After enjoying a fun Spanish snack today, we journeyed just a little bit south to Morocco for tonight's dinner.  We enjoyed Moroccan Chicken Kabobs, Moroccan Couscous, and Fava Beans. It was all very flavorful. If you ever want to expand your spice palate, these are some great recipes to try!  I had never purchased cardamon before.  I'd also never purchased fava beans.  The only ones I was able to find were at Whole Foods in the vegetable section.  They were pre-shelled and pre-cooked so I did not need to use the recipe I had found.  I've included it at the bottom of this post in case you are not as lucky as I was and only find the raw beans.


The Verdict:  Well, it was definitely a mix tonight.  It didn't help that no one was really hungry for dinner.  The couscous was good, but in small doses.  The flavors were a little too much for our youngest who would eat the raisins and chick peas, but not much else.  The chicken was really good.  I thought that it would be the favorite part of dinner for the girls.  Nope.  While they didn't complain about the chicken, they LOVED the fava beans!  I presented them with the beans and two dipping spices (cumin & salt).  They each asked for more!!!  Weird, right?

Moroccan Chicken Kabobs (original recipe from Spoonful)

You will need:

1 small onion, quartered
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
2 TBSP ground coriander
2 TBSP cumin
1 TBSP caraway seeds
1 TBSP paprika
4 cloves garlic, minced
2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch-wide strips
Fresh parsley, chopped for garnish


Put all the ingredients except the chicken and parsley into a food processor.  I used my Ninja!  {Make sure that you have all the ingredients added in - I forgot to add the garlic and had to mix it in later!}  Blend them until thoroughly chopped and mixed.  Thread the chicken onto pre-soaked bamboo skewers and place them in a shallow glass dish.  Spread the marinade evenly across the chicken kebabs, turning them to make sure that all areas are covered.


Let marinate overnight (or if you forgot to do it the night before like someone I know, let it marinate as long as you can!).  Grill until the chicken is cooked through, turning frequently.

He's such a trooper, grilling for me in sub-zero temps!

Garnish with some chopped parsley.



Moroccan Couscous (original recipe is all over the internet! Here's one location.)

You need:

1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp ground coriander
1/8 tsp ground allspice
2-1/4 teaspoons olive oil
1 small red onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 3/4 inch pieces
3/8 cup (1/4 cup and 2 TBSP) golden raisins
3/4 tsp kosher salt
grated zest of one orange
1 (14.5 ounce) can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 1/8 cup (1 cup and 2 TBSP) chicken broth
3/8 cup (1/4 cup and 2 TBSP) orange juice
1 1/8 cup (1 cup and 2 TBSP) couscous
2 TBSP and 3/4 tsp chopped fresh mint


Put cumin, ginger, cloves, cayenne, cardamom, coriander, and allspice into a large pot.  Heat over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes (until the spices become fragrant).  Add the oil and onions and cook until the onions have softened.




Stir in the bell pepper and zucchini pieces and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the raisins, salt, orange zest, and garbanzos.  Cook for 2-3 minutes.



Add the orange juice and broth, turn up the heat to high and allow to boil.  Remove from heat and stir in the couscous.  Cover and let cook for 5 minutes.  Fluff and garnish with the chopped mint.





Enjoy a deliciously flavorful Moroccan dinner!

Well, it's not been a very fun week around here.  We've been gearing up for Chip's venture to Haiti, visioning & setting up for Kid's Club (Vacation Bible School) at church, and dealing with the crazy things that keep popping up in our schedule.  I don't have any spectacular shots (not that I do regularly anyway!), no action kid shots, nothing very entertaining but here is the "fun" work behind the fun.


The girls made necklaces for some of the Haitian orphans that Chip will be visiting next week as he helps with the rebuilding process in Haiti.  The word "zanmi" means "friend" in Haitian Creole.  The girls designed and put together 31 of these necklaces so that the girls there will know that people here are praying for them and care for them.  The coolest thing is that we think that Chip will get to hand them out to the girls himself.



This is my friend Elizabeth.  She had a blast going incredibly high up on the lift to hang our "tent."  This would be absolutely no fun for me so I was really glad that she was on my decorating team!


Here's a preview picture of the "Big Top" for Kid's Club.  This is usually our Contemporary Worship Center (and rec room) so if you can ignore the theater lighting and the basketball hoops and envision this room filled with clowns, balloon artists, face painters and excited children playing carnival games, you'll be able to picture my week next week! 

