Czech women are notoriously known for baking Christmas cookies during this season. I know how my mother-in-law would diligently spend a day baking various kinds of cookies which doesn’t count the days for preparation, and we’re (always) among the happy recipients of her baked treats. (:  I had the chance of helping her prepare, cut and form cookies on my first year in CZ and I can attest that it’s laborious!

Have a look!  Below are the delectable cookies the mam baked 4 years ago.  Can you count how many varieties are there?

They taste soooo good! My bro-in-law who was home one time for the holidays brought back these goodies with him to Barcelona where he’s based and his friends who tasted them couldn’t believe they were home-made. Since then, whenever he comes home for a visit, mam always makes sure he brings cookies with him back to Barcelona.

I admit I don’t have the time and the energy for this baking pursuit so I’ll just wait for Mam to give us our share for this year. teehee!
But I decided to expose Caity to this tradition by starting with simple cookies. It was Friday night and instead of dinner, we were baking cookies.

Tadannnn!

My little helper placed sprinkles on top to add cheer to our dull cookies.

Caity helped me cut the dough into shapes while I was also busy rolling/cutting the dough, supervising my little helper and minding Adie (who was trying to steal our cookie cutters) all at the same time.  It had to be done fast, as cooking took only 6-10 minutes.  No pics during production time!

Ooopss! Somebody is getting more cookies!

As soon as the first batch came out, still hot and smelling soooo good, the impatient and over excited kids positioned themselves around the table waiting for me to lay the goodies.  “Cookies! Cookies!” they chanted.  It’s so much fun to have more than 1 kid in the house!    Caity was so happy to see her play things work turn into something edible.  It was yummy, still is.  The taste is reminiscent of Monde’s Eggnog cookies or Rosquillos. yumyumyum…

Got my recipe for the best rolled sugar cookies here. You should give it a try!

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!

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

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.

I already miss eating siopao (steamed buns)! When our friend Angie planned that she’ll celebrate her birthday party in Prague, I requested her to make siopao which was seconded by the other girls. Angie is one of the skillful cooks among our group and usually doesn’t say no when challenged to try new dishes to cook. She hasn’t made siopao before but she said she’ll try. And came the party day which was last Saturday, and there was the siopao! Her first attempt though wasn’t perfect but we didn’t mind. We ate it with delight anyway!

Then another friend, Aileen who was present in the party, shared with us about her discovery. She said she found something similar to siopao in Lidl. She started describing how it tasted so good, how the buns are so soft, blah, blah… I was like “Why didn’t you let me knowww?” hehehe ( we live close to each other).  She said she bought only one pack to try coz she wasn’t sure how it tasted but promised to inform me when it is available.

It’s obviously called Bapao in Vietnamese. (:

I got the valuable information from her yesterday that Lidl is still selling it. So today, M bought six packs. We tried the chicken flavor, which actually was chicken curry. I’m used to plain chicken flavor but it was good enough. It lacked the boiled egg which our siopao usually have, but it can be remedied. Next time I’ll just boil my own egg and stuff it inside before eating. Have to try the beef flavor yet. But I’m so happy that my siopao craving has already been satisfied. I immediately informed the other girls in case they also want to buy.

An inside look…

Okay, another food post! Caity was bugging me earlier in the afternoon to give her sprinkles and it was already snack time. Then suddenly the light bulb in my head started to light up. I got an idea! I thought, “why don’t I incorporate Caity’s sprinkles with her snacks.” And tadan! the birth of my peanut butter piškóty! hehehe

How to do it? Very simple. I took several pieces of piškóty (in English it’s called sponge biscuits), spread the peanut butter on top and sprinkled star and rainbow sprinkles on it.

Based on the picture above, the equation is 1+2+3 = 4. (:

This is the first set I made, with white star sprinkles:

When Caity asked for more, I remembered I still have rainbow sprinkles, so I mixed both kinds and the outcome was nicer.

Bite size goodness!!!

Let’s see how Caity reacted to my concoction.

So happy to see the upgraded piškóty!

Taking a bite…

“De-LI-shoooooooooos!!!

She kept saying “Thank you, Mama. Thank you Mama.“

Cooking takes time. The preparation alone can take from a minimum of 5-10 minutes to 20 minutes, depending on what food to cook. To save time, I usually cook food that everyone in the family can eat, from little Adie to the daddy. hehe My little boy had problems with his bowel movement so I see to it that we have fruits and vegetables every day. Fibrous foods they say are great colon cleansers which is definitely true!  Since I’ve increased the fibers Adie take, he poops without problems anymore.

My latest experiment in the kitchen was the breaded cauliflower which was inspired by a recipe I saw in the internet and which as usual, I didn’t totally follow. I tweaked it to incorporate what’s available in our ref and pantry.  That means I can’t give you the recipe but if you’re interested, you can Google “breaded cauliflower” and get lots of results.

I am happy to say that it was a success. Caity ate it twice that day for lunch and dinner, M liked it and as for Adie, I fed him throughout the day the steamed cauliflower (pre-breading/pre-frying part), which he ate with gusto.

That’s the tiramisu M (and Caity, who “helped” him) made for us, a labor of love.

Honestly girls, would you rather receive an iphone 3g, a diamond ring or something especially made by a loved one on V-day? Well, you don’t have to share your answer with me.  Just ask your heart what truly matters to you most.

Anyway, I’ve been eating a lot of this calorific goodness since M made it. huhuhu  Its really ruining my diet!  How can I resist it, its just so yummy! Even the kids like eating it too.