AppelTaart

About a week ago, my family made an appel taart. I am not much for apples, and Sadie got to posting about it before me, but it was a very fun experiance.


I just that you'd like to know.



For her post, check out http://www.sadieruth.blogspot.nl/2012/10/making-appeltaart.html.

A New Discovery

There are a lot of things that I love in life.

Books.

Food.

A well spun ball of yarn.

And also, Starbucks. Back in America, my mom went there on occasion. We loved Starbucks.  But then we moved to Europe and although there are Starbucks in major cities like Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris, we don't get to Starbucks very often.

For our summer vacation, we went to Austria. We lived on bread, fruit, and other fresh food. We adored it and almost started crying when we had to leave. But we stopped in Munich, Germany on the way home and there was was a Starbucks!  And it was at this particular Starbucks, that I fell in love.  Never in my life had I conceived of such a delicious and comforting beverage . . .a steamed milk with almond flavoring.

Wow! I spent the next week, while my dearly beloved grandparents were here, dreaming of that wonderful drink.  Eventually the gears clicked in my head and I realized that we already had in our possession an espresso machine capable of steaming milk and therefore all I needed was almond flavoring.

I was, meanwhile, coming to appreciate tea as well.  While out birthday shopping with Grandma, we stumbled into a lovely tea shop and there on the shelf I saw it: almond flavoring.  I nearly cried with joy. and we studied our options.

For 20 Euros, there was a large bottle which probably would be unable to fit in any of our cupboards. For 6 Euros I found a delightful little bottle which we ended up buying.  I went home with my treasure, delighted, and willingly shared it with my family and friends.  However, I had forgotten that sharing one's syrup freely also causes the bottle to drain quickly, and I found myself with enough for one more cup, which I have been saving for my birthday.

However, I found an amazing recipe for the syrup, and I can say with certainty that it works. I love it.

Recipe:

1 cup sugar (brown, white, or half n half) 

1/2 cup water

 almond extract 

Directions: 

1 In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water and bring to a rolling boil. Stir to prevent scorching. 

2 Remove from heat. Cool slightly and stir in extract to desired strength, starting with 1/2 teaspoons 

3 Store in a closed container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

(This recipe belongs to this website. I do NOT claim ownership!!!!)

Mia's Memories: Season 1 Episode 1

Hello! I'm sorry for the delay in posts, but I do hope this post makes up for it. You see, the main reason for the delay is because my sibling have been working tirelessly on our TV series - Mia's Memories -  so we've all been preoccupied.

This episode, the first one, is by now means a classic. It is full of errors, poor footage, but it is real. The entire movie really happened and we didn't do every thing we did for show. We would have done it anyway, and most of it is by no means acting. I hope you enjoy it, as we all worked so hard on it. We hope to complete the next episode in a week or less.

Hot Cocoa: Then and Now

For my family hot chocolate stands for many things. It stands for Christmas Eve, opening the gifts we all made for each other, it stands for cold winter days, when we're chilled to the bone from playing in the snow, and it stands for fun times shared with our stuffed animals.

Today my mom is making our classic hot cocoa mix, and I'd like to take this opportunity to compare our hot chocolate making process before we knew that we were moving, and right now.

The first time I posted about this was in November....

Oh Yes! I used my delightful Mug! Bless you hot cocoa mug!

Oh man! November CAN be bleak! But June in the Netherlands can be bleak too I guess...

The Second time I posted about hot cocoa was on A Photo Guide to My Day. Yes... but unfortuanately only the first twenty pictures are of making hot cocoa.

The third and last time that I posted about the hot cocoa was on My Day in 20 Minutes.

Today, for snack during homeschool, we had hot cocoa and some delicous rolls with chocolate chips in them. The hot cocoa is still as good as ever, and I'm dying to have another mug full. In the meantime, I have several book reviews to write!

Tot ziens!

(pronounced: tote zeens)

(translation: good bye in Dutch)

Raindrops on Roses

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things"

Perhaps you recognize this verse from the movie, The Sound of Music. I love these beautiful words, but I, like my family, don't really feel afraid of storms. As one of my favorite books, A Wrinkle in Time,  states, "Wild nights are my glory!" and I most certainly agree.

