Around the World in 12 Dishes-- Canada

This month we are exploring Canada with the Around the World in 12 Dishes group. Hazel and I have been having so much fun with it. If was warmer weather, I might even consider taking her to Canada, however I cannot imagine going anywhere colder and snowier than what we already have. I am so done with winter, but alas, we are expecting snow again tomorrow. Anyway, a bit about Canada. Canada borders three oceans: Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic, and its southern border with the United States is the worlds longest land border between two countries. Canada is the second largest country in area. Canada was settled by both France and Great Britain. After the French and Indian War, France ceded its colonies to Britain in 1763. As a result of both countries settling, Canada is officially a bilingual country. Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. The Queen's representative carries out most of the federal royal duties in Canada.

Baker's Passport--Product Review

Disclosure: I was sent this product to review free of charge from Baker's Passport. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today I am going to share with you a wonderful experience and together time. Hazel and I tried Baker's Passport Little Bites in Spanish this weekend. We had so much fun. Now I will admit this is definitely meant for slightly older children (who can read and write), but we had fun reviewing our Spanish and baking cookies. Baker's Passport sends you a little packet that includes the recipe with Spanish lessons built in. The Spanish is the numbers, colors and some other phrases. They have places to read and write in the Spanish as well as trace some words. They offer Little Bites in Spanish, French and Japanese and I get to give one of each away, so three winners!!

We got to work. First of course the instructions are to wash your hands. We also put on our aprons (and Hazel put on her hat). Then we got right to work. Here are some pictures of Hazel softening the butter (in the microwave), measuring the brown sugar, mixing and scooping the cookies.

Then there were places with Spanish lessons like matching, a crossword and just vocabulary. Plus all the steps were numbered in Spanish. And the answers are available on their website, so you do not have to know the language to make sure you are doing it correctly!

 Now this was a fun day of baking and learning. Even if you do not bake often or like to bake, this is a fun and easy recipe to follow. The instructions are very clear and easy to do. Oh, and I should mention that we all loved the cookies. They were gobbled right up and Hazel insisted on bringing some to Nonni's since she was going there for her weekly playdate with her grandmother.

 

The even better part of Baker's Passport is for every purchase $1 is donated to Action Against Hunger. So there are three positives with every purchase, learning, baking and helping. Now if you do not want to wait for the giveaway to end, you can get 15% off today on your purchase with the code: BAKINGFUN14. This code is only good through February 7, 2014. 

Now for our fun giveaway!! Please follow our Giveaway Rules and do what the Rafflecopter asks. There will be three winners!! Each winner will get one of the Little Bites.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Flamingo Friday: Birthday Party Part 2: Food & More!

Last week I shared the first part of our Flamingo Birthday Party for Hazel's fifth birthday. That post was more about the decorations and activities as well as what we did on her actual birthday. Today I am going to share the food we had and one other extra for the party I did. 
First our menu:
Appetizers
Chips and Salsa mixed with Sour Cream (it turns pinkish) and plain salsa
Vegetables and Dip (in particular carrots)
Shrimp
Edible Arrangement of Fruit

Lunch
Ginger Carrot Soup
Sandwiches (make your own ordered platters from grocery store)
Strawberry Avocado Spinach Salad with Raspberry Balsamic Vingarette

Dessert
Strawberry Birthday Cake
Pink Flamingo Rice Krispie Treats

Beverages
Pink Flamingo Punch
Spiced Warm Cranberry Apple Cider
Coffee
Bottled Water with diy labels

The appetizers were fairly easy. For the salsa mixed with sour cream, I did two parts salsa to one part sour cream. My goal was to make it pinkish. I bought a pre-cut vegetable platter that came with ranch dip, but added more vegetables and divided it all into two plates. I also found a red pepper dip that was pink, so we served that as well. My mother brought the shrimp and prepared them (Steve and I do not eat shrimp) and my mother-in-law brought the fruit. I was going to use my flamingo cookie cutter and cut out some flamingo watermelon to add to it, but the watermelon looked awful at the store the day of the party, so we skipped it. I made signs for all the food. The most intriguing ones were the shrimp and carrot items. This also gave me a way to mark the salad with the nuts. Shrimp is what turns flamingos pink and carrots have the same beta carotene (it makes the carrots orange).

