my first try | Czech traditional meal

We don't watch too much tv but when we do, the Food channel is on a lot.  We love to explore in the kitchen and try new meals. Lately we saw a lot of meals prepared from a duck so Ivo decided to buy one and try it. He came up with the idea of preparing a traditional Czech meal (roasted pork with bread dumplings and cabbage) but with a little twist - making a roasted duck instead of pork. We both grew up on this meal but to be honest, I don't miss it too much - it's quite heavy. But we decided to make it anyway and introduce a little bit of Czech tradition to our kids. There were a lot of first in the process of preparing this dish. I have never done bread dumplings from scratch, and also the cabbage and duck were my first. I called my grandma yesterday to find out how to make the dumplings and I was so happy how they turned out, they were awesome! They tasted almost the same as we were used to from home (just my mom didn't make it but bought it from store ready to eat).

Of course the little ones were complaining as usual. They always do with new meals. But Ivo was happy. Trying new meals and keeping the traditions? Checked and checked.

the weekend lens

I'm glad this week is over. It was my first one working full-time and all I can say it was tough...
But our weekend was relaxing and spent together as a family. Good times.

our little rockstar having fun while I was cooking lunch

cold but sunny. happy day.

 

 

I'm training with a knee brace now. it really helps to keep the pain away.

since today we are a two-car family.

making mix for a homemade hot chocolate.

and preparing food for the next day.

I was experimenting in the kitchen this weekend again. And as usual, following Jamie Oliver's recipes. This time it was his epic hot chocolate (kids' favorite) and a beef stew. This guy rocks!! So far what I made following his recipes, it always tasted delicious! Happy days, Jamie. Happy days!

calzone | first try

Pizza nights have become a tradition in our family. Kids always "decorate" their pizza with toppings of their choice and that's how they learned to eat spinach and peppers. Today I've decided to give it a little twist and made calzone which is practically a pizza bread. I found  few recipes on Pinterest and then decided to give this one a try. It was SO good! I added our favorite italian mix spice to the flour but next time will add more salt. This one is definitely a keeper.

adding the toppings

"wrapping"

straight from the oven

sliced and ready to enjoy

 Yum!

culinary exploring

I got a Dutch oven as a Mother's day gift from Ivo and kids last week. I heard a lot of great things about it but never used it before. Until today.

I decided to test it and also to experiment with two new recipes - quesadillas and a homemade bread. I tried quesadillas in a local grill/pub last week during our Mother's day family dinner for a first time and have fallen in love with this dish. I knew kids will love it as well. I found a recipe online but decided to improvise a little bit because I didn't have the exact ingredients as listed in that recipe. I saute the veggies and meat in my new pot.

And then finished the tortillas in a big pan. I was afraid that I won't be able to flip the tortillas so I folded them in half instead of putting two on each other with a filling inside. It worked great this way for me.

I prepared a simple quacamole dip and put a little bit of sour cream on the side. This dish is definitely a keeper.

For the second recipe (and a new thing to learn as well) I decided to try to bake a bread. I used this recipe called The Bread by Ryan from The Pioneer Woman's website. The whole house smelled so good while the bread was baking and the final result was so delicious with a perfect crust. I changed the recipe a little bit (I substituted 1 cup of bread flour for whole wheat flour as Elise mentioned in her post). This one is a keeper as well.

Today's culinary exploring and experimenting was a success. I loved working with the Dutch oven and I can't wait to try something new very soon again.

Czech cheese dumplings

Today is Ivo's name day and I decided to celebrate this day with one of his favorite meals - Czech cheese dumplings. I got the recipe from his mom and I'm really happy I did, the whole family loves them. I have to admit that it took us several years to finally find the right soft spreadable cheese over here. So far this one is a winner (we found this one thanks to our friend Leo who is also Czech).

Katrin decided to help me with the dumplings today, she was excited that she can prepare a meal on her own. We filled the dumplings with strawberries but you can choose whatever fruit you like or have on your hand.