Tonight, I was working on a homework assignment when Sadie, Ella, and Abe came in. You see, my room has become the headquarters for al of the children's meetings, and although I'm proud of it, at the moment I was quizzical and slightly annoyed. Then they pointed out the storm. 

It was a big one, with great gales of wind and water sloshing everywhere. In our genes, there is a love for storms, so we got out our stuffed animals and started making camp for them in the open window sills. 

Next, as a result of the open windows, we got cold so we piled into my wonderful, queen, bed. Sadie and I wrote and Ella and Abe chatted through their stuffed animals.

As I said before, we got cold, and after the blankets did nothing, we went to go get a help that we could trust... hot cocoa! We sipped our hot cocoa, chatted, and basically thought about the Sound of Music, and what we used to do when we drank hot cocoa.

What can I say? I've already said it in this post and in another post: bad weather = need for comfort. Although I love storms, one of the reasons I love them is because of the ways I attempt to get comfort through them. As I said in an earlier post called Comfort Food, sad times call for comfort food- which for us depends on what exactly seems comforting at the moment.

Tonight for dinner we're having 

• Tortellini Soup
•  Good Old American Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
• Hot coco!

I know... it's nothing fancy, but for a rainy night... it'll do. 

Altogether, this meal was a hit for our family, and we are all thoroughly comforted and full!

Pannenkoeken Recipe

Hello! This is Mia Susan posting to you live from the Netherlands. The Netherlands has had a great influence on my whole famiy: the way people conserve energy, the way the Dutch  conserve space, and so forth. However, today I must say that food is the main topic.

Firstly, I must state the difference between pancakes and pannenkoeken (pan-uh-koke-uh.) Pancakes are a form of flat cake that are sweet, cakey, and are usually served with butter and syrup. But pannenkoeken are similar to Swedish pancakes and crepes in the way that they are large, flat, and served with stroep. (strope) Stroep is Dutch for syrup in the way that pannenkoeken is Dutch for pancakes, but, as with pannenkoeken, there is a critical difference.

For one thing, stroep is much thicker, sweeter, and a drizzle is more that enough for an extra sweet serving. If an American put the normal  amount of syrup for them in stroep on pannenkoeken, well, after all their teeth decayed, it wouldn't  be pretty.

Recently, my family found the most wonderful pannenkoeken recipe ever, and we like to serve it with Nutella, powdered suger, stroep, and the occasional slagroom (slog-room) or whipped cream.

You will need :

•  A non-stick pan the size of your desired pannenkoek (makes 1 large/ 2 medium/ 4 small)
• 1 cup flour
• salt
• 2 large eggs or 3 medium eggs
• 1 cup milk 
• at least 1/4 cup butter or margarine

Put the flour and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle and add melt the beaten eggs. Mix into a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk. Melt half the butter in a heavy skillet. Pour the batter into it. Turn the pancakes frequently, each time add some butter. They should become golden brown and crisp at the sides.

Enjoy!

These pannenkoeken have sustained us through some pretty hard times, and I know they'll do the same for you! I like to add a ton of powdered sugar, Nutella, and a drizzle of stroep, and then I like to roll it up, put lots more stroep on the top and cut it up! Now that's my kind of taco :~)

(No credit to me!!!!! All credit must go to our genius cookbook, Dutch Cooking by Helen A. M. Halverhout!)

Happy Valentines Day!

Because it's Valentines Day, you could put a red rose or something special on top of your pancakes to decorate them, but the only alive plant we have is a baby parsley plant, so I wasn't able to follow my advice.

Even though I'm not able to make the pancake very fancy, I can just put a huge chunk of butter, and a ton of maple syrup, and I think my parents will like them just the same. With a quart of peach iced tea, and pancakes for two, I can be sure that my parents will love this breakfast.

Dutch Windmill Cookies

Seriously, I have no idea how the name of these cookies got changed to "Windmill Cookies." I think it is completely irrelevant to the cookies entirely. For example, today I cut them out in the shape of a maple leaf because I wanted to be fancy and crazy. I have no idea how I got to the subject of this, but anyway, they aren't windmill cookies.