For the ginger carrot soup, I combined recipes I found at Fine Cooking and Simply Recipes. I tripled the recipe and used 3 pounds of carrots. I liked the Roasted Carrot Soup recipe since it also had celery in it. I thought the portions were better in the other one. I used vegetable broth so it would be a vegetarian option. My mother is now eating vegetarian mostly, so I wanted her to have options. It turned out fine, but was not the best ginger carrot soup I have ever had. The main meal I order a deli platter and roll platters from the grocery store that is five minutes from our house. The Rite Aid is next door and the manager always gives Hazel balloons for her party as a gift. It makes it all easy to pick up and much easier to put together. Then I adapted the recipe I found on Closet Cooking for the salad. I liked that it has avocado in it. I did not put the bacon in and since I do not like blue cheese, I used goat cheese. My mother helped me make the salad. I had made the dressing the day before using frozen raspberries.

Hazel and I had big plans to make pink rice krispie treats. We used brown krisped rice instead of the Kellogg's brand. I added some red food coloring to the melted marshmallows. Then we let it sit while we went out. Then I tried to cut the flamingos out of them with the cookie cutter. I put pink frosting (which I bought) on them and pink sugar to make them sparkle. Since Hazel was sick (she has been since Christmas night), I did this by myself. I also made the cake myself even though she talked about making it with me all year.

For the cake, I adapted the recipe I found on  Confections of a Foodie Bride. Since we used the same recipe last year, I knew how it turned out. I roughly doubled the strawberry puree used in the cake. I also added some red food coloring since Hazel wanted the cake to be pink like a flamingo. I made it into a 9" by 11" sheet cake so it could be the water the flamingo (lollipops) live on. I used store bought blue frosting and then used a sparkle frosting gel to write on it. Hazel shares her birthday with a good friend of ours and she wanted her name on the cake as well to honor her. Then I used the flamingo lollipops I got from Oriental Trading to finish our cake. 

For our beverages, I peeled the labels of a pack of 24 water bottles and printed out my own with something about Hazel's party and flamingos on it. For the pink flamingo punch, I was inspired by the recipe I found on Kathryn's Kloset. When I went to buy pink lemonade I found strawberry lemonade that was bright pink and used that. The punch was a huge hit and was finished at the party. I left the short plastic cups for the punch but also had tall thin ones for the kids to use with the flamingo straws and had the covered ones with straws (Hefty Zoo Pals) for the younger kids. For the Spiced Cranberry Apple Cider I used the recipe I found at Betty Crocker to cook it in my slow cooker. I did not look at it carefully and did not get whole allspice. I used about a teaspoon of ground though. It was delicious!! Steve or his mother made the coffee. Since I don't drink it, I don't make it well.

The final personal touches were Flamingo Trivia at the various tables and in the bathroom. (You can get a copy without the Hazel line on it.) Then I took some of our leftover wedding favors (votive candles in glass holders) and replaced the wedding stickers with flamingo birthday stickers. I wrapped them in pink tulle and tied a pink feather to them. I left them on a table in Hazel's bedroom where we were putting coats with a sign telling people to take one when they got their coats to leave.

For more ideas for flamingo parties, check out my Pinterest Board! For more on flamingos (books, crafts and info) check out all of our Flamingo Fridays!

Flamingo Birthday Party

We finally had our flamingo birthday party!! Hazel is now officially five! It was a blast even though she now has her second ear infection since Christmas and is on her second round of antibiotics. Yes, it has been a tough Christmas break. But onto our happy time! A few weeks ago, I shared our printed invitation as well as some of the terrific products we reviewed from Oriental Trading.