For more "fun" photos, check out the You Capture Challenge.

March is full of birthdays in our family. We celebrated Chip's birthday yesterday. Since Chip is an engineer and a math geek, we occasionally exchange messages in code. Now I do not code at all but I manage to find sites that translate for me.

Anyway, here's his birthday brownie, lit with his age in binary!

This is a long post full of pictures. I hope that doesn't annoy anyone! I'm going to walk you through each step of the party, focusing on the activities, games and food.

When each child arrived, they came into the kitchen to decorate a magic wand. In our party prep, we created the wands using 6mm thick white fun foam and dowel rods. I traced our cookie cutter star shape onto the foam and Chip cut them out. He cut each dowel rod into 11 inch segments and sanded them so they were splinter-free. He then cut a small slit into each star and glued the dowel into the star. When the girls arrived, the wands were ready to be decorated.


This is the table with all the wand decorating materials ready to go. We used glitter glue, tulle and curling ribbon to decorate them.



The only downside of this activity was that even though it was our first activity, the glue did not dry enough during the 2 hour party. Our wands took almost 5 hours to dry!

While those that were slower artists finished their wands, the other children colored this mosiac Tinkerbell coloring page from Crayola. We made sure to have at least two of each color listed!

Next we moved into the living room to play two classic party games that Bug wanted to play. We dropped clothes pins into jars and tried to figure out which of the four containers was the easiest to get them into. Most of them agreed that it was much easier to get it to fall into the pink bucket than into the small mouthed mason jar!

We also played a variation on the Bozo buckets game, where you stand in front of a line of buckets and try to throw a small ball into each bucket consecutively. The girls seemed to enjoy playing the retro games. Simple, fun entertainment!



Next we had a quick briefing about fairies. We brainstormed what we knew about them. Some of the ideas were: they fly, have fairy dust, they use wands, they're small, they enjoy playing pranks, collect treasures. I then told them that Tink and her friends had hidden some treasures in our basement for the girls to find. They each got a small bag to collect their treasures.


The hidden treasure was gold coins and some gems from Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby. (I was going to use gold coin chocolates but there were none to be found - at least not at a reasonable price) Some were hidden in plain sight and others were gently tucked into the toy shelves and on top of the air hockey table.


When we'd found all the treasure, we came back upstairs and played Fairy Bingo.


I used free clip art images and downloads from Disney's Fairy site to create 8 different cards. We didn't call row by row but rather by image name. So Boo would say, green leaf and if you had a green leaf on your card (they all did), you covered it. We used some fun foam stars as our bingo chips.

We played until everyone had a bingo. As they bingo-ed, they got two pixy stix!

Our final project was to make pretzel wands. Each girl was given three pretzels to dip and coat with melted candy. We used purple and colorburst brights candy melts by Wilton. Once they had their pretzels coated, Grandpa E came and helped each girl sprinkle "fairy dust" (aka colored sugar crystals and sprinkles) on their wands.


While the girls were eating, I packaged up their pretzel wands in a large candy bag for them to take home.

Speaking of eating, our party was an early afternoon party so I didn't need to feed the kids too much. For our spread, we had three colors/flavors of finger jello cut into fun shapes with our Pampered Chef creative cutters, Keebler Flipsides Cheddar Pretzel crackers, and fruit skewers.


My girls and their grandpa whipped up the fruit skewers, which we anchored in a small mixing bowl with clear marbles. It was a nice healthy option containing grapes, oranges, pineapple, and apples. It was supposed to have bananas too but we forgot that we'd put them on top of the fridge so we'd have more counter space. We had pink lemonade and pixy punch (Sprite and rainbow sherbet) for our drinks.

The night before the party, my mother and I made and decorated the cake. Bug had some ideas of what she liked and I tried to incorporate several of the things she liked about various cakes she'd seen into one fun cake. We used two boxes of cake mix (one chocolate for the bottom and a lemon cake for the dome). We began decorating at about 8pm and finished around 11pm. Mom made the frosting from scratch and we used Wilton tips to pipe the ivy, flowers and sun rays. The fairies were purchased as a set from the Disney Store. It was a difficult cake to photograph since each fairy had it's own area.


