Chicken Sate

Favorite summer food - Chicken Sate.

Ridiculously easy to make that there’s no real recipe:

• Chicken Thighs
• Garlic powder
• Salt
• Turmeric
• Kecap Manis

Chop up the chicken into bite sized chunks (not too small that you can’t skewer them), then marinate it in the spices and sweet soy sauce for a few hours minimum.  Soak your skewers in water to help prevent burning, but as you can see in the picture, I line the BBQ with foil where the skewer ends go and it works wonders.

When skewering the chicken, you don’t want to leave any part of the skewer exposed as not only will it burn, but part of the trick to keep the sate juicy is to pack the meat on good and tight. (Did that sound borderline dirty?)  So don’t think loose shish kabob style skewering here, think mini chicken shawarma style, with all that meat smushed together, cooking in its own juices.

While BBQ-ing over a medium heat, I baste the sate with a mixture of melted butter and more sweet soy sauce (generally equal parts).

Although the prep part takes time and can be quite tedious, it cooks fast and the reward is well worth it.  I could probably eat these everyday.

Boats and Bunnies and Bears, oh my!

Amazingly enough (not because I think he’s incapable by any means but because it’s coming all too quickly), my little baby boy is starting preschool this September.  He won’t be turning 3 until around mid-November, but he’ll be joining a 3-year-old group, twice a week, for 2 hours per session.  It should be a good start.

School will also begin almost exactly around the time baby #2 is due.

Although slightly concerned about this onslaught of changes come fall, I have confidence that we’ll all survive… right?  The idea is to hopefully convince the little man that school is what big boys do, that it will be something special for him, and that he won’t feel like we’re sending him away to be replaced by the new baby. And even if he does end up feeling that way a bit, we also hope that he is too young to be forever traumatized by the whole ordeal.

As he won’t be needing to bring supplies yet, I don’t have a lot of exciting school shopping to do (other than labels - anything on him will be tagged because I’m neurotic that way).  But I do have snack days to look forward to.  Parents are in charge of bringing snacks for the entire class on an assigned day, and on our assigned day, my little guy will be the special helper.  We are also encouraged to stay the entire session for them to feel extra special.  Realizing that I will most likely be in a new baby haze, I wondered what I would bring that didn’t involve throwing salty, fake cheese snacks and candies into a bowl and calling it a day.  (We will mostly likely have one of the first snack days too as his name starts with A.) 

How do I make it fun and healthy without too much effort?  So my mom and I talked about all the neat bento accessories and sandwich cutters she saw at a mall in Japan and LIGHTBULB!  I end up finding a large assortment of cutters, food picks, sandwich stamps, and the list goes on, on eBay.  Since we are in such a rush to prepare for school that is 3 months away (feeling the sarcasm?), I ordered a few sets of sandwich stamps like they were the last ones on Earth, and I finally got to test one out today!

Nothing says fun like bologna & cheese cars!

All I can do now is wait for the day and possibly recruit some helpers if needed to stamp out toddler snacks.  There’d better not be any kids with gluten and dairy allergies to mess up my plan. ;)

The Bump

Here is the “bump”, aka Peanut, that has been keeping me from posting anything deliciously food related:

I’m half way through and already big & egg shaped.

So what have I been eating and craving exactly these past few months?

• Frosters from Mac’s, because they’re way better than 7-11 Slurpees - the ice is smoother and they have banana flavor (the only one I crave).

• Bread - not really a change from before but even moreso now
• Potato - same as above… I’m just carbing up like crazy!
• Fruit - yes, something that’s actually healthy for once.  Especially navel oranges.
• Anything with pickles or pickled toppings - like burgers, Banh Mi (vietnamese subs), Reuben sandwiches (don’t worry, if it’s deli meat, I heat it to death)

“Oh lordy…” *drool*

• Spicy food - Kimchi and Tom Yum soup is the ultimate because it’s hot AND sour, but I’m very much controlling this craving ever since I had a bout of indigestion that made me think I was passing a gallstone.  I think I had actually eaten something bad versus something very spicy the day before, but I don’t want to risk having that feeling ever again.
• Bologna Sandwiches - Of all things in the world I could pick *sigh*… I love eating giant slices of mystery hotdog meat (again, heated to kill any bugs that could be dangerous for Peanut - so it practically is sliced hotdog, but mayo is the only condiment).

For the record, I have been cooking and eating other normal foods because I do have a husband and child to feed, but this is what I’VE been enjoying.  I often don’t like the other things I make… not because it tastes bad, but they just don’t hit the spot.

My mother-in-law once told us this old wives tale that “if you feel like eating something, it’s because you’re looking through the baby’s eyes, so go ahead and eat it!”.  We’ll just see what Peanut wants to taste next.

OCD

So I see this at the store tonight and basically had a freak-out over it:

I know, it’s a vacuum.  But not just any vacuum… it’s the new Dyson Digital Slim.