Christmas in Jamaica--Christmas in Different Lands

I joined with a group of Multicultural Kid Blogs to present Christmas in Different Lands. I get the pleasure of presenting Christmas in Jamaica. Last week we made a Jamaican Sweet Potato Pone for Around the World in 12 Dishes. Cooking the Caribbean Way by Cheryl Davidson Kaufman said it was a typical dish for Christmas morning. All the references on-line suggested it being a favorite dessert. For the most part Christmas in Jamaica is similar to Christmas in the United States (and much of the world). They have Santa Claus or Father Christmas. They decorate trees and/or hang lights and exchange gifts. Many places describe it as a non-stop party time. I wanted to find things that made the celebration different from other parts of the world.

Squanto, Pilgrims and Thanksgiving

Now I will admit that I am so fascinated by Native American culture. I don't know if it is the drop or so Native American blood I have in me--my grandfather always said someone along the way married a Native American (well he used Indian), but I don't know much more than that. My sister however does and she found out recently that our Native American ancestor answered Lincoln's first call for soldiers for the Civil War. I love to learn about the way different tribes live(d) and hear the stories. I love them so much I took a class on Native American Culture in college. Anyway, I guess I'm working on passing on my love to Hazel.

We have been reading many books about Native Americans--Wampanoags in particular--as well as much on Squanto. I have learned so much that I never learned in school. Now with many things in history, there are different versions in the books as well as on-line. Here is what seems to be the most widely viewed. Tisquantum or Squanto was a member of the Patuxet Tribe and  was kidnapped at age 12 by Europeans led by Captain Thomas Hunt. Squanto and his fellow braves were taken to Malaga, Spain and sold as slaves. Squanto however was bought by monks who believed God had other plans for Squanto. He spent five years with the monks and learned their language and their religion.  Then the monks sent him to England so he could eventually go home on a ship there. More ships sailed to the New World from England than Spain. They arranged for him to live with a merchant, John Slany, and his family. He learned English there and was amazed by the large city of London. About five years after arriving in England, Squanto was able to go home on John Smith's (of Pocahontas fame) ship led by Captain Thomas Dermer. Squanto had known Captain Smith and Captain Dermer from trading with them as a boy. Squanto was able to translate for the English when they came to Native Americans and thus was useful and worked for his journey.

Source: By The German Kali Works, 
New York [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Upon arriving home, Squanto saw that the Patuxet village was deserted. The fields were untended and not even dog barked to greet him. He walked to a nearby village of the Wampanoags and discovered that his tribe had been wiped out by an illness. He lived with the Wampanoags for a bit, but eventually went to live on his own in the woods. One day Samoset came to visit him. Samoset was sagamore of an Eastern Abenaki tribe that resided in what is now Maine. He was visiting Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoags. Samoset had learned broken English from the fishermen and traders he met. (Source) Samoset was the first Native American to approach the Pilgrims in Plymouth. He went to get Squanto since Squanto's English was better. 

Samoset greeting the Pilgrims

Squanto was amazed at the changes to his village when he saw the Pilgrims and what they had done. He was happy to see life back in his village. Samoset and Squanto helped Governor Carver and Chief Massasoit reach a Peace Treaty. This treaty lasted for over fifty years until Massasoit died. They agreed to help one another and not to fight each other. Squanto stayed and taught the Pilgrims how to grow the native crops like corn, where and how to fish, which native berries were safe and good and other important things. Governor Bradford is quoted as to have said that Squanto "...was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation."(Source)  In Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas, there is a similar quote from Governor Bradford. This book really focuses on the religious side of things. Apparently from several sources Squanto truly converted to believing in the European God. Squanto lived with the Pilgrims until he died. Some sources believe that the Wampanoags may have poisoned him. (Sources: The books shown above and Wikipedia)

To go with learning about the Native Americans in the Thanksgiving story, we made a simple Native American craft for our Thanksgiving table. We followed the instructions in Kathy Ross' book, Crafts for Thanksgiving. We used a paper towel roll and construction paper to make Native American headdress napkin rings.