Here's Silvermist, the water fairy. She had the blue quadrant which we decorated to look like water.



This is Rosetta, a garden fairy. Her area was decorated to look a bit like a flower garden full of roses.


This is Iridessa, a light fairy. Her quadrant is decorated in yellow shades with rays to represent the sun.


Fawn is an animal fairy. We chose a brown color with piped leaves to represent the forest area where many animals live.


Tink was perched on top of the cake on a dome representing the beauty of Neverland and Pixie Hallow. The dome is decorated with vines, leaves and flowers. This is the front view of the cake.



Here's the back view. It was pretty fun as every party attender had a fairy looking at her while Bug blew out her candle!

After snacks and cake, we opened presents and Boo read a story about Tinkerbell to everyone. Then it was time to go home.

I think Bug had a great time! The expression on her face during her party made it well worth the effort to put it all together.

We celebrated the Caribbean Islands today. Yes, there are some athletes in the Winter Olympics from the Caribbean. We had a Mango Fool for snack and Trinidadian Pelau for dinner.

The recipe we generally followed for Mango Fool was from the Usborne World Cookbook, which calls it a special treat from Barbados.

To make Mango Fool, you need:

• 2 ripe mangoes
• 2/3 cup chilled whipped cream
• lime
• 5 oz plain yogurt
• 1 TBSP coconut milk

Slice mangoes lengthways. Make cuts along the flesh and slice chunks of mango away from the skit. Remove the peel and put the chunks of mango into the blender. Puree it.


Cut the lime in half and squeeze out the juice into the mango puree. Stir the yogurt and the coconut milk into the mango. Gently fold in the whipped cream and mix until everything is blended together.


This recipe only made about 24 oz, which, split 5 ways, didn't leave much for anyone. It was pretty good although a little more textured than the kids liked. Bug added honey to her's to make it sweeter.

Let me put a note in here to tell you how much I appreciate how supportive Chip has been throughout the Olympic week. I'm sure he thinks I'm insane sometimes but he's ready to help me if I need it. He slices, he dices, he grills, he makes Egg Drop Soup while I am at cherub choir practice, he pitches in when he can tell that the while Olympic cooking is starting to wear on me. It's been wonderful knowing that he's ready and willing to help!

For dinner, we prepared Trinidadian Pelau (recipe found here).

To prepare this version of Trinidadian Pelau, you need:

• 3 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 whole fryer chicken or thighs, drumsticks breasts etc.
• 1 large onion, chopped
• Garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 tomato cut up
• Thyme, chives
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• Salt, pepper
• 4 cups water
• 2 cups rice (use white rice, trust me!)
• 1/2 cup raisins

Heat brown sugar in oil until melted and caramelized. Add chicken and brown in the hot oil.


Add onion, garlic, tomato, vinegar, thyme, chives, salt, pepper and curry powder and cook stirring for 3 - 5 minutes. Add about 2 cups of water and cook covered until chicken is tender, adding more water if necessary to prevent burning. This took about 25 minutes.


When chicken is cooked, measure liquid in pot (we had 1 cup left) and add water to make up 4 cups (twice the quantity of rice). Add all of the rice. Make sure you are using regular rice, not minute rice. Also beware of using brown rice. Apparently I used too much rice when I prepared
our Korean food and we didn't have the 2 cups of rice. So I used 1 1/2 cups of white rice and 1/2 cup of brown rice. BAD IDEA - trust me.

Cook covered over medium heat until rice is cooked and all water is absorbed, stirring occasionally. This took about 20 minutes. Add the raisins about 5 minutes before the rice is done.

The Verdict: um... remember how I said to trust me about the rice. Yeah... I am definitely not a good cook. In fact I don't even like cooking! Feel free to ask yourself why in the world I would do this Olympic cooking when I don't enjoy cooking. I ask myself that frequently but I enjoy being out of my comfort zone for a little while. I actually don't mind cooking in short spurts, particularly if the recipes are easy but very different than what I usually prepare. That said, I don't have enough experience to know about various substitutions (thank you Google!) or to know that the brown rice would impact the entire recipe. Now I do!

The flavor of the brown rice overpowered the entire flavoring of the pelau. No one really liked it and we ended up wasting quite a bit of rice. The chicken was terrific with a really good flavor but the rice mixture really made the meal not so good. I really feel that using only white rice would make this a good, flavorful meal but I'm not sure I could get the kids to give it another chance. On the plus side, Ebabe loved the raisins!

