrived. Sam is back in town a for a few weeks and kindly invited us out to dinner with his wife and son. They took us to a very nice Chinese restaurant near their home. I have never seen a fancy restaurant with a playplace, but I think that it is an idea that Olive Garden and even higher end American restaurants should pursue, because it made the evening so enjoyable. The boys were able to play while we visited, and everyone was happy. After we talked for a while, gave them a small gift, and attempted unsuccessfully to pay the bill (Sam really is to nice to us), we agreed to keep in touch and bid them good night.
We thought since we were already right next to Metro (a German version of Walmart), we would try to stock up on a few bulk purchases before heading home. We got pasta, tomato paste, oatmeal, peanut butter, real Hellman's mayonnaise, and a huge tub of chocolate ice cream. The ice cream is the only item that is not fabulous, but the boys love it (Aaron has nick-named it, "a big ol' kind of ice cream"), and it is cheap to buy it this way. Thankfully, we were able to find everything we were looking for and ended up purchasing about 24 kilos (50 pounds) of western food staples for about $60 US, which is quite a good price for rare and imported items. Besides making everything yourself, buying in bulk is the only really affordable way to have western food here. It is nice that we are able to have some of these convenience foods on hand for some easy meals. Yes, these are convenience foods to us, and no I didn't always view these as convenience foods either. Hopefully, these items will last us about two months.
On a very crowded bus |
A not so crowded bus |
Nate is very glad that he won't have to ride the buses so often for a while as he finished his first semester of classes and has a short break before classes resume in the fall.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Mandarin Mondays: 烧烤
My husband's school was hosting a barbecue at a lovely park on a lake southwest of the city. The park is beautiful. You can see mountains and the lake, and there are lovely gardens. There are also a lot of man-made tourist attractions and souvenir shops.
Now they do have hamburgers (hàn bǎo) and hot dogs (rè gǒu) in China, but you aren't likely to find these at a traditional shāokǎo. Actually, they are pretty rare anywhere outside a fast food place or western restaurant. At this barbecue, they served chicken wings (jī chì) and sliced pork (zhū ròu). By the way, the phrase "to eat chicken wings" in Chinese is "chī jī chì," in case you weren't confused enough already. They also had potatoes (tǔ dòu), onions (yáng cōng), and zucchini (xiǎo guā). So far, this is not too odd for barbecue food. Then they brought out some sort of breakfast cake, which didn't look at all like cake, and put that on the grill too. Last they brought out cold rice noodles (mǐ xiàn) in individual dishes. They didn't grill the noodles. Cold rice noodles are a famous local dish.
The food all tasted good and seemed to be cooked well. Shāo kǎo literally means "fire roast," and the food was cooked until incredibly hot, except for the local soy bean and spice sauce and cold noodle dish, which makes them the most likely suspects for tummy upset. The boys didn't see the need to eat for politeness' sake, so they didn't eat anything besides Pepsi and part of a banana. They are still doing fine, so perhaps there decision was wise.
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