Mama Trimblini's Spaghetti

I was excited when I saw that the next country to be covered in the Kids' Culinary Passport was Italy. I love Italian food and I knew that this would have to be a two-parter in terms of what I was going to have Lily cook with me. I decided to introduce her to my mother's famous "Mama Trimblini's Spaghetti."  My mother wasn't much of a cook.  Her motto was always stick to 5 ingredient recipes if you could.  She was probably the original Sandra Lee Semi-homemade.  My mother always made this spaghetti for me when I was growing up and I just wanted Lily to learn about it since her grandmother isn't alive to teach her.  I felt this would be one way she could have some connection to my mother.

To make the Spaghetti Sauce is quite simple. You use Lawry's Spaghetti Sauce Seasoning Packet, 2 1/4 cups of water, 1 tbs. unsalted butter, and 1 (6 oz.) can of tomato paste.  My mom would add in 1 pound of ground beef, but we use ground turkey and 2 cups of sliced mushrooms.

First, brown the ground beef or ground turkey.

Next, in a 2-quart saucepan, combine the water, tomato paste, butter, and seasoning packet.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Once it comes to a boil, add the ground turkey and mushrooms.  Reduce heat to low and simmer covered, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes.

One of my favorite things about making this spaghetti sauce when I was younger, was getting a loaf of fresh crusty French bread and tearing a little piece off  and putting a little butter on it and dipping it into the sauce while it simmered.  I honestly think I could just eat it that way without the actual spaghetti.

And of course you can not forget the garlic bread!

On Sunday, I am going to teach Lily another Italian favorite..Eggplant Parmesan.  This is my own version of a Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade type recipe. Then she will get to add the Italy stamp to her passport.

Homemade Sushi



Ever since we started working on the Kids Culinary Passport together, I knew when we did get to Japan I definitely wanted to try my hand at making sushi with Lily. So this morning, we all went over to the Japanese Market, Mitsuwa in Irvine to pick up everything we would need.  A friend of mine has invited us over in the past and made handrolls for us and I always wanted to make them at home and today we did.  I was a little timid about making sushi.  I thought it would be really hard.  It's actually not hard at all, there is just a lot of preparation that goes into it. I used the Japanese Home Cooking Cookbook by Shunsake Fukushima to get the basic idea of how to make sushi and then my husband and my daughter Lily just used our imagination to think of what we could put as the filling.

Lily placed the bamboo placemat on the butcher block cutting board. She then placed a nori sheet on to it--rough side facing up.

We made special sushi rice by making a special sushi vinegar.  We placed 1/2 cup of rice vinegar and 1 tsp. of salt into a small saucepan over low heat and stirred it until the salt dissolved. Then we added 1 tbs. of sugar and 1 tsp. of mirin and continued to stir briskly until the sugar was dissolved.  It is important not to let the mixture boil and to remove the saucepan from the heat when it is too hot to touch.  Then after we put the hot rice in a bowl we added the sushi vinegar slowly to the rice and distributed it evenly with a rice paddle. We let it sit and cool to room temperature before we preceded to the next step.

My husband spread the rice over the nori sheet , being careful not to rip it, until the sheet was 3/4 covered with a thin layer of rice.

Lily and her Daddy wet their hands while putting the rice onto the nori, so it wouldn't stick to their hands but to the seaweed instead.

Next we added our fillings. This roll had tuna, salmon, avocado, cucumber, and carrots.

Tim gripped the sushi as he rolled it and squeezed it gently to form a tight tube. He tucked the mat gently but firmly around the roll until it was complete and secure.

Then he cut the sushi into pieces with a sharp knife.

Beautiful Sushi

My kids enjoyed their wannabe onigiri rolls with edamame.

After our delicious Japanese meal, Lily finally got to add the Japan "stamp" to her passport!