I started by creaming butter with, I'm sorry, crisco.

Then, I added white sugar...

And brown sugar.

Then I creamed them with the butter,

And added an egg.

While I let that mix,

I started taking out my dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, oatmeal, and almonds.

I started with the flour, which I decided to tone down from two cups to one and a half. Then I put in the soda and salt.

I next put in the spices, 

cloves,

nutmeg,

cinnamon 

I finished off the measuring by dumping in the oatmeal and almonds,

And the spicy rubbish turned into cookie dough!

I decided to be fancy and crazy as I previously said, and I cut out the cookie dough into the shape of a maple leaf. Because I doubled the recipe and I ended up making 8 dozen, this took hours. (It didn't help that I was juggling making spaghetti also)

But, after intense labor, I had the joy of seeing perfect maple-almond-oatmeal-anything but windmill, cookies.

Yum!

Dutch Windmill Cookie:

From: Grandma Lam

You will need:

• 1 cup butter 
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. cloves
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1 cup slivered or sliced almonds

In a large mixing bowl, combine butter,sugar, and egg. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in almonds. Shape dough into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees fir 10 to 12 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!

P.S I'm sorry to post this late, but my mom was busy researching the house of a relative of Corrie Ten Boom, and she got engrossed in her research on "my blogging computer."

I Bake! Again

Today I came home from school and I immediately wanted to bake. My mom was working, Ella and Abe were busy, and Sadie was at tennis: this was one of the rare times in my life that was ideal for baking. I got permission from my mom and soon I was looking through every cookbook I own, trying to find a recipe that was quick, easy, and most importantly, delicious. As I have done many times before, I fell to using one of my favorite cookbooks, The Big Book of Cupcakes, which my dear friend Anna gave me for my birthday. I looked through it, trying to find a recipe without frosting that tasted good and that was super quick. I quickly found the perfect recipe, Fudgie Babies, and I can tell you that they turned out very well.

I started by melting the chocolate and the butter in the microwave. 

• Confession #1: Instead of putting the chocolate and butter in a bowl and putting the bowl over a pot of boiling water to melt it, I simply melted it in the microwave.
• Confession #2: I used 3/4 cups of chocolate chips instead of chocolate baking squares

While I let this cool, in as large mixing bowl I mixed flour, sugar, and eggs together. 

I sadly say goodbye to to the cleanliness of this white bowl as I prepare to start mixing.

Then I added the chocolate mixture to the flour-egg-sugar mixture.

I made lots of mistakes,

As you can see, I accidentally mixed a little too energetically.

When I was pouring the chocolate mixture into the flour-egg-sugar mixture, I accidentally dropped the chocolate mixture into the other ingredients.

I made lots of other mistakes, (I didn't even bother to take a picture of my sleeve) but they got into the oven without any serious mishap,

And soon they were out of the oven, and in my mouth!

Tonight, our dinner was provide by my mom's dear friend who has been praying for us and who got us flowers along with dinner. We all are now enjoying our delicious meal!

Fudgy Baby Cakes

From: The Big Book of Cupcakes Cookbook

You will need:

• 6 (1-oz.) semisweet chocolate baking squares 
• 1 cup butter
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose soft-wheat flour
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• paper baking cups
• vegetable cooking spray
• powdered sugar

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Pour water to a depth of 1 inch into the bottom of a double boiler over medium heat; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer; place chocolate and butter on top of double boiler over simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally, 5 to 6 minutes or until melted. Remove mixture from heat, and cool ten minutes. 

3. Whisk together sugar, flour, and eggs in a large bowl; add chocolate mixture, stirring until combined. Stir in vanilla and salt.

4. Place paper baking cups in 2 (12 cups) muffin pans, and coat with cooking spray; spoon batter into cups, filling 2/3 full.

5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Be careful not to over bake; they should be gooey. (They will crack and sink in the middle;  this is normal). Cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely.

6. Sift powdered sugar over the top of each  cupcake.

Tips: Please Read

• If you don't have chocolate baking squares, just use 3/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips. Mine turned out fine.
• For #2 , it is easier to simply melt the chocolate and butter in a saucepan or in your microwave. 

Enjoy them!

-Mia Susan