I'm sure I've mentioned before how chaotic our Wednesdays can be. Usually we cook something in the crock pot or get carry out because there just isn't time to cook anything after our activities and still get everyone to bed at a reasonable time. That said, today was Chinese carry-out day!

To enhance our Chinese experience, Chip and Bug made us some Egg Drop soup, following a recipe from Family Fun magazine.

To make Egg Drop soup, you need:

• 4 cups chicken broth
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 12 fresh snow peas
• 1 green onion, finely sliced

Bring the chicken broth to a simmer in a 2 1/2- to 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. In a separate bowl, combine the water and cornstarch, then stir the cornstarch mixture into the
simmering broth.

Bring the broth to a boil, then remove it from the heat. Slowly pour in the egg and gently stir it with a fork in one direction only, stirring slowly for long strands of egg, more rapidly for thinner shreds.


Add the snow peas, the green onion, and the ham, if desired. Let the soup stand for a few minutes before serving.




Our carry out was sweet & sour chicken, beef with broccoli, and almond chicken from Yin's Wok.

EDITED TO ADD: Stacia pointed out to me that I didn't put the verdict on the soup in my post so here it is. Generally the girls aren't big soup eaters. That said, Boo ate all of hers, Ebabe ate the pea pods and Bug had a few bites but didn't like the egg. Chip and I both thought it was pretty good but a little bland. I would add more onion and maybe some leafy greens next time to see if that would make it a bit tastier.

To check out how we learned about China in 2006, click here!

Today's dinner menu is French! I used a recipe from the Around the World Cookbook by Abigail Johnson Dodge (which we checked out at the local library) to start and added/embellished a little bit to create my own version of Ratatouille. Ebabe enjoyed helping me count the vegetables while I cooked today. I counted in French... she counted 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,6,7,8,9,6,7,8,9. We're working on it!

To make Ratatouille, you will need:

1 medium eggplant
1 medium zucchini
4 TBSP olive oil
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 orange bell pepper, chopped6 green onions
1 garlic clove
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
10 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
2 TBSP balsamic vinegar

Be sure to wash all your vegetables well before you begin. Trim off the ends of the eggplant and cut into 1 inch chunks.


Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add the eggplant and peppers. Cook, stirring frequently, until almost tender, about 8 minutes.

While that is cooking, trim off the ends of the zucchini and cut it into ½-inch thick slices. Chop the green onions into 1 inch pieces, mince the garlic and prepare the thyme. Once the eggplant and peppers are tender, add the zucchini, garlic, onions and thyme.


Cook, stirring frequently until all the vegetables are tender (about 5-6 minutes). Add the tomatoes and vinegar. Cook, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes soften, about 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.


Serve over pasta or eat alone. I would estimate that this would serve 6-8 adults.


For dessert, Bug and I prepared Clafoutis aux Myrtille (Blueberry Clarfoutis). Traditionally, this is made with pitted black cherries. Since I couldn't find any cherries at all, I went with blueberries.

To make Clafoutis aux Myrtille, you need:

• 1 pint blueberries (washed and dried)
• 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 cup Flour
• 3 Eggs (lightly beaten)
• 1 1/2 cups Whole Milk
• Pinch of Salt
• Powdered Sugar (to decorate)

Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Mix flour, pinch of salt, granulated sugar, eggs and milk in medium mixing bowl.


Butter and then sugar the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish using granulated sugar.
Pour in blueberries and spread evenly across the bottom of the pan. Pour the batter on top of the berries.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Once the clafoutis has cooled down, sprinkle powdered sugar on top.


Voilà! You can serve it warm or room temperature.


The verdict: The girls enjoyed the vegetables in the ratatouille with a bit more balsamic vinegar to dip them in. Although they offered mild protests, they cleaned their plates without much coaxing. Chip, on the other hand, ate a few bites of zucchini and eggplant and then pushed the rest of the chunks to the side. He's definitely a meatatarian! I found the balsamic vinegar gave the eggplant, in particular, a nice zing. Overall, I think I'd definitely make it again.

Everyone loved the dessert. Bug said it tasted a bit like pancakes but better. I think this would be nice served with a spot of ice cream or whipped cream.