Family Fridays: My Birthday

This past Friday was my 26th birthday, and it was a lovely day. My husband and boys spoiled me.

Pastries from local Western bakery, yummy start to my birthday.

Nate and Aaron baking an amazing dark chocolate cake for me.

Even Andrew got to help.

Relaxing with Andrew and new baby.

A sweet friend of mine made me a chocolate, chocolate cake.

The boys were very excited about an extra surprise cake.

Nate brought back McDonald's double cheeseburgers.

Double cheeseburgers taste amazing on this side of the world.

My sweet honey got me beautiful flowers.

Aaron went with daddy to get the flowers and brought me this rose.

He bought it with his very own cuteness!

He also managed to get me a birthday balloon
from the pharmacy with his cuteness.

Andrew found a balloon in the house to give me too,
little sweetheart.

Aaron wanted to play party games.

Cards and gifts from Nate and the Boys. My sweet honey also wrote
me a computer program so we can organize our family videos better.

Amazing dark chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache,
caramel sauce, and chocolate chips on top.

Yea, for cake number two!

We continued celebrating the next day by going
to Chicago Coffee for pizza. The boys enjoyed coloring
with our friends there.

DIY Caramel or Turtle Ice Cream

It is no secret that I love caramel. This recipe and variations thereof have probably become my all time favorite ice cream. We made this together today to have for my birthday tomorrow. I basically used David Lebovit'z salted butter caramel ice cream recipe, but I broke it down into easier steps and came up with some variations of this recipe. Adding chocolate and walnuts to make this into turtle ice cream is even better, if that's possible.


To me, this recipe is easier to understand when it is broken down into several steps. Making hard caramel candy chips, making caramel sauce, turning the caramel sauce into a custard ice cream base, and freezing and adding desired additions. I am not sure if it would work, but you could try starting with a pint of store bought caramel and making the ice cream custard from that to save some work. Let me know if you try it how it turns out. However, homemade caramel is really so much better than store bought it might not be worth it anyway. And how can you go wrong with a ice cream base that has butter in it?

Homemade Caramel or Turtle Ice Cream Recipe

Recipe makes 1 generous quart or liter of ice cream

Hard Caramel Candy Chips
Pictures of this process here.

• 1/2 cup sugar

1. Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper, or just get out a silicone baking pan to have ready nearby.
2. In a very clean and dry saucepan, begin heating the sugar, stirring occasionally to keep it from burning.
3. Continue heating the sugar, stirring occasionally, until it is all melted and has turned amber in color. Stirring too frequently can result in lumpy caramel. However, stirring too little or heating too long can cause the caramel to scorch and burn. This is really not difficult, but you do have to keep a close eye on this recipe.
4. Once all of the sugar is melted and turned a beautiful amber, very carefully pour into prepared baking pan. Melted sugar is extremely hot so be careful not to burn yourself. Wearing oven mitts and a long sleeved shirt is a good precaution.
5. Spread out the melted sugar with a spatula to cover the entire bottom of the pan.
6. After the caramel has cooled and hardened, break it into pieces. You can use a mortar and pestle, rolling pin, meat tenderizer, or even your hands (if you are really determined) for this step.
7. Set aside caramel chips to mix into ice cream later.

Caramel Sauce
(Pictures of this process here.)

• 1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp) butter
• 1 cup heavy cream

1. Begin by placing sugar in a medium to large saucepan over low heat. Even though this recipe only makes about 1 pint of sauce altogether, you need a much bigger saucepan because the caramelized sugar will bubble and foam up a lot when you add the butter and cream, and you don't want to get burned.
2. Melt all of the sugar completely, stirring and swirling the pot as necessary to keep it from burning. Be aware that too much stirring can make the final product a little lumpy.
3. Once all of the sugar is melted, add the butter carefully and stir to combine. Some of the caramel may harden and seize, but if you just keep stirring it over low heat, it will melt into liquid again.
4. Then add the cream a little at a time because this is when the mixture will really bubble up. The caramel will harden again, but just keep stirring over low heat until it melts. 

Custard Base

1. To the caramel sauce, add 1 cup of milk to the sauce and stir over low heat until well combined.
2. Put five egg yolks in a small bowl and whisk egg yolks. Begin adding some of the warm milk mixture to the egg yolks. When the egg yolk mixture is warm, add it into the milk mixture, and continue heating over low heat, stirring frequently until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula or spoon.
3. In a heat- and freezer-safe mixing bowl, add one cup of cold milk and then the custard. Mix until well combined. Chill until mixture has cooled.
4. At this point, you can freeze the ice cream in an ice cream maker if you have one. Or if you don't have an ice cream freezer, simply mix all ingredients in a freezer safe bowl or pan and place in your regular freezer. After about 30–60 minutes, check on the ice cream, and stir vigorously with a spatula or hand mixer to break up the ice crystals. Repeat this process every 30–45 minutes until the ice cream is frozen well. In general, the more you break up the ice crystals, the longer it will take for the ice cream to freeze, but the smoother the end result will be. There is a lot more information on making ice cream and frozen yogurt on David Lebovitz's site.
5. When the ice cream is semi set mix in caramel chips for all caramel ice cream. 