 

We also made a strawberry corn bread. The recipe came from Thanksgiving Crafts by Judith Hoffman Corwin. The introduction to the recipe discussed how the Native Americans had thanksgiving festivals. This recipe might be used for a strawberry festival. Hazel did not like the bread, Steve did and I thought it was all right. I of course made it gluten free. It was made with frozen strawberries (but thawed) and I used the entire bag instead of measuring them out. I am glad I did because it had very little liquid in the recipe.

For more Native American posts check out Pocahontas, The Wampanoag Tribe, A Native American Cinderella (includes two books and a craft), Native American Cinderella 2 (two more similar stories), and The Turkey Girl, a Zuni version of Cinderella.

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Thailand-- Banana Cake

Enter the Little Pim Giveaway!!

This month Around the World in 12 Dishes is stopping in Thailand!! We have had some fun with Thailand. A few weeks ago we shared a wonderful version of Cinderella from Thailand. Today we will share more stories, resources and food!! For a brief introduction to the country of Thailand, visit our Cinderella post.

Around the World in 12 Dishes is brought to you by the following blogs. Each month each of us picks a recipe from the selected country to make with your child(ren) and share it on our blogs. You can see the line-up here.
Adventures In Mommydom, Afterschool for Smarty Pants, All Done Monkey, Babes in Deutschland, Crafty Moms Share, Maroc Mama, Creative World of Varya, Glittering Muffins, Here Come The Girls, Kid World Citizen, Mermaids' Makings, The Educators' Spin On It and The Mommy Talks.

Hazel and I found many books with recipes from Thailand at the library as well as some multicultural books about food and schools. We looked through them and decided on a recipe for banana cake or kanom gluay. We found this recipe in The Cooking of Thailand by Matthew Locricchio. I adapted it to be gluten free. I also made a Thai dinner, but Hazel did not help with that food since she was tired from school, so we will only be sharing the recipe for the cake.

Banana Cake or Kanom Gluay Recipe adapted from The Cooking of Thailand by Matthew Locricchio. Now the fact that it had rice in it intrigued me and I found some jasmine rice from Thailand to use!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 1/4 cups cold water
5 ripe bananas
1/4 cup cold cooked white jasmine or basmati rice
3/4 cup canned unsweetened coconut cream (take thick top layer off when open can without shaking or stirring)
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup all purpose gluten free flour
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
 1/2 cup canned coconut milk
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

The first step is to soak the shredded coconut in the cold water for 10 minutes. Then drain in it in a strainer and push the back of a spoon to get more water out. Then set aside 1/4 cup of it to use on the top of the cake.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and slice the bananas and then add them to a large bowl with the coconut, rice and coconut cream. Using a potato masher, mash these together until well mixed. Set aside.

Break eggs and add sugar to the eggs. Beat with an electric mixer for two minutes.

In separate bowl mix flour and xanthan gum.

Add about 1/3 of the egg mixture to the banana mixture along with 1/3 of the flour mixture. Use electric mixer to mix together. Then add another 1/3 of each and mix. Then put final 1/3 of each in and mix.

Turn mixer off and add coconut milk. Use a rubber spatula to blend it into the batter.

The recipe called for a 10-inch cake pan to be lightly greased and floured. I found it filled 2 9-inch round pans. I used a baking spray instead of butter and flour. Once pan is prepared pour batter into it. Put in oven and bake for 60 to 65 minutes. The cake should be lightly brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cakes on a wire rack for 15 minutes and then turn out onto the racks. Sprinkle with the coconut you set aside and the confectioners' sugar. Let cool to room temperature before eating!!

All three of us liked the banana cake! Hazel and I tried it warm and found it was too hot and one of them fell apart coming out of the pan too early. I added time to the cooling here to help with this problem. It tasted much better after it was cool.