Why am I so excited over an overpriced cleaning tool?  Well, because I like to have a clean house, and I happen to like vacuuming.  I like watching the crumbs disappearing before my very eyes into a cyclone of dirt and dust.  I like making clean vacuumed rows in my carpet.  I achieve a sense of peace in dusting (also with my vacuum because traditional “dusting” is gross).  And nothing makes me more irritated than when the messes don’t get sucked up like they’re supposed to.  We’ve spent tons of money (ok, maybe not tons, but enough that if you add it up, we could have bought this thing) on crappy handhelds and stick vacs that are a necessity in our home, especially with a toddler and even more-so with another baby on the way.  We actually already have a large Dyson vacuum that is a miracle worker; it is worth every penny we spent on it, but I don’t want to have to whip it out for every little cracker and Cheerio mess.

This thing is perfect!  A stick vac, and a handheld, and a Dyson no less, all in one.  HALLELUJAH!

The funniest part of it all - in a previous post of mine, I predicted I would be spinning out of control in some Betty Homemaker hurricane… well, here I am baby!  But don’t be mistaken - the broom I’m riding on is strictly used for cleaning.

I apologize for not having anything interesting to say at all lately, whether baby or food related… but I had to vent about these Tumblr Spam accounts hitting up my stuff lately.  It’s so annoying!!  I guess they technically don’t do any harm as they don’t alter your posts or anything, but it’s still irritating.  Why would anyone even waste their time creating these generic accounts to randomly find things to like, reblog, and “share” when they have nobody to share them with!?  Bah!

Is anyone else getting inundated with these?

A happy meal, my a**

So I had to rush home today after my baby’s Gymboree class to let the home builder in for the one-year inspection.  Because my household was abnormally awake at 6 am, our feeding schedule was a tad off, so I was starving for lunch at 11, right when class was almost over… and so was my little guy who stopped in his tracks while climbing the equipment to say “mama, eat!”.

I did what any good, health-conscious, foodie mother in a rush would do: I stopped at the McDonald’s drive-thru.  (WTF? I know.)

Last night I actually had a craving again for fries and BBQ sauce, so I thought, “what the hell?” and went for it.  It’s definitely NOT a regular thing for us to eat.  And of course, I now remember why.

McDonald’s is absolutely cruel for making its food so tasty when you’re ridiculously hungry.  At that point, your brain cuts off all factual information of why that place should be avoided like the plague.  Even images like this are thrown from your memory when you just want something to fill your belly:

“Mmmm, mechanically separated chicken soft serve.”

The majority of the time, my left brain overrules my hunger thoughts and tummy rumbles, but today it lost.  Now I feel like a bag of crap; a sluggish, heavy, guilt-ridden, disgusted, contaminated bag of crap.  Especially guilt-ridden for the fact that I fed it to my babies (including the one in-utero).

And remember the non-rotting Happy Meal?

Scientists explain that high fat content and salt are natural preservatives, which makes total sense to me… but I don’t need a university professor to tell me how much of it is IN the food when as soon as your Mickey D’s meal is no longer steaming hot, it feels like you’re swallowing a cold brick of shortening.  And how is it that the bread even tastes like that when it’s supposedly “… made from North American-grown wheat flour”.  Or is that just how much grease is absorbed from the patty?

I really don’t understand how anyone could eat this on a regular basis.  It is so incredibly wrong and I learned my lesson once and for all today.

*ugh*

Project Bake

I’ve been a very inconsistent blogger lately.  I apologize to those who actually follow me.  As I mentioned in my Chinese New Year post, I was sick over Christmas, it took a while to shake off the holidays, and I was doing good for a week once I got back in the groove of posting but…

In truth, I have been undertaking a big new project since the end of 2010; a project that makes it difficult to blog about what I love - food; a project that makes it hard for me to want to do anything but sleep or veg when I have the chance.

As gloomy as that may sound, I am actually VERY happy to announce that I am 14 weeks along with baby #2, or as we fondly and temporarily call it, Peanut.  (We called our first son ‘Bean’, so we very well couldn’t have 2 beans.  ‘Peanut’ it is!)

“It’s Project Bake: Bun in the Oven Twenty-Eleveeeeeeeeeennn!!”

We made the discovery on New Year’s Eve eve with a very faint line on a dollar store pregnancy test after a couple of months of trying.  I had been wanting to try for baby #2 since last spring or longer, but we decided it would be best to enjoy the summer before getting pregnant again.  Then we wanted to take some extra time to really make sure we were ready to venture into that realm of new-baby-mania, especially with a toddler this time around of course.  Now, we are thrilled!  And I’m particularly thrilled in a couple more ways.

Our ultimate plan is to have 2 children, then the factory will be closed.  Maybe once Peanut arrives and grows a little, is healthy and flourishing, there could be the possibility of us having a change of heart, but I really don’t see that coming.  We had set this goal a long time ago and right now we’re sticking to it.  Now that #2 is in the works, it’s almost like this weight has lifted off my shoulders, as we’re now well on our way to accomplishing what we set out to do: build a family.