For Turtle Ice Cream
Make caramel ice cream as directed above.
Mix in:

• Caramel chips like directed above
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chunks
• 1/2 cup walnuts

Place in Freezer to set up more before serving. This is the one homemade ice cream that I make that stays somewhat soft even in our freezer which is very cold. The high sugar content of the caramel gives it this wonderful soft and rich consistency.

DIY Chocolate Ganache

This week, I am sharing some of my all time favorite foods in honor of my birthday. Chocolate ganache is a favorite way to eat a favorite food, chocolate. This chocolate ganache recipe is great for using in place of or over traditional frosting. It looks really elegant, but is quite simple to make. Make a thicker ganache by decrease the amount of cream, or increasing the amount of chocolate. A thicker ganache makes a great filling for cake, and a super-thick ganache is the base for chocolate truffles.

This could even make a great unique gift for a chocolate loving friend, as it is far better than any store-bought chocolate sauce out there for ice cream.

Homemade Chocolate Ganache Recipe

• 6 oz chocolate chopped or (1 cup) chocolate chips (use whatever % of cacao that you prefer to eat plain because there is no additional sweetener in this recipe)
• 1 cup whipping cream

1. Chop the chocolate and place in a heat safe mixing bowl.
2. In a saucepan, heat the cream to just simmering, stirring frequently to avoid burning. Once the edges begin to bubble, pour over chocolate.
3. Let is sit a few minutes so the chocolate begins to melt, and then stir until well combined and smooth.
4. Chill in the refrigerator until desired consistency or until ready to serve.
5. Pour over cake, ice cream, or other dessert.
6. Enjoy!

DIY Cheese Ravioli

Heart Shaped Cheese and Spinach Ravioli
Baked in Meat Sauce

In celebration of my birthday later this week, I am going to be sharing some recipes for some of my all time favorite foods. Ravioli is definitely one of my favorite foods.

My husband just recently helped me roll out a big batch of homemade pasta, and one of the things we made was ravioli. Homemade ravioli with all of the ingredients made from scratch tastes so delicious and fresh.

Homemade Cheese Ravioli Recipe

To start, make a big batch of homemade pasta, and let it rest. Then you can either make up some homemade ricotta cheese or buy some from the store.

Season the ricotta to taste. If using homemade, you'll probably at least want to add salt, but some oregano, basil, and garlic powder is also good. If you like spinach you can add up to an equal volume of chopped fresh or frozen spinach to the cheese. You can even mix in some Parmesan cheese to add more flavor.

Now roll out you pasta dough really thin and cut into 2x4 in rectangles with a pizza cutter or any other fun shape you want with a cookie cutter. Some shapes are easier to work with than others. One year for Valentine's Day I made really large heart shaped ravioli which turned out quite well.

Scoop a small amount of filling onto each of the pieces of dough. For a 2x4 inch rectangle, that you intend to fold over, about a tablespoon is enough. Wet one side of the dough with water and fold over or place another piece of  dough on top. Press firmly to close. You can even fold the edges back on themselves slightly to ensure a really tight seal

Once all of the ravioli are formed, you can either cook them right away or like jiao zi (Chinese dumplings), you can freeze them on a cookie sheet and cook them at a later date. To cook, you can either bake ravioli covered in sauce at 350 F until it is all hot and bubbly (10-20 minutes) for fresh ravioli. Or you can boil water add the ravioli, and return to a boil for 5-8 minutes. Either method will take a few minutes longer if you begin with frozen ravioli.

Mandarin Mondays: 市场 (Street Market)

In honor of International Labor Day (wǔ yī láodòng jié, 五一劳动节) messing up everyone's normal weekend plans again, I didn't have to tutor on Sunday afternoon. So we went to a nearby street market (shì chǎng, 市场) that is huge, but only there on Sundays. We got some things for our new apartment that are like early birthday presents for me.

You never know quite what you are going to find at these markets. In the past, we've seen cow's heads but passed on purchasing any. You can also find all kind of health cures there, and maybe even get your teeth fixed? Uh, we passed on that too.

Anyway, what we love about this market are the handcrafted items, that are much higher quality than stuff at our Walmart and are difficult to find anywhere else. This time, we got some more blue pots and bamboo baskets. We're using them to hold our fruits and veggies, kitchen towels, and some school and art supplies for the boys. Our dining room looks a lot more organized and happier now.

Family Fridays: Potty Training Week 2

Certainly potty training can be an exhausting at times for moms and dads, but apparently Andrew is feeling a bit of fatigue due to the process as well. Yes, he did fall asleep on the potty. No, I didn't know that was possible for a two-year-old to do that either. Yes, Nate just had to get a picture to show me before he took him off and put him to bed. And no, he actually wasn't on the potty very long at all this time either.

Andrew is continuing to prove that no two children are alike in this area. He has been dry every night and almost every nap since we have started this process. He has had far fewer accidents and tells us that he wants to go to the potty much more often than his older brother did. But he still doesn't really completely understand what is going on and it will still take a long time for him to go on the potty sometimes. Although it has been an hour or less this past week so that is progress.

Andrew has also managed to pee on me once so far. He brother did this a few times during potty training too. However, the difference between these two in this instance is Aaron was sitting on my lap, and Andrew was sitting on the potty. Not completely sure what happened with that one either, but all of a sudden my back was wet while I was trying to put a video on for him. At least he was really fast that time.

He is definitely making progress though, and he no longer even likes to go in his diapers, even if we put one on him to go out, so I think we're going to be continuing our adventure. At least we'll have some good laughs later, and anyone else reading this might have a few now.

DIY T-Shirt Blanket or Quilt

I re-purposed a bunch T-shirts into a large blanket for Aaron's birthday and a small blanket for Andrew's half birthday, both coming up in June.

I simply cut out large squares, all the same size, from the front and back of all of the T-shirts and sewed them together quilt block style. I really like how bright and cheerful Aaron's color-block blanket turned out. This is a great project to turn unneeded items into something really useful.

For these blankets, I made both the front and back T-shirt blocks. But when I was in college I recycled the high school T-shirts that I no longer wanted to wear but didn't want to completely get rid of into a quilt that had the T-shirts with designs on the front, quilt batting in the middle, and strips of old blue jeans for the back. This quilt was warmer and sturdier of course. This was also a good way to actually use some sentimental T-shirts a little longer.

Mandarin Mondays: 包饺子 (Make Dumplings)

A little while ago, a friend of mine taught me how to make (or "pack") Chinese dumplings (bāo jiǎo zi, 包饺子). I've mentioned before that  jiǎo zi are one of our favorite Chinese foods, so it was neat to learn how to make them.

We bought the wrappers from the market, which was really inexpensive here. I am told the process for making the dough goes something like this: take flour, add water and mix until it feels right, roll it out really thin, and cut into circles. Someday maybe I'll learn more about making the dough but for now here is the recipe for filling and boiling jiǎo zi.

Homemade Jiǎo Zi Recipe

• Jiǎo zi wrappers
• 1 pound ground pork
• several cups chopped green onions
• several chopped cloves of garlic
• salt

1. Mix pork, onions, garlic, and a liberal amount of salt together well in a mixing bowl.
2. Place a small amount of filling in a wrapper. Wet the edge of the wrapper with a small amount of water. Pinch the edges closed. Technically the jiǎo zi are supposed to have the back side be able to lay flat, the front side pleated, and be able to stand up on their own. However, I couldn't quite get the hang of folding the edges just so, and my less beautiful jiǎo zi still tasted just as good.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, place jiǎo zi in boiling water, and return to a boil. Then you add one bowl of cold water to the pot, and return to a boil again. Repeat adding a bowl of water two more times (for a total of three times), and the jiǎo zi are supposed to be done to perfection. 
4. Remove, and serve immediately with soy sauce, brown vinegar, and/or hot pepper sauce for dipping.

Jiǎo zi can also be frozen uncooked in a single layer on a cookie sheet and then transferred to a plastic bag for longer storage. They can then be boiled at a later date using the same method above; it just takes a few minutes longer to come to a boil the first time.

Family Fridays; Potty Training Adventures

Watching videos on his throne

Since I've been feeling a bit better lately, and we really would like to have Andrew potty trained by the time the new baby arrives in the Fall, we decided it was time to start that process again. So Andrew has been spending lots of time on the potty this week.

It did take a while for Aaron to get the hang of this process too, so I am prepared for this to take a little bit. However, Andrew has definitely surprised me with what part of this process is most challenging in training him. Has anyone else ever heard of a two-year-old sitting on a potty for more than 7 hours before going potty? Or after 12+ hours of staying dry at night still sitting on the potty for more than an hour and a half before going? That is more than 13½ hours total of not going to the bathroom!

I had no idea it was possible for a little one to hold it so long, especially since we've been giving him extra water, juice, and lemonade to encourage him to go more often. Instead he is determined stubborn enough to hold it much longer than usual. He has been dry all night, every night since we started this process, and we have had to take him off of the potty quite a few times so the rest of us can use the potty. This of course then sometimes results in accidents once he is off and playing.

With it taking him so long to go, we've been letting him watch videos on the potty to keep him entertained long enough to actually catch him going. But this can still be a challenge, if you can't spend say 7 hours or more straight in the bathroom.

I'm hoping this great bladder control is actually going turn into an asset once he figures out what he is supposed to be doing. The last couple of days he has actually been asking for diaper changes before he wets his undies, so this is definite progress, but then it still takes him a long time to go on the potty. We'll see if he keeps making progress over the next couple of weeks, or if we need to wait a little bit with the potty training.