Baking

This post was prompted by the question at the end of Maggie's post "don’t you just love to [take photos of the things you] bake?" She was writing about apple crumble, so I figure she meant dessert, but I don't have as big a sweet tooth as some, and don't bake sweets as much anymore since there are less people to eat the end product. 

Looking through my Facebook profile and Instagram feed as well as photos on my iPhone to jog my memory from the beginning of the school year, I found several snapshots of some of the things that have come out of my oven. I haven't taken photos of everything though - dinners including lasagne, roast vegetables or roast chicken aren't included in this post. Sometimes I bake to use leftovers - quiche is one example.

Pizza - dough from a quick recipe that you can leave to let rise and bake focaccia with or not. Used a bell pepper languishing in the refrigerator until it was starting to wrinkle and sausage that was frosting over in the freezer.

Crostata - an Italian cake-like jam tart - delicious for breakfast and used up the last of my sister's homemade plum jam.

Bread - besides pizza dough or focaccia, this one rolled with sun-dried tomatoes and cheese, others plain or with herbs, and a another not pictured made sweet with a bit more sugar, milk and fruit (apple is a favorite).

A dense moist cake using an overripe banana in the batter and swirling in a jar of pineapple jam someone gave me from Malaysia. I was considering making Taiwanese or SE Asian pineapple tarts, encasing the jam in a shortbread crust, but I went for the less labor-intensive route. I do love shortbread though...

Oatmeal cookies and my mom's favorite, pecan pie - with pecans she shelled for me (after I ate my fill of them raw).

Cheesecake bars with a chocolate crust

Brownies and Blondies

Keeping with childhood traditions, an assortment of baked goodies to give out at Christmas. This past year it was peppermint shortbreads,  gingery German Pfeffernusse, and roasted pecans (sweet and spicy with a little chili powder).

I bought a block frozen puff pastry on sale and had fun playing around making Palmiers and apple and banana tarts.  Not pictured are the pot pies made with leftover stew - easy dinner!

I enjoy puttering around in the kitchen, just not the clean-up!

Observations

I'd forgotten what it's like to have little ones around. Even though I work with a group of active school age children, there's a noticeable difference in energy levels when comparing my classroom and home when there's a toddler visiting.

That said, it's been a delight to see how much my niece has grown and changed since our visit last summer. She's nearly two years old - I've forgotten what milestones are achieved when, but I've noticed her fine motor skills when (trying) to turn the key on a little wind-up toy, balancing little pattern blocks (modeling her mom), and eating with her (tweezer-like) chopsticks, as well as how she's learning and saying the names of colors, shapes and numbers (pattern blocks again, and upon noticing our big clock). I've also enjoyed observing her (quirks and) expressions.

*chopsticks photo by Alex

*crab photo by Alex

In transition

I've noticed that this blog has turned into more of a travel log than "a day in the life of Maggie and Alex" how it first started here in 2006. There's nothing wrong with that, but now that Maggie and Alex have grown and have their own ways to document what's going on with them via their own blogs, Facebook, Instagram and other accounts, I've been thinking whether and how to change direction regarding what I post. I started by changing the original tag line.

While considering, I've been reminiscing. Before this blog, I had a website on Geocities (from perhaps 1999) to keep family and friends up to date on what was happening with our family half a world away. To put content up I was dabbling in HTML and on DTP Adobe Pagemaker before WYSIWYG and had photos on Zing and Ofoto - any of those names ring a bell?

I found some of the old site on the Web archive Wayback Machine.

Christmas break 2015

This year, we went to Vietnam and Cambodia during Christmas break. 

We flew to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) first for a couple of days. Walked lots around the historic downtown area, went to the market, ate at restaurants and street stands, and drank iced coffee near the riverside. 

Bloom was the name of one place we ate at that served modern Vietnamese cuisine. The restaurant is in a renovated French Colonial home and the staff and two head chefs train local youth in the hospitality industry as cooks, waiters, etc. to give them a possible career and a way out of a life of poverty.

Next, we flew to Siem Reap for a couple days where we went to, up, down, around, and through the many temples around Angkor Wat and for an excursion out to the floating village on Tonle Sap Lake. 

We watched sunset from atop a hill at Phnom Bakheng on the first evening and gazing at Angkor Wat the second. We all took so many photos!

We flew to the port town of Sihanoukville Christmas eve in time to join the "gala BBQ buffet dinner" at our resort with private access to Sokha Beach. Christmas Day we went to check out the local market, a Buddhist temple, a Christian university on a hill overlooking the sea and St. Michael's Catholic Church - one of only two in Cambodia to survive the Khmer Rouge. Saint Michael is the patron saint of fishermen and the structure, being shaped like a ship's sail reflects that.

Our last two stops were to be work-related for Paul, so on Boxing Day we rode in a van from the coast for over four hours on local roads to Phnom Penh in time for dinner with some people Paul works with, then checked into our hotel along the river. We went to the rooftop bar to enjoy a view of the moon and stars, as well as a view of a casino with flashing lights across the river (!)

We didn't have much time for sightseeing since we joined Paul at work and for a factory tour the next afternoon, but toured the Royal Palace grounds and went to the Russian Market to buy souvenirs.

After a couple nights, we flew to our original point of entry, Ho Chi Minh, for another dinner and factory tour, but we went for a massage and a stroll around a new mall while we waited instead of hanging around the office.

We enjoyed our family time and allowed a few days once home to rest and wash clothes before school and work started again.