Cheesy title!  How else can I describe the process of making siomai from scratch?  It’s truly a labor of love, too laborious!  Anything for my little girl whose birthday falls tomorrow. My arms are already sore from kneading small pieces of dough for wrapper. Not to mention all the chopping and mincing of carrots, garlic and onions for the filling. Whew! But I’m all done!  The tiny flowers as Caity calls it, are now sitting inside the ref waiting for their death in the steamer!

Uncooked siomai!

I was silent for sometime because of this:

Yeah! We went on weekend to Wolfgangsee, a lake in Upper Austria that lies mostly within the state of Salzburg (think Sound of Music!).  We were actually supposed to go to St. Gilgen but we got there past 7 in the evening with no accommodations. M just randomly called hotels and pension houses for any vacant rooms. After what seemed like a dozen tries, we luckily found a room in Wolfgangsee.  Whew!  It was a blessing in disguise, coz our pension house was sitting near the centre and we also found an open beach nearby in a camping site.  It wasn’t crowded, and the water is shallow enough even for little Adie to wade on.

Pardon me, but we’re taking advantage and savoring the last summer days with real summer warmth outdoors.  Plus I have tons to prepare for Caity’s 4th birthday this weekend and next week, our lives will change dramatically (well, mostly MY life) as our little girl will start preschool. We haven’t gone shopping yet for her school stuff.

Anyways, I hope you’re having fun days as well where ever you are!

“Mama, Mamaaaa!” My little Adie has finally learned to call me by that. For so long he was just saying or calling “Táta” which was a bit odd considering that I am the one who’s always by his side. It actually worked to my advantage. Imagine him calling out to his dad when he wakes up in the morning! I would poke at M and jokingly tell him that his son needs him while I can still stay in the bed for more snoozing. But of course, in the end I’ll be the one to get up and take Adie from his crib. When the little guy needs me, he doesn’t call me but rather he’d come and pull me or make a whiny sound. But now that he knows the power of calling me Mama, he’s kinda abusing it. I remember when Caity was about 2 y/o, her sentences often include Mama. Once while out taking a walk, M and I counted how many times she’d utter Mama. When it got to over 20, we stopped counting. It seems Adie is following suit.

Anyway, at 18 months, Adie has 9 or maybe 10 teeth. Those molars are hard to keep track coz he doesn’t like it when we inspect his mouth. Lately he’s been naming things he sees. Yesterday, he surprised me when he suddenly said “apple” while pointing to the PC screen which was showing apples. He also said baby a lot coz Caity was playing with her baby doll. His first word is probably “ještě” Czech word for “more”. When we play with him and he likes it, he’d say ještě. Whenever we feed him and he wants more, he’d say ještě.

The following pics were taken earlier today. He had fun kicking and chasing the ball! He did a little workout too. (:

Other words in his vocabulary are (aside from Mama and Tata):
flower, ball, Caity (which sounds more like Kitty), yamyam (for food), broom-broom for car, dobre rano (Czech for good morning), o-oh (when something falls or something is wrong). ty, ty, ty! which means you, you you! (whenever he does something bad). There’s more but I can’t remember na.  It’s a joy whenever he utters new words everyday.  He already knows how to follow command like give, pick, kick, dance and understands when he’s told to go to the toilet for a diaper change, or when it’s time to sleep (which he doesn’t like a lot!). His current fave to eat is peach and he likes to soak/play in the tub!

We fell in love with this food while in Stockholm which we ordered in Pizza Hut. We so loved it that we went back there the next day to order it again.  (:
I’ve been meaning to recreate it at home, got my chance last Saturday. Yum, yum Garlic Scampi, that buttery and garlicky taste enveloping the tender shrimps is tdf. Mmmmmm!!! Perfect for M who’s a shrimp lover.

Got the recipe from here.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 2 pounds large raw shrimp
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 6 lemon wedges

TO PREPARE:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees; melt butter in 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish in oven.  Add salt, garlic and one tablespoon parsley; mix well.  Arrange cleaned shrimp in single layer in baking dish; bake, uncovered, for 5 minutes.  Turn shrimp and sprinkle with lemon peel, lemon juice and remaining parsley and bake 8 to 10 minutes, until tender.  Arrange shrimp on heated serving platter (or individual plates if used as first course), pour garlic butter over all, and garnish with lemon wedges.