Next Stop...Japan

Daigku Imo

Japan was our next stop for the Kids' Culinary Passport. And we decided to try something we haven't made before Daigku Imo aka Carmelized Sweet Potatoes. Carmelized Sweet Potatoes is a Japanese dessert that is delicious served hot or cold.
 I found the recipe in the book , Cooking Around the World: Japanese by Masaki Ko. The first step was to slice 1 1/4 pounds of sweet potatoes thin and place them in a bowl of water with a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of salt for 5 minutes.  This keeps the sweet potatoes from sticking to the pan during cooking.

Then slowly heat the oil for deep frying to 170 degrees Celsius. I just heated the oil until a drop of water "dances" on the oil.  I wiped the potatoes well on paper towels and deep fried them slowly until they were golden.

I drained them on paper towels and began to make the sauce.  In a saucepan, I heated 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, 1 tbs. soy sauce, and 1 tbs. of water until it was hot and began to thicken. 

We added the sweet potatoes to the caramel and turned them to coat them thoroughly. We removed them from the heat and sprinkled sesame seeds on the top.

We had homemade sushi at our friends' house two days later, but I would like to make them at home. So once we make our own homemade sushi then we will add our Japan stamp to Lily's culinary passport. We plan on doing this next weekend.

Kids Culinary Passport (USA)

I was surfing the web and I came across this terrific project at the blog, Inner Child Fun, for Lily's summer vacation. Since, we are not traveling anywhere this summer , why not travel around the world without leaving our kitchen!  I quickly downloaded the Kids' Culinary Passport and away we went on our "voyage."

We glued a photo of Lily and of course her "babies" onto her passport and answered the questions of what was her favorite food and what was her favorite country.  She loves noodles specifically Ramen and her favorite country is China, because of Ni Hao Kai Lan.

Since we had just celebrated the Fourth of July, we decided to visit our own country first, the good ole USA.  Lily keeps getting USA mixed up with USC, her father's Alma Mater. The blog gave a suggestion to make Homemade Peach ice cream.  My mother's favorite flavor of ice cream was peach, so in honor of her and what would have been her 72nd birthday this year on the 24th of July, I thought this would be a great way to celebrate.

The recipe came from the book "The Perfect Scoop" by David Liebowitz.  It called for peeling the peaches first.  Let me tell you peeling peaches with a regular hand held peeler is not easy and you lose a lot of your peach meat by doing so.  I discovered a very handy trick to peel the peaches.  With a paring knife, mark an x on the bottom of each peach. Then bring a large pot of water to boiling. Fill a large bowl with ice water. Boil the peaches for 20 seconds and then using a slotted spoon transfer them to the ice water bath. Let cool and then the skins slide right off.

I then removed the peach pits and  cut the fruit into chunks.

In a medium sized saucepan, I combined the peaches and  1/2 cup of water and cooked them for 10 minutes over medium high heat, until they were soft, stirring 2-3 times.

I combined the peaches with 3/4 cups of sugar and let them stand until they reached room temperature.

Lily helped me with the next part. And yes, I am wearing shorts with that top. We pureed the peach mixture in a blender with 1/2 cup of sour cream, 1 cup of heavy cream, 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract, and a few drops of fresh squeezed lemon juice.

We chilled the pureed mixture completely and then placed it in our Rival Ice Cream maker which had not been taken out of the box since 2008. I could consider that hoarding and that's why this post is perfect for this blog.

Success!

I let Lily stay up to finally taste the ice cream. It took an hour and a half before it started to finally take shape. 

Then I had Lily place her USA sticker to her passport. Can't wait to do some Japanese cooking next week! 

