Marchin' years apart

A few years ago I knocked off a Stella McCartney Gap kids marching band jacket. Liam was almost three when he wore it (twice!). Now that Alana had fit it, she's going to be wearing that thing everyday to make up for the pain that was sewing it.

Apple tart

I came across blog that the most beautiful apple pie I'd ever seen. Unfortunately the recipe was in BULGARIAN. Through a combination of Google Translate and common sense I came up with this recipe:


Ingredients


Dough:
2/3 c butter, room temperature
2.5 oz (70 g) powdered sugar 
1 tsp vanilla
1 teaspoon grated orange peel 
1 egg
3.5 oz (100 g) finely ground almonds 
5.25 oz (150 g) flour


Cream:
4 tablespoons cake flour (not sure if it has to be cake flour, but the translator said "peak" flour which we guessed as cake)
6 tablespoons granulated sugar 
1 teaspoon grated orange peel 
3 egg yolks
1 2/3 c milk 
1/2 c apple juice (recipe calls for white wine)
1 tsp vanilla 


5-6 apples (we used honey crisps) 


Instructions:


1) Dough: Beat butter with sugar, vanilla and orange peel. Add egg and almond. Add flour gradually until soft dough forms.


2) Grease and flour a tart pan. Spread dough into prepared pan, pressing it evenly and up the sides. Refrigerate while preparing cream.


3) For the cream, into a medium sized saucepan, mix flour with sugar, vanilla and orange peel. Add egg yolks and a little milk. Stir to a smooth, pour the remaining milk and apple juice. Bring cream to a boil and then let it cool. It should be thick. Optionally, you can use some instant vanilla cream or pudding. 


4) With vegetable peeler, make ribbons of apples without removing their skin. Wrap the strips into apple roses. (Martha Stewart has a pretty good tutorial on this).


5) Pour cream over dough and arrange it the apple roses on it.


6) Bake cake in preheated 350 F oven  about 45 minutes, until the dough is baked and apples become golden. Let cake cool completely. Refrigerate.




DON'T be tempted to take this out of the fridge to come to room temperature before serving. The pudding will soften too much and it'll run. Next time I make it, I want to poach the apple strips a little. I think this will make it a little easier to wrap the apples and eat later.

Tart before it went into the oven. You can see the peeled apple in the background

Fresh from the oven.

Next night at Thanksgiving before we served.

Chili crab

This was dinner on Sunday. It was pretty good, but I'm not sure I got the recipe right. I used this recipe. It will be one of the messiest things you'll ever eat.

Cleaning out my camera phone

Kids asleep everywhere: 

Before I finished painting and decorating Liam's room, he was just sleeping on a mattress set. He didn't adapt too well from a toddler bed. He lined up his pillows and then fell asleep hanging off the edge.

Kids's fashion:

Alana's favourite dress. Liam likes to put it on and tease her.

Alana eating:

It's amazing how much of a mess she can make.

We went to a Korean restaurant near our house (one of many). This one was very authentic (menu had no English.) We ordered the kids bi bim pop (rice bowl with stuff on top). Alana was very excited when it came. It was bigger than her head. She made a pretty good dent in it too. 

The kids like their rice pre-wrapped in kim pop.

Playing:

Alana was moping while Liam was at school, so I sent her outside. She meticulously settled herself down in the dirt and started making mud pies.

If it seems like I take more pictures of Alana, it's because she'll hold still for them.

For all my Utah readers

See? It snows here too. Last night's snowfall:

Yay! @#%#$% game.

After two years, I finally beat Katamari Forever. HOLY @#%%$^@#$!!! that was a hard game. Okay, not really, just harder than it's previous versions, and probably more time than I wanted to invest in it while having two kids. But it's done! Bring on the next version! For those of you without a PS2 or PS3 or XBox, here's a version you can play if you have Chrome:

http://kathack.com/

Look what came in the mail for me today

It was only $9 off of etsy (including shipping!) and was supposed to take 2-5 weeks to ship but came in less than a week. I love it! I want to get it engraved with "I Open at the Close" later. Geek alert.