SERVES: 6

We always plan our activities depending on the weather and because we don’t get too much hot days lately, we’re limited to nearby places for the weekend. Yesterday we were blessed with a whole day of sun, and because all of us woke up rather early, we got to do many things with the kids.

We first went to the playground, then to another playground, and walked to the lake to feed the ducks and swans. Then we went further ahead to a small farm where they raise sheep, pigs, goats and chickens.  The kids were too happy to see the animals. But my legs and arms were sore from pushing the stroller which carried Caity. Ahh this girl is always telling us she’s too tired to walk, but whenever she sees the playground in sight, she immediately runs to it and doesn’t look a bit tired.

My passenger…

Calming sight…

Petting the goat…

Adie’s attire looks quite funny. That’s what happens when you let guys take care of dressing up.


Stopping to rest… Pic courtesy of Caity.

After three hours of being out, we all felt tired.  It was time to hit home so the kids can have their afternoon nap.  When they woke up, we took them out to a different playground again. I sooo love long summer days.  It was past 7 in the evening when we went home but was bright pa.

While many of us are lamenting over how sorry our Prague summer is, there’s one person who is already excited about winter. Whenever she sees snow in pictures or movies, she’d gleefully exclaim the fun things she’ll do when it snows; like throwing snowballs, sledding with snowmobile goggles, making snowman and lying on the white ground to make snow angel.

She’s even imagining the powdery sand of Yyteri as snow…

I’m linking this post to

Day 11 in Finland, we borrowed my bro-in-law’s car, dumped the kids to my sister’s care and drove off to Helsinki for a day. Yeah, we only had a day to see what the city has to offer. We thought, without the kids, we’ll be able to accomplish lots of things.

Helsinki is the capital and the largest city in Finland. It is about 225 kilometers away from Pori. We made it to the city in less than three hours, stopping briefly when M had to return his office’s call. We parked near the Helsinki Central railway station for 2.5 euro/30 minutes (I forgot the name of the parking center) and started our tour on foot at the Helsinki Cathedral.

Helsinki Central railway station.

The Helsinki Cathedral. It looks grand and huge but inside it is actually small.

Statue of Alexander II.

We were just in time for the Marching Band’s performance.

The Senate Square, view from the steps of the Helsinki Cathedral.

Corinthian columns of Helsinki Cathedral.

Then off we went to the Market Square where you can find Finnish crafts, souvenirs, local produce and foods.

Souvenirs!!!

Magnets!

This is where we stopped for lunch – salmon with mixed vegetables and potatoes. Yummy!

After eating, we continued our tour…

The Presidential Palace, right in front of the Market Square.

Next on our list to see is the Ustepenski Cathedral. We followed the addressed inputted by dear M in his GPS, and that’s where our walking around in circles began. Huhuhu. We actually wasted our time, energy and money (our parking clock was ticking euros!) looking for this church.  My mistake, I didn’t bring the map and the M’s navi that’s supposed to direct us to our chosen places was out of battery. Waaaaa!   It turned out the address of Ustepenski that M found in the internet was not correct!!! We finally got ourselves free map from the Museum of War, thanks to the friendly Finnish guy there who gave it to us. By that time, my patience and energy was super depleted coz it was a super hot day, the hottest ever since we got to Finland.

Random pics while searching for Ustepenski Cathedral.

Ahhh, there it is!!!!  If you scroll back up in the Market Square pictures, you can see the tip of the dome there. Yeah, it was close to the Helsinki Church, and we actually passed by there on our way to the market.  We even got intrigued what the beautiful building was, and planned to go there after we see the Market Square!!!!  What a big joke, right???!!!

The Ustepenski Cathedral.

Anyway, I’ll end for now and give you a rest from the pics overload. Beware though, there will be more pics on my next post!