Fourth of July Seder

    In honor of the Fourth of July, my husband thought it would be nice to have a seder to celebrate the holiday.  He got this idea from listening to talk show host, Dennis Prager, who has been promoting the idea of celebrating America's Independence Day with more than just hot dogs and hamburgers.  His idea was to include a short ritual during the meal to make the holiday more meaningful, especially to younger members of the family.
    The idea was to include readings by young and old about American Independence, the asking of questions by the children, and the eating of symbolic foods that remind us of the significance of the day. If this sounds familiar, it is.  Dennis modeled the ceremony on the Passover Seder.  It has successfully kept the memory of the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt alive for over 3,000 years, and the Fourth of July declaration ceremony is designed to keep the American Independence alive for future generations.
   The declaration ceremony is explained in a four-page document that can be easily downloaded  from the Prager University web site.  It includes instructions for the host, the narrative, questions, and a list of materials and food needed for the ceremony.
    Tim wanted me to find things to represent the colors of the flag, so I felt this was the perfect opportunity to use one of my hoarded Pinterest pins from my 4th of July board. I perused my pins and decided to make the Fruit Pizza.

First, I mixed up the sugar cookie batter and spread it in a pizza pan.

Then I whipped up the cream cheese filling to represent the "white stars" on our flag.

I chose strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries to represent the "Red and Blue."

The final product.

Tim did a great job trying to condense the Fourth of July seder to five minutes, so our young daughters could understand why we were doing this ceremony.  But I think they were honestly more interested in digging into the dessert that was in front of them.

Mini Princess Cakes

 Ella's 2nd Birthday Party is coming up, so I decided to throw her a Ladybug Birthday Party. Instead of going out and buying a cake, I've decided to make my own.  I ordered the cake molds for the body and the head.  I decided I needed to do a trial run with what will be the head of the ladybug molds.  I wasn't ready to make the ladybug cake just yet , so I decided to use one of the pins I have been "hoarding" on Pinterest and make Ella a special surprise for her actual birthday.
    Originally, I was going to take Ella and her big sister to go and buy cupcakes at the local cupcake shop, Casey's Cupcakes. I was curious to check out the cupcakes from the winner of the Cupcake Wars, but I knew that $20 for a 6 pack was just way too much,even if you get a free lemonade. When Lily, Ella's older sister turned two, I bought her a Cinderella princess cake from Pavilions. It looked like the Mini Princess Cake but with a bigger doll in the middle. I then remembered a pin for Mini Princess Cakes and decided I was going to try it out with my new cake molds. So, while Ella took a nap and Lily was at school, I went to work.

                                                       

    This is the pan I used.  It's the Wilton Mini Mold Pan aka the Boob Pan.

First I baked the cakes. I used the Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Mix .  And let me tell you, I already know what hoarded pin I will be checking off my to do list next...Funfetti Cookies!  What I really didn't think about when I baked the cakes in this mold was how they were going to puff up and that I would need to trim them so the cakes would sit level.

I think "cake bottoms" could very well be the next "muffin tops." They were a delicious treat.

Second, I iced the cakes.

I had bought Buttercream frosting because I couldn't find yellow gel food coloring, and I figured I would just frost one of the cakes straight with the buttercream frosting to act as Belle's dress. The thing is obviously when you mix gel food coloring with "light yellow colored " frosting you don't get the exact color you want. So of course, I ended up using regular food coloring as well, which I should have just stuck to in the first place. I piled the frosting on and used a leveling spatula to spread it around the cake. Next, I decorated the cake with sprinkles.

Lastly, I stuck the mini princess dolls into the cake.

Cinderella was my first attempt.

Snow White

Belle

I ended up adding more yellow food coloring to the frosting for a deeper yellow.

Rapunzel

Aurora

Tiana

I had help from Lily's friend, Becca, to put on the sprinkles.

I was really worried that the food coloring from the frosting might not come off of the dolls, but it washed off easily.

And finally a reaction from the birthday girl....

Priceless!

She clapped she loved it so much.

This was a lot easier to make than I thought , but probably not a lot cheaper than going out and buying cupcakes because of the cost of the gel food coloring I bought. But hey, I knocked down one of my many pins, now I have 3,167 more to go! Yes, a little embarassing, but at least I'm admitting it. Step one in the 12 step hoarding program.