Frozen party: part 1 - Oreo pops

For one of the snack I thought anything on a stick is fun. So I decided to make chocolate dipped Oreos.

1.  Separate the Oreo

2. Melt some chocolate wafers

3.  Dip the sticks in the chocolate and place in Center.

4. Put the other side onto the Oreo.

5. Melt more chocolate wafers and dip the Oreo into the chocolate.

6. Place on a sheet of wax paper

7. Add sprinkles, sugar...or anything you want to decorate the Oreo with.

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy New Year.  Both my daughters class are celebrating Chinese new year today (Chinese new year is actually tomorrow, but M only has school on Tues.Thurs, and E's school has Olympic day tomorrow)

The girls wanted to do something special for their class.  So I got Josh to get some red envelops from work and pick up chocolate loonies to put inside.   When I dropped M off at school she was so excited to hand out these red envelops to her friend, and show off her Chinese dress. 

The girls are all dressed and ready for school.

Disney Frozen- my daughters new obession

 E is my little tom boy.  She is in love with the avengers or any superhero, so loves to dress up like them.  

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She would never willingly wear a princess dress, or any dress (unless I make her)....well until the movie Frozen came into theatres.  

 

Now when she come home from school, she quickly changes out of her school clothes and into any blue dress.  She then finds a cap, some dress-up high heals and walks around the house singing "Let it go". 

 

She has also requested a "Frozen" birthday party.   

 

M has always been my girly girl.  So of course she would love the movie.  My mom bought her the princess Anna dress as a early birthday gift (super early, her birthday isn't until the end of march).  She wears it everyday.  The other day she wanted to wear it to preschool, and I said no, she cried until we got to school (maybe next time I'll let her wear it) 

Puppet theatre

During Christmas I bought a few Melissa and Doug puppets from shop.ca.  I actually stumbled upon them when my girl friend told us about this crazy deal.
1. Go to ebates.com.   http://www.ebates.ca/referrer?referrerid=xFomw3A4yPo%3D
2. Then select Shop.ca  http://www.shop.ca?plcktb=ZwdzXG4CYQ2
3. now shop. 

So when you follow these 3 steps you get money back from ebates, plus you get money ($25) from signing up to shop.ca.  So at that time they had a promotion that everything you buy from shop.ca you get 20% back.  The puppets were already on sale for around $12-15 each (at the stores here they retail for $35).  I ended up buying all the ones they had on sale. 

So now I have all these puppets I need a theatre.  I started looking around. WOW, they're expensive.  I started to plan on making one out of wood, but then decided not to because it was too much work.  So my next plan was to buy PVC pipes and construct one out of that.  Then one day as I was flipping through the walmart flyer, I saw this garment rack for $15.  It was perfect.   (BTW, you can shop at walmart.ca through ebates.ca and get up to 4% back on your purchases)  I ordered it online (oh course, just to get an extra dollar back). 

My sister told me that Ikea as is section has great curtain panels that are cheap.  So I went there and found the perfect piece for my project.  This piece was $16.  It was already sewn at the top, so I only made 2 cuts, one in the length to shorten it and one cut down the middle for the opening. 

Taro wrapped Duck

I bought some organic duck breast from a organic farmer, because J loves to eat BBQ duck.  I decided to try to make this dish I tried years ago in a Chinese restaurant.  It was fried taro stuffed with duck inside.  My in-laws were over watching the girls, so I thought it would be the perfect time to try it.  It turned out delicious.  We ate it all up, even the girls enjoyed it.   

INGREDIENTS :

1 Taro 2 duck breast 4 cup of chicken stock 2 cups of corn starch oil for deep frying  SEASONINGS: (1) 1/2 cup of cornstarch, 2 tablespoon of oil, 1 teaspoon salt (2) 1Tablespoon rice wine, 1/2 Tablespoon soy sauce

PREPARATION :

1. Peel, rinse, and slice taro; Pour 1 cup of stock and add sliced taro to a pot; Bring to the boil; Simmer over a low heat until soft; Remove, add seasoning (1) and mash (almost like a play doe consistency) 2. Apply seasoning (2) on the duck evenly; Marinate for 30 minutes. 3. Bake duck breast in oven for about 40 minutes 4. Sprinkle some corn starch over the sliced duck; Cover with smashed taro; Roll in corn starch evenly.  5. (a) place into deep fryer and deep fry until brown.        (b) if you don't have a deep fryer you can use a wok; 6.  Take out and let it cool.  Slice and serve

Made little taro balls with no duck inside because I had so much mashed taro left. 

Garden 2013

Here is an update on my garden. 
 So how were my garden boxes you ask?  They were excellent.  I did not get any animals eating my plants and the organic soil helped a lot of my fruits and vegetables flourish.  I would definitely recommend using garden boxes.  Another benefit of the garden box is it makes it much easier to harvest your food without hurting your back.  Its not on the ground so you don't have to bend over as much.

Here is some of the stuff I got this summer.

Red raspberries

Tomatoes: cherry, yellow boy, beef steak, grape, and roma

 
Spinach

 Peas and long beans

 Yellow and green Zucchinis

 Strawberries

 Lettuce: red, green, romaine and butter

Herbs: mint, Parsley, Lemon Balm

 Carrots

 Beets

Soft pretzels

YUMMMMM, every time we go to the states I have to a Aunt Annie's pretzel.  They are soooo good.  Soft pretzels here are not common, and if you do stumble upon some, it's usually hard and dry.  I found this recipe from allrecipes.com, and the girls had so much fun making them too.

Buttery Soft Pretzels

Ingredients:

4 teaspoons active dry yeast 1 teaspoon white sugar 1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F /45 degrees C) 5 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 tablespoon vegetable oil   1/2 cup baking soda 4 cups hot water 1/4 cup kosher salt, for topping

Directions:

1.	In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2.	In a large bowl, mix together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt. Make a well in the center; add the oil and yeast mixture. Mix and form into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two tablespoons of water. Knead the dough until smooth, about 7 to 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3.	Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). In a large bowl, dissolve baking soda in hot water.
4.	When risen, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape. Once all of the dough is all shaped, dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution and place on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt.
5.	Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes, until browned.