Curry Rolls (Curry Pan)

In Japan, curry rolls (curry pan) are a standard. Oddly enough, however, after nine years living here, I still had never tasted one - to be honest, they just didn't sound too appetizing to me. For my birthday, Y gave me a juicer and I love it. But, as you probably know, when you juice fruits and veggies, all of the fiber is taken out and it ends up coming out the side of the juicer. It always seems so wasteful to just throw it away, so I looked online and many people put it in soups or curry. The more I thought about this, the better of an idea it sounded. So much so, that even curry pan started to sound good to me.

I started by getting a simple dough started in my bread maker. Then I got working on the curry. I took some of the apple and carrot juice leftovers, and also chopped up some more carrots, onions and potatoes.

I cooked those up in a tad bit of oil and then added water to cook them a bit more.

Then I added the curry roux and boiled it down so that there was hardly and liquid left.

Once the bread was ready, I divided it up, put some curry in, rolled it closed and then heated up the oil for frying - did I mention curry pan is almost always fried? Maybe that's why it didn't sound good to me - like a curry doughnut of sorts. Yikes. I fried them all up, the whole time being about 15% grossed out.

Once they cooled down a bit, however, I bit into one and kind of kicked myself for not trying one earlier. Turns out curry pan is pretty tasty. That being said, I should probably be a tad bit careful in terms of how much curry-stuffed fried bread I shove down my throat. Either way, I am a convert. Curry pan wins!!

WubbaNub Pacifier Clip and a Regular Version to Boot!

When K was a baby, he never used a pacifier. T, on the other hand, loves his. A friend gave us a little lamb WubbaNub that T loves when he's playing or just starting to get fussy. To put him to sleep, however, he likes a standard pacifier. This means that when we leave the house for the day, as we did on Monday, we need a whole assortment of pacifiers - we have a few regular ones, but only one Wubbanub and that thing is like gold. On Monday we finally applied for the boys' American passports. We left the house at 8 and didn't get finished at the consulate until 12. It was a long morning and T held it together pretty well. We were all hungry, so we stopped at one of our favorite restaurants that we hadn't been to since I was pregnant with K. It's a lovely Portuguese restaurant, but it isn't really a place for kids. It was lunch time, however, and K is surprisingly well-behaved at restaurants, so we decided to just do it. Just after the entrees were served, T started to get a bit fussy. We gave him Lambie (the WubbaNub), but soon it fell from his mouth to the floor. Game over.

Something had to be done. Since there isn't a little handle on the Wubbanub like a regular pacifier, I was a bit stumped as to how to make a clip for it. I thought about weaving a ribbon through the two holes on the pacifier, but a little ribbon seemed like it might not be too safe. Then it came to me! I could just use elastic to wrap around Lambie's head, kind of like a leash.

Start by cutting 23cm of twill tape and zigzagging back and forth on the cut ends.

Fold one end in half and zigzag it together.

Measuring 7cm down, sew a straight line just to help keep the tape folded. I imagine you could make the strap with ribbon as well, but if you use twill, I recommend also using denim needles - it gets pretty thick.

Fold the zigzagged end to the line you just sewed and sew the little loop together.

Snap the clip on. As a note, I wanted to use suspender clips, but I couldn't find them. I did, however, find clips to hold a little pouch that I figured would work just fine. If you are lucky enough to use suspender clips, I imagine you wouldn't have to fold the twill in half, instead just make a small loop and sew it up.

Now for the other end. Cut a small length of thin elastic (just enough to fit over the pacifier and WubbaNub's head - mine was about 9cm), fold it in half and sew the ends to the twill tape. I sewed two parallel lines just to be sure they were secure.

Using a rectangle of coordinating fabric, iron the edges into the middle and one of the ends in a bit as well.

Wrap the rectangle around the end once or twice, and sew a square around the edges to secure it. Slip it over the WubbaNub's head and rest assured that your little animal isn't going anywhere!