After making the cake, I made some chicken satay with a peanut sauce and stir fired vegetables (recipe from Sue Townsend's Thailand book). The satay recipe I combined several different ones that I found in the books above. Steve really liked the chicken, Hazel did not like it and I thought it was all right. Being the only one to have tasted satay before, I didn't like it in comparison to what I have had at a Thai restaurant. However we all liked the stir fried vegetables even though it did not really have a sauce on it. The lemon grass and ginger in it was  delicious. Now I went to four grocery stores to find lemon grass, but finally did. We also had sticky rice from Thai with our meal. I also found Thai fortune cookies, which we all liked as well.

We also explored some great books. One of our favorites was Peek!: a Thai Hide-and-Seek by Minfong Ho. It is a simple story of a father looking for his daughter who is playing hide-and-seek and he keeps finding the various animals of Thailand instead. The Life of Rice and The Story of Silk by Richard Sobol are two amazing books. Richard Sobol is a photographer. He traveled in Thailand for work and discovered the importance of rice to the people there. He went and told the rice farmers story. When he was back during non-rice farming season, he asked what the people in the village were doing and discovered the silk making. These books are about the life of average people in Thailand's small villages and country.

That is what we have explored in Thailand. Now it is your turn. Have you tried cooking a Thai recipe and want to share it here. I hope you will!! And in case you missed it, here are the pages for Thailand passport and placemat!

Pumpkin Time! Decorated Pumpkins, Pumpkin Books, & More

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

With Halloween only 15 days away, I thought I would share some of the ways we have been decorating pumpkins and more!! I guess I better get serious about sewing Hazel's costume. This year we planted some pumpkins in our garden. We saved seeds from last year's pumpkins and bought a pumpkin plant. We saved seeds from white pumpkins and sugar pumpkins. Apparently white pumpkins take over and don't grow white the next year. We ended up with two (and there is one more small one out there) skinny and kind of tall orange pumpkins. These took over the pumpkin area and also hindered the zucchini (we got our first zucchini of the year last week now that the pumpkin vine is dying off). 

When we were at Hazel's best friend's house for a playdate a few weeks ago, they had already decorated and had some great pumpkin ideas, so we borrowed a few of theirs with a few changes. They had found a kit to make two black lace pumpkins at Target. It came with pom pom spiders. We did not find the kit at our small Target, but found some black lace tights and stretchy spiders.

We used our homegrown pumpkins since they were so skinny. Total cost was $6. 

They also had a pumpkin they painted with blackboard paint and then her friend wanted to spray it with gold spray paint. The result was beautiful. We used gourds for the rest of our decorations since I have been told to watch my spending. Since we did not have blackboard paint, we used Hazel's black tempura paint. I had some gold glitter paint and did another coat with it. The one problem with the tempura was the other paint made it watery again, so there are some orange spots showing. We also did one black and then Hazel used her glitter nail polishes to decorate it. She used blue, pink, gold, silver and multicolored glitter nail polish on it.

I had painted two gourds with the gold glitter paint--an orange gourd and a white gourd. Then Hazel added some of her glitter nail polish to the top of the orange one.

Hazel was having so much fun painting with her nail polish that I bought her another white gourd to paint. (She also painted some acorns with it.) I thought she would use the glitter ones, but she decided to use the solid colors first.

Finally when I was at Target again, I saw a kit using a fake gourd and making it a spider. I knew we had some fake gourds that we used for turkeys last Thanksgiving and we painted one of those black. Then we used pipe cleaners to give it legs and glued on eyes. 

We also made some pumpkin bread last week. We first cut open two sugar pumpkins and enjoyed cleaning them out. Hazel had the best time playing with the goo and seeds. I believe she said, "Sometimes it is fun to get messy."

Then she liked the feel of the seeds and trying to get them offer her fingers.

After they were clean we baked them in the oven for an hour and a half at 350. Then I pureed the insides and put it in the refrigerator. We made pumpkin bread later in the week. We used the recipe here, but changed it to be gluten free. One loaf we ate and the other we brought to her school for Grandparents' Day.

Finally some of the pumpkin books we have been enjoying lately. Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman is among one of Hazel's all time favorites! Three of them go into how pumpkins grow. We also shared the Pumpkin Fairy story a few years ago. Are you getting ready for Halloween?