After having my son, I worked my way back to my pre-pregnancy weight (and 15 lbs less in fact), I felt great, enjoyed my maternity year off, and got a great severance package from work after they closed the account I was working on (which was the icing on my quitting-to-be-a-SAHM cake - of course they didn’t know that I was planning to leave anyway.  I milked it and it was win-win!).  I appreciate everything that has happened, but I still felt like I was stuck in this baby bubble; that I couldn’t move on to other things until we got this family building thing done.  Obviously this is still just the very beginning of a new challenge, but the idea that I can start to make some plans for myself, outside of baby making, gets me pumped.

Now don’t get it twisted: I LOVE being a mom, and a stay-at-home mom at that.  We tried our best to plan for me to stay at home at least until the kids started school, and so far it’s worked out wonderfully.  I’m living a dream!  I am and will be fully dedicated to them the rest of my life.  And to me, an important part of being the best mom I can be is to also show my kids the importance of taking care of yourself and showing them that I too am an actual person and not just a mom - it may not be something they’re interested in seeing or accepting until they’re older, but it’s important nonetheless.

I’ve seen some amazing examples of mothers in my life who have raised wonderful human beings, but some of those moms, mostly those from the last generation, have completely forgotten about themselves.  It’s inevitable that your life revolves around your kids once they’re here, and you wouldn’t want it any other way out of your love for them, but life is also about balance.  Long before we decided to have kids, I swore to myself that I wouldn’t forget about taking care of me, because I’ve seen the negative that can come out of it, not just for the mother but also for the children.  I specifically remember our instructor in prenatal class suggesting that we do at least one thing for ourselves everyday to feel “normal” once the baby arrives, and I took it to heart (especially since she already had 3 little boys of her own and was pregnant while teaching our class - she definitely knew a thing or two).  So as shallow and vain as it sounds, I would always take the time to shower, get dressed, do my hair, put on some mascara, even if I didn’t leave the house, just to give myself that extra boost to get through the long days and nights with a newborn baby.  And even to this day, I refuse to leave the house in sweatpants unless it’s to actually workout.  That’s my “normal”.

So, I’m excited to get back to bootcamp and get my butt into shape without feeling like I have to start over again after another baby.  I’m excited at the idea that I can take some upgrading courses to prep myself for eventually going back to work (and it will probably take me until the time they’re both in school to get a course done on my own time anyway).  I’m excited at the prospect of being able to reach some of my other goals in life, of reaching some potentials.  I’m just excited to have somewhat of a blank canvas that I can now paint together with my hubby and 2 babies by my side.  And overall, I’m excited to teach my babies values that are best taught by doing; by being the best mother, wife, daughter, sister, and person that I can be.

Ok, so this post is as hopeful and happy and cheesy as it gets, but I feel very blessed to be able to feel it and write it.

Since the foodie in me is being sketchy, along with my appetite and cravings, I don’t know what the future of this blog will hold, but hopefully people will stick around to read it because Project Bake should be a good one.

Until next time, I will freely enjoy my poutine and Sour Patch Kids… a pregnant foodie’s dream.

Catch of the Day

Growing up in Vancouver, one of my very favorite places to go was Granville Island.  Other than the awesome kids market and waterpark they had there, the hustle and bustle, sights, colours, and smells of the public market just did something to me; something good.  And that feeling always comes back to me when I go to farmers’ markets here… even though I know there’s snow outside and not ocean, at least I can pretend and have a mini-getaway in my mind.

Living in Calgary, we don’t have the luxury of walking year-round outdoor markets, always bursting with fresh local produce, meats, and seafood.  I often dream of living in a place that did (obviously it would also have to be a warm, preferably tropical or Mediterranean place - like I said, a girl can dream).

But we do have the indoor farmers’ markets which run 3 to 4 days a week that bring in as much available local and organic produce as they can.  Kingsland is the new one in our city and my little man and I went to visit it today.

Here’s our little collection for the day:

• Organic kale & ambrosia apples
• Cranberry Pecan Loaf
• Sausage, Onion, and Red Pepper pastries from La Creperie
• A tetrapak of TehBotol - literally translating to “Bottled Tea”, this is memories-in-a-bottle for me.  This is your very popular Indonesian version of iced tea.  Over there, they sell it in glass bottles and street vendors will serve the drink to you in a plastic baggy with a straw (so they can save the bottle for themselves).  I was SO happy to find an Indonesian food stand that imported the beverage themselves.  Talk about reminiscing…

We also enjoyed a lunch of Croque Monsieur from La Creperie (their version had bechamel and it was way too rich for me) and an onion/red pepper tart (light and delicious):

The new market is clean, organized, everyone is super friendly (I think we got a hello from almost every vendor), and of course, the product is great.  We’ll definitely be heading back there soon.