The regular pacifier clip is even easier, but you will need more twill tape - I used 32cm. The end with the clip is the same as the WubbaNub version. Instead of using elastic on the opposite end, however, cut a small square of Velcro and sew one of the pieces to the end of the twill, near the zigzag.

Measure about 3cm down and sew on the other piece of Velcro. Slip it through the loop on the pacifier and Bob's your uncle!

T had his clip on Lambie the entire day today. If I took it off, he got pretty upset. He loved being able to find Lambie easily, even after dropping it while in his Bumbo chair or jumper.

T tends to jump pretty wildly and little by little the twill would start to pop out.

Eventually Lambie would fall, but T would just give the twill a yank and Lambie was right back in his hands in no time. A mama who doesn't have to stop making dinner, wash up her hands, go to the playroom, pick up Lambie, and give it to her baby is a happy mama. A baby who can get his Lambie on his own is a happy baby. Problem solved.

Banana Muffins

I'm not going to lie - at this point, I have made banana bread a few too many times on this blog. I just can't stop! It's so perfect when you have a whole bunch of bananas that are getting over-ripe since someone decided that this week he doesn't like bananas. I have used the same basic recipe every time, just switching it up with what I add in. So far, I have yet to find a combination that doesn't work.

This time I used all butter, and a half a cup of granulated sugar with half a cup of brown sugar (as that is what I had in the house). I didn't do any other changes when mixing it up.

Once the basic recipe was ready, it was time to get creative. I originally wanted to make two little loafs - one to eat here and one to take to Y's parents' house, but I didn't have any more of the mini loaf pans. Instead I made muffins. The only muffin liners I had, however, were really big - like Costco sized. I wasn't sure how many muffins it would make, but I did still want two different flavors.

After dividing the batter in half, I decided that one would have chocolate chips in it. I emptied out the last of the chocolate chip bag and this was all that was left. Uhhhh, lame. I scrambled around the kitchen, but couldn't find any other chocolate to put in aside from M&Ms. M&Ms and banana bread sounded weird to me for some reason. Then I remembered that I had some Mexican hot chocolate tablets in the cupboard. I had never baked with Abuelita before, but I figured it would be okay.

I chopped up half of a tablet and threw it in.

The other half of the batter got broken up pecans and dried cranberries.

Once they were all mixed up, I put them into the muffin liners. I only got three muffins for each batter. A tad bit disappointing, if I do say so myself. I'm not sure why, but it seems I forgot to take photos of the finished product. You'll just have to believe me - they looked beautiful and holy moly were they delicious. The Abuelita and chocolate chip one was surprisingly good. It had a slight cinnamon taste to it and a few grains of crunchy sugar here and there, which totally reminded me of being little and sneaking a little piece while my mom made our hot chocolate.Yum!! These breads further my theory that it is impossible to make a bad banana bread using this recipe as the base. Try it!!

Stroller/Car Seat Blanket

Happy New Year!! Sorry for the lack of posts recently. We were at Y's parents' house all last week and it was glorious. I decided that rather than blog, I would catch up on my sleep. So I did. I slept a lot. It was perfect. Because of the holidays, I have a few posts about things that I have made that are really quite old at this point. But, while they are old to me, they are still new to you! So here we go!!

The weather turned a bit chilly here a few months ago. At that point, T was still tiny (look at him!!) and we didn't have a coat for him. I would just put him in my wrap and then wrap blankets or my jacket around us. This worked fine, but took a bit of time to deal with. Also, as soon as I wrapped him up like that, he would pass out - he was probably two or three months old at the time. The passing out bit wasn't too much of an issue, except on K's school days. I really wanted to keep him awake until the bus picked up K so that we could go home and nap together. I realized that if I put him in his stroller, he would stay awake, but he also tended to just kick the blankets off. So, I made him a little stroller blanket.

I started with a big square of fabric - about a meter on all sides. I used two fleeces (one for the outside and one for the inside) as well as a thick batting.

I layered them all together and then folded the whole thing into fourths.

Using a Sharpie, I drew a line so that the corner with all raw edges was rounded and then sides going out to either end were a bit curved. You can kind of see the line in the photo below if you look closely.

Then I cut along the line and it looked like this.

The batting was a tad small, so it didn't meet up perfectly at the corners, but I just chose to not worry about that bit. I did, however, baste it as well as I could to the inside fleece. I wanted the blanket to be hooded, so I folded one of the rounded edges together so that the blanket was folded diagonally and drew a line across horizontally, then sewed it up. I did the same for the outside piece of fabric as well.

 

Then I sewed it up, right sides together, making sure to line up the seams from the hooded part and leaving a bit of a gap for turning. I turned it right side out and then top stiched all the way around. Since it was to be a blanket for a stroller, I needed to cut slits into it so the straps would fit through. I kind of guessed on this bit, but luckily it worked out well (at the beginning at least).

I cut the slits and then pinned the cut edges together.

Thinking I was all smart since fleece won't unravel, I just zig zagged around the slits. It made a huge mess. :(

The slits ended up super wavy and not nice looking at all. After all the work, I totally ruined it!! Good thing this was in the back, so no one would see it until I took T out. Still, I hated what I had just done and figured there had to be a solution.

I kept thinking for a few days, all the while using it.

T loved it, but eventually he wanted his arms free. Luckily, a good friend of ours sent us a beautiful fleece jacket for T, so he would wear that and then I would wrap up his little body and legs in the blanket.

As soon as we got in to a shop or on the train, I would unwrap him and his little body would feel so toasty. As we both were loving the blanket, I decided that I would make two more - one for our new niece and one for a good friend's daughter, both born at the end of November.

 

I decided that the best way to fix the wavy slits were to use a bias tape of sorts. I didn't want to use real bias tape since the blanket was quite thick and I figured I would mess it up. Instead I settled on strips of the lining fleece. I also worked out a much better way to deal with it. I assembled the blankets the same way I did T's, but before cutting the slits, I drew them on and then sewed around them.

 

 

 

Then I cut them open. Since they were sewn together, I didn't have to deal with pinning that many layers of fabric together.

 

 

Next I cut super long strips of the lining fleece, each about 8 cm wide and sewed them around the slits, about 4 centimeters on either side of the blanket. This was not an easy task - the machine was working it's way through one layer of batting and four layers of fleece. As a result, it didn't turn out perfect, but looked way better than the wavy mess I had made of T's.

 

 

 

 

Not perfect, but better than the prototype. I ended up fixing T's as well and I like it much better now. I made these before each of the new babies were born and gave them away just before and just after their births. We saw our little niece (who was given the pink one) over the New Year and she was using her blanket for her car seat. She looked so sweet all snuggled up in it. Her parents said that it works really well - wahoo!!

 

 

Unfortunately T is over his at this point. We got a lot of use out of it, but he doesn't like being all wrapped up in it any more. Homie's on the move! Also, given that we wait for the K's bus for a good ten minutes and it is freezing, we use a different stroller bag that is down and super duper toasty. He still doesn't much care for it, but it is zipped like a sleeping bag, so he can't bust his way out of it. Too bad, little man!!



Merry Christmas

Santa came!!! On Christmas Eve, I asked K what he wanted to leave out for Santa and he said, "two Christmas cookies, a slice of apple pie, orange juice and milk. And carrots for the reindeer." To which I jokingly commented, "Wow! That's a lot of food for Santa - he's going to get fat at our house!!" K didn't want Santa getting too fat and having to stop at the doctor mid-present drop, so he edited the apple pie of out the spread. He also insisted that we label the carrots for each reindeer. Silly Dasher and Vixen only ate half of their carrots.

K woke up on Christmas morning to find this:

He was so pleased that he had, in fact, been a good boy and that Santa had come. Gah, I love that little guy.

While that was our actual Christmas Eve and morning, our Christmas celebration started on the 23rd when we had two families over. These two families are so wonderful and I 100% consider them our family here. (That's not to be rude at all to Y's family, it's just that we don't live anywhere near them either.) This post is going to be kind of a long one, but it will have lots of photos of delicious foods.

As you may recall, up until a week or so ago, we were all sick. This put my dinner prep way behind given that I first had to catch up on everything else that I didn't do while I was sick. Last Friday, we finally went to buy the turkey and other groceries, but by the time we got home, put everything away, ate dinner, and put the boys to sleep, I was too beat to actually start cooking. This means that all of the foods you are about to see were made between Saturday and Monday - mostly Saturday and Sunday, of course. Y is a complete saint. He cleaned the house and took care of the boys so that I could focus on food. It was a ridiculous amount of work to be doing while sleep deprived and with a lingering cold and a 4-month old, but sharing a delicious meal and a wonderful time with our family was well worth it.

Here's what I made: Before dinner, we started with K's favorite Christmas cookies, as well as mint chocolate chip and M&M cookies, candied pecans, and some savory snacks - cheeses, veggies, crackers, and chips.

The ginger Christmas cookies (K's favorites) were delicious as always. I love how all of the spices meld together making this the most Christmas-flavored cookie.

The mint chocolate chip and M&M cookies were a new recipe and they turned out really good. In K's letter to Santa, he asked what Santa would like to eat when he stops at our house. K recommended "mama's M&M cookies" because Santa "would certainly like them." How could I not make some M&M cookies after that raving review?! That being said, I just recently made some M&M cookies and wanted something a little different. Mint and chocolate are another of my favorite Christmas combos, so I went with it. For the most part, I followed the recipe aside from the refrigeration bit - I was in a bit of a rush, people!

Also I used peppermint essence instead of extract. I don't know what the difference is, to be honest, but it did not have the disastrous results that the recipe's baker had. These were quite nice.

The other change was that, of course, I had to add in some M&Ms. I went with half chocolate chips, half M&Ms. Also, when I said they were quite nice, I meant to say they were awesome and I ate my weight in them.

I rolled them into little balls and baked for 8 minutes. Delicious!

The other new recipe that I tried were candied pecans. Holy moly, these were amazing. Unfortunately we have eaten them all. Fortunately, we are headed to Y's parents' for New Years. I think I need to make another batch for the occasion.

These were so super simple. Mix sugar, cinnamon and salt in a big ziplock.

Whisk egg whites, water, and vanilla in a bowl.

Stir in some pecans.

Put the pecans in the bag and shake. Then spread them out on a baking sheet and bake. The recipe says to bake for an hour, but mine were still slight sticky at that point, so I put them back in for 20 minutes. They were phenomenal.

 

 Dinner consisted of: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole (from the can, not that homemade business I usually slave over, thanks to my little brother who FedEx-ed me the ingredients!!),

 

 

 roasted brussel sprouts, applesauce with dried cranberries, carrot ribbons with cashews, and stuffing.

 

 

This little princess of a girl kept saying "oishii!!" (delicious) as she ate her dinner. Gah! Be still my heart! What a cutie pie!!!

 

 

 I wasn't going to make a pecan pie, but one of the friends who came over halfway requested it, so I threw it into the mix as well. As far as pies go, it's a pretty simple one.

 

I also made my favorite, apple pie. Turns out I am one of the only ones who actually ate it. Pecan pie for the win! (Note: the below photo was taken about 10 minutes ago, I didn't eat that much pie!)

 

It was a pretty mental three days in the kitchen, but I haven't cooked since, as we have been living on leftovers. I guess maybe it was worth it?? Who are we kidding? It was totally worth it! I love this meal!!!

 

As a final little story of from the evening, my favorite line of the night comes from our friends' 9-year old son, while playing MarioKart against K. K is fiercely competitive and if he is losing or loses at something, he generally doesn't take it well. This is something we are working on, but it's not going so well; he just hates losing. Naturally, he was losing. In the middle of a race, K goes, "Z!! Slow down!! I want to win." Without missing a beat, he replies "No way. I'm not losing to a 3-year old." Man, I love kids!