Around the World in 12 Dishes--New Zealand Kiwi Cake

This month we are "traveling" to New Zealand with Around the World in 12 Dishes. Now one of Hazel's favorite fruits is a kiwi. I don't always buy them due to the cost at certain times of the year, but she can literally eat a couple in a sitting if I let her. At the end of August she asked why we couldn't grow our own kiwis. I decided to see if there were any books on growing your own at the library and found two: Eat the Fruit, Plant the Seed by Millicent Selsam and Jerome Wexler and Grow It Again by Elizabeth MacLeod. We checked them out and gave it a try. Currently we have a bag of soil with kiwi seeds in our refrigerator. You have to chill them for five to six weeks so they think they are planted through a winter. We will be planting them in a pot in October.

Coloring Page available at DLTK Kids

Since Hazel loves kiwi it only seemed fitting to try a kiwi recipe. We decided to try a recipe for kiwi cake. We adapted the recipe from The Search for NZ's Favourite Recipe for kiwifruit and ginger cake. The first thing we had to do was figure out how to make it gluten free since the whole family has gone reduced gluten now or really no gluten when we can control it. Plus we had to figure out the measurements and oven temperature.

Ingredients
Butter (about 9 Tablespoons or 1 stick and a tablespoon more)
1 cups Sugar
2 Eggs
5 Medium Kiwis, peeled and mashed (Hazel loved mashing them)
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Boiling Milk (I put it in the microwave for 45 seconds and that was a bit too long, so try 30)
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Xanthan Gum
1 teaspoon dried ground ginger
Chocolate Frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan.

Hazel showing off the green batter

Cream the butter and sugar with your mixer. Hazel loves controlling the mixer plus adding things to the bowl.

Add the eggs. Hazel always beats them slightly for me.

Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling milk. Then add this mixture and the mashed kiwi to the sugar mixture.

Combine the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum and ginger and then add it to the rest of the ingredients.

Put in the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and then frost with chocolate frosting.

Cooling right out of oven

We could not wait for the frosting to try it, so we cut into it before it was completely cool.

We loved it. In fact we each had two pieces before we frosted it. Hazel loved to point out the black dots and tell me they were the seeds of the kiwi.

We bought a can of pre-made frosting which I hardly ever do, but Hazel had a cold and was home sick from school when we made the cake. We both frosted the remainder of the cake. Then had a piece for dessert at dinner. Steve did not like it, but that does not surprise me since he does not like kiwis or anything new for that matter.

We of course read stories and looked at many non-fiction books to learn more about New Zealand. We discovered Margaret Mahy, a New Zealand author who has many books here in the States. We really loved her book, Making Friends. We read many Maori stories and legends. The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand.

We also looked at reference books.

And we looked at some of the wildlife unique to New Zealand--in particular birds.

Hazel really loved The Moa book by Tamara Green. She read it to Ducky the next morning and loved looking at the pictures of the extinct or almost extinct bird. We learned a new word, ratite which the moa and the kiwi are members of. Ratite is a species of flightless birds which include the ostrich, emu and others.

As always we also listened to some music from New Zealand. Here are some of the CD covers we found the music to listen.

So that has been our exploration of New Zealand. Hazel still wants to make a kiwi tart, so we may be doing some more with this wonderful country. However now it is your turn to share and to visit. Please visit these other wonderful host blogs.

Adventures In Mommydom - Afterschooling for Smarty Pants - All Done Monkey - Crafty Moms Share - Creative World of Varya - Glittering Muffins - Here Come The Girls - Kid World Citizen - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Mermaids’ Makings - The Educators’ Spin On It - Maroc Mama
 

Also check out Around the World in 12 Dishes on Pinterest. Be sure to follow so you will not miss a thing! Here are the passport pages for New Zealand. Here is the placemat for New Zealand.

Please share any dishes you have tried from New Zealand or crafts, activities, etc. to teach your child(ren) about New Zealand.