 It was really fun to work side by side with her. Sometimes making the dumplings can be really tricky because the dough can get ripped from the fruit but she managed it perfectly.

 Once we were done with making the dumplings, we tossed them into water by groups (usually 10 or so at the same time) and waited for them to float on the top.

They turned out perfect! I was really proud of Katrin's work today. She was really happy that we all enjoyed a meal she helped to prepare.

Here is a recipe if you would like to try them as well.

Czech Cheese Dumplings

250g soft spreadable cheese

120g flour (I used all purpose)

1 egg

50 g butter

pinch of salt

I always do a double batch since the cheese comes in 500g cup and get around 28-30 dumplings. Make a dough from ingredients above. Cut the dough into pieces (I always divide it into two parts and then roll it by hands and cut each half into 14-15 small ones). Fill each bit with a fruit of your choice and close it into a ball. Toss dumplings into a boiling salty water. When they all start to float on the top, cook for another 5-7 min.  We usually sprinkle them with icing sugar and pour a little bit of melted butter. You can also freeze them but we usually eat them all. Enjoy!

gingerbread cookies

Yesterday I was complaining about not having the German spices for making gingerbread cookies and today was my lucky day because I got it here in BC as well! Colleague of mine told me about an European Deli in downtown Vancouver, so I called there in the morning and asked if they have the spice I need. And they did! So after work I ran there and got 5 packs. Here is the recipe for my grandma's gingerbread cookies just in case you would like to try them as well ( I posted it last year so I'm including a link to the post only).
Here is the mix I got today. It includes: coriander, cinnamon, cloves, anise, nutmeg, star anise, fennel, cardamon. So far it is the best mix I've ever tried and I use it for several years already. But I guess you can mix it by yourself as well from the ingredients above if you are not able to get it.

I'm making Ree's lasagna right now for tomorrow's lunch, they smell delicious already. 

oh so yummy

Yesterday I was in a baking mood. Not that I didn't have anything else to do but I figured out that's about time to make something yummy and homemade.I made granola bars for school snacks and I tried a new muffins recipe I got from my friend Meimi. The muffins turned out so great! I didn't have oat bran so I used just rolled oats instead and I also skipped walnuts due to Patrik's allergy. As you can see, kids had a lot of fun helping as well.

Muffins
1 3/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 Cup Oat Bran
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 Cup toasted and chopped walnuts (we skipped these)
1/4 Cup ground flax seed
1/4 Cup wheat germ
1/2 Cup sugar  (used brown sugar)
1 Cup milk chocolate chips (used dark chocolate chips)

Blend all above ingredients together really well.

1/3 Cup oil
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 Cup mashed banana
1/2 Cup grated carrot

Blend all wet together very well. Blend wet and dry until just mixed (no dry patches). Spray your pan with Pam.  Drop by spoons full into tin.  Bake at 350 for 20 - 30 minutes.

my first homemade granola bars

After Patrik's allergy reaction last week, my friend Carla posted a recipe for a nut free granola bars (thank you so much, Carla!). So I bought all the ingredients I needed for baking and today I finally tried them. I followed her recipe but I didn't add any coconuts because I'm not sure if they are safe for Patrik.

I hope Carla won't mind if I post the recipe here.

Granola bars | Recipe from Carla

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup whole flax seeds

1/4 cup unsweetened coconut

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 cup dried cranberries

2 tbsp sunflower seeds

2 tbsp pumpkin seeds

3/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup honey

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup melted butter

1/3 cup mashed banana

2 tsp vanilla

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grease 9 x 13 pan

 Combine oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, flax seeds, cinnamon, flour, raisins, dried cranberries, sunflower and pumpkin seeds,  and salt.   Mix and form a well in the middle.

 In a medium bowl, whisk honey, egg, melted butter, banana and vanilla.

 Pour honey mixture into the well, and mix well.

Pat granola dough into greased pan.  You may need to grease your fingers a little, so you don't end up wearing most of it!

 Bake for 24 minutes for chewy bars

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and cut into bars while still warm.

Makes 16, granola bar sized bars.

 Thank you Carla!!

 

They are so delicious! I didn't give them to Patrik for tasting yet, he is going to try tomorrow since I'm not 100% sure how he reacts to pumpkin and sunflower seeds so I want to watch him. And I've got more recipes from my friend Reb (thank you!) so I'm going to try even more variations.

decorating the cookies

Yesterday we decorated our gingerbread cookies (the recipe from my last post). Kids wanted to add M&M's as a decoration so they went for it. It looks cute and they had a lot of fun. Here they are in the process of decorating.

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And this is the result, these are Katrin's cookies. The icing was too liquid at first but after I added a little bit more of corn starch it was fine.

And these above are my work. Just a little tip if you want to try these, if the dough is too sticky, don't be afraid to put more flour into it. When you roll the dough into a sheet, you should put a flour underneath so it won't stick to your working space. Also watch it in the oven, we kinda burnt the first load ;). But the rest was perfect and these cookies are very delicious! More than a third of them is already gone. Good luck.

weekend in photos

There is something magical about towns and cities in the evening/night, isn't it?! I took this photo on Friday evening in downtown Vancouver. I love the view!

We spent both days on weekend in a sporty mood. On Saturday we went swimming (unfortunately no photos from there) and then we baked gingerbread cookies. I'm including the recipe (it's my grandma's) in my December daily album but I thought I will share it here with you as well. These are the best gingerbread cookies that I've ever eaten!

 

Kids had a great time helping me, we are going to decorate them with icing probably tonight.

Sunday was a ski day again. Both kids made a huge progress since last week, they really enjoy this sport. It was sunny and the views from the top of the mountains were stunning.

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Hope you had a great weekend too!

the right education

While waiting in Costco for my photos to be done this morning, I came across this book by Jamie Oliver. I'm a huge fan of his so I immediately grabbed the book. You can get it on amazon as well. I can't wait to started to read this book and try some new meals.

 

I mentioned this video few days ago and honestly I was SHOCKED by all the statistics he said about American's eating habits and obesity. Some of the numbers are really alarming, especially the deaths caused by obesity!!!

Luckily I grew up in Europe where it is absolutely normal to have hot lunches for kids at school (all stages) every day (cooked from scratch - soup, main meal (no fries, pizza or stuff like that!), vegetables or fruit and tea (no pop etc)). So we continue doing this in our household as well - hot healthy lunches and cold light suppers. We don't buy any of the stuff you just reheat and the meal is "done", we buy everything fresh and cook from scratch and we teach our children about food, what's healthy and what is not. 

I have never had troubles with overweight, neither has Ivo. But my mom and
my grandparents are obese and I don't want to ended up like them.

Patrik is a little bit picky with eating and sometimes gives us headaches about refusing vegetables but slowly and surely he learns to like them. We offer him a little piece of new food/veggie and then slowly increase the amount of it (we did this with carrots awhile ago and now do the same thing with tomatoes). He knows that he has to try it, one bite at the time. 

I hope that a lot of people on American continent (and not just here) get the wake-up call and start to do something with their lifestyles.

Jamie's wish from the video mentioned above:

" I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

~ Jamie Oliver - TED 2010

in an exercising mood

I'm going strong with exercising this week! Even though my body hurts, I'm loving it! I know I will get used to it soon. I'm doing 30 day shred with Jillian Michaels and yesterday I bought new running shoes. I'm ready for the first run. No more excuses from now. Just do it!

 

(I used photology no.2 from Emily Powers as an overlay on this photo).

When we came to Canada, I was in shock how many people are obese here. And during our traveling through USA I was in a shock even more! The eating life style and food habits are terrible here. We eat as we were used to back home - hot healthy lunches, and light cold dinners everyday, a lot of fruit
and vegetables, don't smoke and exercise a lot. So I think our lifestyle is quite healthy.

I think everyone should watch this video. I admire Jamie, we watch his shows on a food network often (love his: and now we add an olive oil ... - he says it so may times with making just one meal, lol).

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

:: finding a balance ::

This year has been a lot of different from the last one. Not just that we are finally spending more time together as a family (which wasn't possible last year because of the basement finishing) but also I'm going more into myself and finding a balance in my and my family's life.

My family is my everything. Ivo and my two little sweethearts are the most important people in my life no matter what and I will do anything for them to make those three people happy.

We try to live our life healthier lately. Ivo and I love biking, we did a lot of biking way back when we lived in CR. Last year we finally bought bikes here and we share this love for bikes with our kids as well. Patrik loves to go for bike rides (he learned how to use his bike without the small wheels when he was 3.5 years old already). Katrin still enjoys our rides sitting behind me but she's already learned how to pedal by herself so once she will be older and strong enough for longer rides, she will join us on her bike.

Now we are trying to change our eating habits. I cook every day from scratch, we don't buy canned food at all and eat junk food only once a week (sometimes less).  I try to make healthy meals but I know that I could do better. A big problem is that our children are very picky. Katrin is okay with veggies, Patrik is terrible in it. Slowly but surely we try to introduce to him new kinds of vegetables but it is always a nightmare. He reacts by making dramas and tantrums but we already know that we can't retreat and he has found out that it will be our way anyway and his screaming won't help from not eating it. So it is just a matter of time.

I brought this book 50 secrets of the world's longest living people by Sally Beare from a library few days ago and Ivo has started to read it. I have to say that he doesn't read books almost at all. To my big surprise after few pages he read that day, he didn't want to drink his everyday afternoon coffee. The next day he didn't make the morning coffee and he prepared a tea for himself instead. He has been always the one, who was making coffee in the morning and was asking me if I want one too (I usually drink only 1 in the afternoon). So this really surprised me and also made me happy that he thinks about his health as well. So now there will be a long journey for us in changing our diet. Our children love sweets but we have decided to decrease the amount of sweets they eat by starting a cookie day which will be Thursday. I put stickers into our calendar so they will recognize which day will be their cookie day. I know it will be hard at the beginning for them but I believe this is only for their best to eat less sugar. When I see some obese little children outside I know I can avoid it with mine. Now I will be reading a lot of books and articles about nutrition for sure :)

Another thing how I try to simplify and finding a balance in my life is cutting off my online life. I've finally realized that if I won't check the forum for day or two, nothing will happen (I'm a CT captain at SA and I know everything will work without me checking in there too). I have an extra time for my children or myself and I feel more free. I try to scrap when I want and when I feel like to and not that I have to and I don't care if my pages are made with the newest stuff available in the digiworld. I do it for myself and my family to document our life. And it makes me happy.

If you have any tips or recommendation for nutrition (books, web site) please let me know via comment and email, I would really appreciate it a lot! Thank you in advance.

Wishing you a great rest of the week.

:: yummy ::

Yesterday when I went to my dentist, I stopped by at the bakery for an European bread (which is almost the same one we are used to from our home country) and I saw a red currant there. I LOVE a pie made from it, so I bought a pack of frozen currant and baked the pie in the afternoon. As a child I always loved to pick up a red currant on my grandma's garden, she makes delicious jam from it.

My friend Kaisa saw a photo from yesterday  at my daily photos album and asked me if I could share the recipe. So here it is, Kaisa (and everyone who wants to try it too).

Fruit pie (bublanina)

:: Ingredience ::

• 1 cup of granulated sugar


• 1/2 cup of oil (I used a little bit less)


• 3 eggs


• 1/2 of package of baking powder (I use Dr. Oetker, which is 14g pack, and for the recipe you will use cca 2 teaspoons of the powder)


• 1/2 cup of milk


• 2 cups of flour


• fruit (fresh or frozen or canned)


• salt

Mix sugar, oil and eggs together, add baking powder, milk, salt and flour and stir until the dough is thick but liquid.
Oil the baking sheet and spread it with flour. Then pour the mixture on it and cover it with the fruit. Bake it for approximately for 1/2 an hour in mild temperature ( I think I baked it on 370F and to the end I always check the pie with a skewer to check if it is done). Spread with sugar. Good appetite!