Last week, our friend L harvested more vegetables and fruits from her garden. She dumped the baskets of bounties in another friend’s house, so we went there on Tuesday. It was a double purpose meeting; a picnic/playdate for moms and kids and a chance for us to claim our share of goodies.

I went home with a huge slice of squash, a bunch of alogbate, some peaches and cherry tomatoes. The peaches were sweet, no wonder Adie liked it.  He ate 3 pieces in a day, the next day he pooped thrice at intervals of 10-20 minutes. Yay!

Nomnomnom… (:

And here are the kids eating store-bought peaches. Photo taken yesterday.

Adie looks bigger than Caity here coz when he saw me, he got up and ran to me.

You probably want to try out the donuts I’ve been telling you about in the previous post. So here it is!!! Very simple, and takes less than an hour to make.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
1 cup warm milk
5 teaspoons instant dry yeast
2 tablespoons oil

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup mashed potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar

How to do it? Just watch this video. (:
That’s all there is to making easy and yummy donuts. I hope you’ll enjoy your donuts too!

My sister has been cooking donuts for her family following a recipe she got from a Finnish magazine. When she knew that Caity loves donuts, she promised to make it when we’re there. One time when we didn’t have any scheduled outing for that day, she magically whipped us a delicious snacks of donuts! The whiff of the delightful treat was too much to resist; I had to immediately grabbed the first few pieces, freshly taken out from the hot oil. Thank God I didn’t burn my tongue! Super yummy, was all I can say. It has a hint of banana in every crispy bite. I wonder if it was because of the flour. Fortunately, the recipe can make about 36 pieces, enough to feed an army of hungry tummies. I think I ate about 4 pieces of that filling snack.

When we got back to Prague, my sister sent me the recipe which she painstakingly translated from Finnish to English so I can also make the donuts. She gave me 4 variations. One look at the printed recipe and I was already worried. Aside from the need to use deciliters (which we didn’t have measuring cups for, and which we brought later but didn’t have measurements for small doses such as 1 dl, 2 dl… ), the recipe calls for rising time for the yeast which was awfully long! (first one was 40 minutes, then another 20 minutes). Time is not something I have the luxury of having. Sorry sis. So I scrambled to my PC and searched for the easiest and simplest donut recipe I can find. I found one, and hoped that it was good.

The donuts I made for picnic with friends…

Good news! It was yummy though not as good as the ones my sister made. But since I’m all for simple and easy recipes, I’m totally loving it. In fact since the discovery of that recipe, I had already made donuts about 3-4 times in less than a week. hehehe. I think I can live without seeing donuts for a whole year after stuffing myself with donuts almost everyday. Eeek! The first time I cooked it was Sunday, then Tuesday I made another batch to bring to our picnic with friends and kiddies (they liked it and asked me to share the knowledge). So yesterday my friends were here at home, and we made two batches of donuts, then this afternoon, Caity and I produced some more donuts. I know, overkill na! I’ve been washing down my throat with water to get the taste of donut out of mah system. Maybe I should be wearing Adie’s urinary incontinence products for the night to avoid frequent trips to the toilet. hehe

Donut cooking lesson on Friday…

My friend got creative and decorated her donuts (which she made today) with almonds, sprinkles and chocolates. Teehee! Too sweet na I guess. I prefer mine rolled in confectioner’s sugar coz its not too sweet.

On our third day in Pori, we hit the beach of Yyteri! It was a sunny yet cold breezy day; but beautiful nonetheless. We brought our coats, food to munch and whatever stuff the kids can use to make sandcastles and we’re all set.

This beach boast of six kilometers long (one of the longest in Finland and all Nordic countries) of powdery sand and dunes!

Our little boy immediately took the pleasure of playing in the sand.

Trying to swim there too…

Caity getting water from the Baltic Sea…

The kids were busy building their sandcastles…

Seagull flying in the blue, blue sky…

Sweet love… (:

O-oh!  Adie’s gonna destroy the castles!!!

Caity-kat posing…

Us!! Nobody wanted to swim in the cold water & come out to be greeted with chilly wind brrrr…

What a cool way to spend a Thursday afternoon! (: