Dates Around the World: German Date Night

If you missed the first post- Long story short: I have decided to start doing 'Dates around the world' night where I cook new recipes from other countries and make corny decorations and play youtube music in our kitchen!

If you'd like to start from the beginning, (and get the full story) here is the link to our Egyptian Date Night.

Tonight: Willkommen in Deutschland! (Welcome to Germany) 

  

I felt like it went well! (Micah, Noah, Kourtney...correct me if I'm wrong) I had a lot of fun preparing this meal and the game we played after dinner was pretty entertaining, too. But, before I get to that part: here are the recipes I used! 

Dinner: Braised Beef Stew and Potato Dumplings

Doesn't that look good? I MADE THAT! Sign me up for Cutthroat Kitchen, Iron Chef, or whatever cooking show is popular right now.. :)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds of beef

1/2 Cup Flour (For breading the beef)

1/4 Cup Olive Oil

1 Cup Onion

4 Strips of Bacon 

4 Cups Beef Stock (I used water and 2 Beef Bullion Cubes)

A dash of Bay Leaves

1 Tablespoon Hungarian Paprika (You can use just regular Paprika..it's not that different of a flavor)

Directions:

Cut meat into cubes and toss with flour and paprika. Heat oil in skillet and brown meat. Add beef stock, onions, bay leaves, and another teaspoon of paprika. (I also added about a 1/4 teaspoon of black ground pepper)

Brown bacon in another pan and add to the pot. Simmer for an hour. While stew is simmering...

Potato Dumplings

Ingredients:

6 medium, peeled, and boiled potatoes

1/2 cup flour and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 eggs

Directions:

I peeled the potatoes on my lunch hour today so that they were ready to go straight into pan to boil them when I got home. 

Boil the whole potatoes until tender. Take the cooked potatoes, cut them open and put them on a baking sheet. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes (this dries out the potatoes) 

** If you're impatient like I was, boil them, cut them and put them on the cookie sheet and turn the broiler on for a few minutes rather than waiting the full half hour.**

Grate the potatoes or put through a blender (I used a hand mixer?). Add the eggs, flour, and salt to make a doughy-like substance

Bring a pot of water to boiling, and then form the potatoes into little balls (maybe 1 inch?). Add them to the boiling water and cook them until they float. 

Take out of boiling water and let cool down on a plate. While they are cooling, add a teaspoon of water to a teaspoon of corn starch. Mix them together and add to the stew. (This will thicken it a tiny bit) 

After they have cooled, add them to the beef stew and let them simmer for a few minutes to pick up the flavor. 

I have to say, for never making these before...I'm pretty proud! They didn't fall apart!!

Dessert: German Butter Cake

(I made this the night before, considering I had to basically bake bread)

Ingredients:

1 egg

2 teaspoons cinnamon

4 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 package of instant yeast

1 cup butter

1 cup milk

Directions:

Place 4 cups of flour in a mixing bowl and make a hollow in the middle for the yeast. Fill with lukewarm milk (30 seconds in the microwave), add a pinch of sugar and mix a little to incorporate some of the flour. Let this sit in a warm place for 15 minutes. **I preheated the oven and turned it back off again so that it was warm, but not hot**

After the yeast is activated and showing growth, add the salt, egg, 7 tablespoons of butter, and 3/4 cup of sugar to the milk and mix the dough. Continue mixing until the dough is smooth and forms a ball. Form dough into a ball, place in greased bowl and let rise for 15-20 minutes. **I...didn't grease the bowl, I just stirred in everything and left it in the bowl I had already used..**

Roll the dough out into 1/2 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Preheat oven to 375. Mix 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon together and sprinkle over the dough (it seems like too much, but if you use any less it won't be sweet enough) Cut 9 tablespoons of butter into small pieces and spread evenly over the top. **Yeah....I used like 2 tablespoons and it was fine**

Bake 25 minutes or until cake is done and the cinnamon and sugar have melted together on the top.

For tonight's dinner, I made little German flags and stuck them into the pieces of cake that I served with dinner :) I just had to decorate a little bit! 

Dinner was surprisingly good! I am not a huge fan of bacon, but it worked well with the beef cubes and the broth. Also surprisingly, Micah liked the potato dumplings! I figured he would think they were weird.. Both of the boys got seconds, which made me pretty happy, I'm not going to lie. Maybe it's just me, but when I cook a meal...it always feels good when someone wants more because it's good :)

When we were all finished eating, I cleared the table and got our game props. What's a German Date Night without a German Children's Game? 

Game/Activity: Schokoladenessen 

(Or...'Eat the Chocolate' for those of us who can't pronounce that..)

With a game name like that, who WOULDN'T want to play, right?

Game Rules/Instructions:

A chocolate bar (of your choosing) must be wrapped in newspaper or some sort of paper (As you can see, I had a weekly grocery ad for Aldi's), tied up with a string and set in the middle of the table, ALONG with:

• a hat 
• scarf
• gloves
• fork
• knife
• and dice

(you can also add to this list for more of a challenge. I've seen where people add in putting on a vest or coat as well)

Each person will take turns rolling the dice to see who gets a 6 first. The first person to roll a 6 has to put on the hat, scarf, and gloves- and try to unwrap the chocolate bar. If he or she gets the bar unwrapped, they get to eat the chocolate bar, BUT THEY CAN ONLY USE THEIR FORK AND KNIFE to do so. The whole time that this is going on, the other players are taking turns rolling the dice trying to get a 6. When someone else gets a 6, the person who is currently trying to eat the chocolate has to immediately take off everything and hand to the other person who has rolled a 6 so that they can try to eat the chocolate. Then, the person that had to take off all of the winter clothing items gets to jump back into the rotation of players rolling the dice to try and get a 6 and eat more of the chocolate bar. The game continues until the chocolate bar is gone. 

The hardest part was getting the chocolate bar unwrapped with those kitchen mits on. Noah got a layer off, I rolled a 6 and ripped through another layer..Then Noah got another 6 and was able to get the bar unwrapped and dumped it on the table, we all went back and forth so fast that the fork went flying at one point

...oh and in our case, when a 6 was rolled by someone else, instead of them "giving up" the hat and scarf...it was taken from them before they had a chance to even react. You can see the action shot I was able to get of Noah grabbing the hat off Kourtney's head. We got pretty into it and are all naturally competitive people :)

Supposedly everyone who gets to eat any of the chocolate is a 'winner', but I think I'd have to say that Micah ended up winning because he got to eat the most of the bar. The rest of us went through a dice spell where none of us rolled a 6 for a solid minute, giving Micah time to put on everything and eat 4 or 5 pieces of the Hershey's bar. 

**

Just thinking out loud here: Next time, it might be fun to use a Crunch bar, or something with nuts in it to make it a little harder to cut with the knife? 

**

Anyways, I got to eat two pieces of the Hershey bar- and I'm not sure about Noah and Kourtney (they both got at least one piece, but I couldn't keep count with everything else going on)  

So, overall thoughts on German Date Night:

• I got to eat a beef stew that I really liked and will probably make again sometime!
• I successfully made my first ever potato dumplings and use a skill I've never done in cooking before (Grandma would be proud!)
• I got to put together a meal for my family that will hopefully hold fun memories one day
• I got some hilarious pictures during the game :) ...You're welcome! 
• AND I got to eat a few pieces of chocolate

I might be biased, but I think that Schokoladenessen should make its way into our everyday lives..Chocolate, anyone?

...I'd call tonight a success! Now, I have a few miles to run (luckily tonight is a short-run night). Half-marathon is 7 weeks away!

Dates Around the World: Egyptian Date Night

OK, so can I just say that I am so excited for our "dates around the world" adventure?

I have been looking for a creative way to incorporate some new recipes into my recipe rotation, so browsing the web one day, I came across a website that will sell you a kit for $20 with recipes and game ideas for dates from around the world. A very neat idea, but as I was glancing through their material, I didn't like several of the "games"/activities they had for you to do, and a few of the recipes called for ingredients I had never heard of and didn't know where to shop for them..so I thought: "why pay for it when I could make my own date night agenda and hand pick recipes and games from the worldwide knowledge that is the Internet? Why not customize my own date night with my husband (and brother-in-law) to take us to another country for an evening?" Let's expand our horizons and try some different foods!

So, that's what I did. Throughout our food adventure, I'll be sharing the recipes and letting you know whether I/we liked them or not. Also, if anyone else wants to join us and do your own "dates around the world" adventure, you will have our ideas to build on.


Alright, now that you have the background story, let's get to it.

 Welcome, to Egypt! ...er..my kitchen.

The first thing I did when deciding which country to do first, was to find a recipe that didn't require a trip to the World Market. Luckily for me, I had everything I needed for this dinner already in my kitchen! (Minus the ground beef, which I went and bought fresh from the store earlier tonight. Our grocery store also had the ground lamb the recipe called for...but it was nearly triple the price as the ground beef so I didn't buy it) I wanted to choose something that was traditional to Egypt, but also not too crazy. 

Dinner's main dish and recipe: 

Beef Kofta 

Ingredients: 

• 1 pound Ground Beef
• 1/4 pound Ground Lamb (Optional- If not using lamb, then use additional ground beef)
• 1/4-1/2 cup minced parsley 
• (I used about 1/4 cup, as we had a pound of ground beef instead of the pound and a half)
• 1 grated small onion
• 2 minced garlic (or...about a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt)
• 1 T salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. Cumin powder
• 1 tsp. Nutmeg 

(I should have compensated and used less nutmeg considering I had less beef than the recipe called for. But that's ok, I didn't compensate anything else considering, and it ended up tasting alright..just a lot of nutmeg flavor)

Directions:

• Mix the onion and garlic with the spices and let sit in room temperature for 15 minutes. 
• Add the meat and parsley and mix well. Shape the meat into kofta shapes (I don't know how to describe the shape.. Kind of like a sausage, but 1/3 of the size?) 
• Spray the bottom of a large pan with olive oil. Heat the pan over medium high heat.
• When the pan is hot, add the koftas and pan fry on all sides. Lower the heat and cover the pan.
• Let cook for 5 minutes. Then uncover the pan and let any liquid evaporate.  

Traditionally, Kofta is served on a skewer, but..I have a little bit of a distaste for skewers now.. ever since last year when I got a bamboo splinter in my mouth from eating a kabob. So, ours were eaten with forks. 

To go with the beef, I made a brown rice concoction (or you can just buy Beef Flavored Rice-A-Roni for a dollar), and (not pictured) we also had some corn. 

For dessert, I decided to get a little creative, and made just some simple rice krispy treats (I know, NOT Egyptian), and while they were still warm, I shaped them into a pyramid.

 I know you can see how I set the table in the picture at the top, but for extra fun- I also printed off a Hieroglyphics alphabet and made name cards for all three of us, using the Hieroglyphics. 

These are Micah's and my name cards. Let's take a moment to admire my bird. I am pretty proud of myself...I can't draw at all, so I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. I only had four index cards and had to use three of them, so there wasn't much extra for me to mess up on. 

Before dinner I had searched "egyptian music" on youtube and found a video someone had posted that had an hour's worth of Arabic instrumental music, so during dinner I had that playing softly in the background and overall...I'd say it went over pretty well. All three of us had empty plates at the end and I'm glad I got to try a new recipe.

I didn't have a game to play with this particular date night, though some of the upcoming countries do have games to play after dinner.

Next time, I will try to do a better job of taking pictures!

I'm pretty sure I know which country is coming next...but just incase I change my mind, I'll keep it a secret :)

Life with a puppy- Month 3

Its hard to believe we have been in our house for over 3 months now, and by default that means we have had Miss Eleanore for the same amount of time.

Needless to say, she has grown a lot! 

We still have no idea how big she will get, but she is a good size now so I'm hoping she won't get too much larger. But if she does...well, I guess we are in for more energetic excitement. 

Ellie has a fascination with Atticus, who still doesn't like her and hisses anytime she tries to get near him. But they will occasionally sit in the same room. A few times, I have watched their interaction. Ellie will lay down across the room and slowly try to inch forward closer to him. The problem is, she is a puppy and not so sneaky or graceful. 

Licking toes is still her favorite thing ever. And we still hate it. There's going to have to be some compromise there...

A few weekends ago we took her out to Lindsey and Jared's property to play with Finn, and we let Ellie off the leash for the first time. Other than finding every bit of mud and grossness, she did come back when called and did very well! So I guess she does know her name and likes us enough to come back to us :) 

With the coming of fall, a lot is coming up and a lot is going on currently. It's overwhelming sometimes. I don't think I could tell you the next free weekend I have with all of the things that are going on! (Granted, most of that is by choice, and thus, my fault)

General life happenings: 

Micah- is back in school. Bring on the homework! 

Kim- Gets exhausted THINKING about life right now. 

I'm currently learning Italian and training for my second half marathon (November 13th is the goal..) and...I wasn't going to mention the half marathon training because I'm not sure that my old injuries are completely healed up and I'm not sure I'll be physically able to run the race. Last week's "long run" was 6.3 miles, and this week is just starting so I'm not sure how it will go. My 5 miles last night seemed to go well..

I have 9 weeks till the race day and I don't have to register until October 1st. So..I've got time to decide. Though I might not be able to do the race, I AM training, so why not just share that? 

By the same token, (The its-happening-so-why-not token), I feel like I should also share..I have a POTENTIALLY very exciting announcement. 

I have wanted to write a book since I was a little girl, just have never really gotten around to doing anything about it or wanted to figure out what to write about. Well, over the past several months, I have been writing. And writing. What started as a hopeful magazine article has turned into a full length book! 

 I have started the process of looking for a publisher. Up until...well, today, actually, I had been working with Christian Faith Publishing. But, I got the breakdown of the startup costs...$3400 out of pocket for me to pay.

Now, what you get with that is probably totally worth the money since that includes an editor, someone to typeset the book, a team to design your book art, AND they set you up in print and Ebook form and can market your book for purchase on platforms like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, as well as Kindle, Nook, and Apple. Basically, once your manuscript is accepted, they do the rest.

BUT! for this newlywed girl, whose husband is going back to school full time and we are paying tuition without any student loans, and a new mortgage....$3400 can't happen right now. So, I'm exploring some other publishers and trying to figure out some options! Who knows how long I will pursue it, or if a book will ever come out with my name as the author. This is a whole new world for me, so naturally, it's a little bit intimidating. But you know what? I'm already proud of myself for even trying. 

So on top of those things, I also have some projects going (If you know me, you know my craftiness must be used constantly...and we haven't done anything with our house yet as far as painting, or getting the basement set up to be an amazing man-cave/workout area). BUT atleast we have all of our boxes unpacked! ....oh wait..we don't. 🤔🙄😏

Oh, and I'm still working full time too (naturally). My husband can vouch for me: there have been days (2 last week) that I have gone to bed after my run and slept for 10-13 hours. I'm exhausted, and NOT ready for fall. I mean, I'm ready for the fall weather..and the fall colors, and sweatshirts and all that jazz, but I'm not ready for all the craziness that will last until the end of the year.  

Other recent happenings: 

My family had their first family reunion! 

Photo 1: My mother, Me, and Micah

Photo 2: my mother and ALL of her siblings (this never happens) 

We went to the zoo and rode the train around to play Pokemon :) I had never ridden the train before so that was a new experience for me! 

AND: we are getting ready to start our "dates around the world", where I make traditional meals from 12 of our pre-chosen countries and Micah and I (and sometimes Noah, if he wants to) spend the hour together having that meal in our kitchen. First up is Egypt! Hoping that I can get that together sometime next week...we'll see. I've got Egypt, Germany, and Ireland put together so far. 

Isn't life fun? If we didn't jam pack it and overload ourselves, we wouldn't get to experience the things we do. 

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I have to remind myself of that a lot.. especially going into the last third of the year and planning three roadtrips, our attendance of weddings, finding time to go on dates together, and trying to be a good daughter, wife, friend, cousin, and aunt. Not to mention we have several potlucks in our future that I have to make new recipes for (I love having excuses to make new delicious things!) ..I love food. :)

Let's end with this:  Here's a photo of Atticus tenderly loving his green plastic ball that my mom got for him. 

And stay tuned, as the holidays fast approach us, this means Holiday photos of Atticus! I can tell you that he has a magnificent Halloween costume :) and if I can find it (we have moved twice since last year's photo) he also has a fun Christmas one, pictured below.  I'm also sure, the way he takes selfies with me, the holiday season will be filled with more of THIS. 

 

We may have to try Ellie's cooperation with festive photos this year as well. Too bad she and Atticus wouldn't both be in the same picture together..they won't get that close to each other. Maybe one day...