Homemade Potstickers

I found a great recipe on SmittenKitchen for vegetarian potstickers. I made these for friends on Friday night, along with Thai green curry with veggies and brown rice and Tiramisu sundaes for dessert. Making these was easy once I got the hang of it.

The Boogedy made half-moon shapes using the biscuit cutter.

I forgot to photograph them cooked, but they were gorgeous and delicious and I will definitely make them again. I served them on a bed of  baby herb salad alongside sliced cucumber.

Also, here is how the Boogedy is styling his shoes these days. He calls them Times and Equals.

Perhaps you would also like some cat cuteness. This is Kirikou, the Catterfly, way up high.

I think you should also see the worst doggy haircut ever. Poor Chibberty got shaved on Sunday with worn out clippers. And we exposed all his old-man lumps; the indignity!

Whenever I take him outside, I feel really apologetic: to him and to passersby:

“I’m sorry.

My dog is really ok. He’s not so itchy now!

He just had a close shave with malfunctioning clippers.

He’s really very happy to be free of the winter coat…it’s 80 degrees out!

No, I don’t think he’s embarrassed.

I’m sorry, have you lost your appetite for potstickers?”

Poptarts Redux

When I first made these homemade poptarts back in Utah, I knew they would be good if not for my baking faux pas.

This time, though, they exceeded expectations and were delicious! Some were filled with raspberry jam, some with semisweet chocolate chips, and some with passionfruit jelly that I bought last time I visited Robert is Here. This fabulous exotic tropical fruit stand makes my bimonthly trips north worth the long drive!

I found the recipe via SmittenKitchen (of course…that’s my favorite food blog!).

Lamingtons and December Fun

I swear that Lamingtons transcend the sum of their parts. Look, they’re just sponge cake, jam, chocolate, and coconut. But all together they’re amazing. I borrowed a cake pan from Kelly and Adam (super cool owners of Honest Works Island Pottery in Key West). So, when the Lamingtons were done, I took them some cakes and modeled them on one of their lovely turquoise plates.  Recipe Here.

On the way home I saw this big truck parked across the sidewalk and it made me laugh out loud. I can just picture my DVD remote control running out of juice and me calling these guys for some spare Triple A batteries, Pronto!

I strung the advent calendar up in the kitchen. Each day I try to think up some free or cheap activity. Last night was “go pick up dad from the airport and raid his suitcase for presents!”

Saturday’s advent activity was the Key West Holiday Parade. Here’s the haul. We threw most of this away, but kept enough to eat one piece every Monday for a few months. (That was the deal the kid came up with, after I said one piece each day was Too Much Candy.

Sunday’s activity was free locals day at the aquarium. This sweet pigeon ate from our hands!

They have a fish there that looks like a PUPPY. It’s called the dog-faced puffer fish. We couldn’t get a great shot, but I wanted to pet him, he looked just like a beagle.

Here are the finished sugar skulls from my sister-in-law Noemi in SLC! The Boogedy believes he won the contest, for Most Use of Frosting. Zach believes he won for best disco lips.

I made a delicious braided bread braid filled with sweetened cream cheese and homemade lemon curd a few weeks back. I shared some with Paige because it was too pretty to keep to myself. The recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite websites for great food.

Here are the spotty orchids currently in bloom by my front door.

I took the kid and dog to the playground 3 or 4 nights ago and stood on a fire ant hill. Fire ant bites form pustules that sting and itch like mad; if you scratch them, they pop open and spread sticky gold fluid all over and they just itch more. Look how far the redness extends…you should see the toe with FOUR bites on it!! Fire ant stings peak at 48 hours for me, so 6 hours after this photo was taken, I was begging Zach to PLEASE find the anti-itch spray so I could get some sleep!

This is my Sunday view. Looking at the washing machines, and eating bread and butter from Sandy’s Cafe.

This rainy day photo was taken back at the beginning of the rainstorm that caused the flooding. We were tired of being cooped up inside, so we took our umbrellas for a walk to the pier.

Despite the rain, the water was crystal clear, and we could see Parrotfish down amongst the rocks! Hmm, he is hard to see in this picture. Click here for someone else’s better photo.

I pulled over on my bike to take a photo of this glorious passionflower vine in a pot.

The Boogedy went to the new office with dad to help run network cables after Goombay Festival. This activity was deemed more fun than the festival itself, so much so that he forgot his tummy ache, which he’d had for days, and which the funnel cake and hot dog did nothing to stop.

 

 

Pinkish Pasta

My friend Paige and I got together last week at her house to make fresh beet pasta (recipe from Martha Stewart).

The beet puree was gorgeous, though if I did it again I would use the juicer to make pulp that is finer and drier.

The dough was pretty. The baby was TRYING to be helpful. We wore old clothes so we wouldn’t get stained.

But in the end the dough was too soft, stretchy, and sticky and we used a bunch of flour to keep them from reforming into a mass.

I thought the noodles looked like hookworms.

Neither of us took pictures of them cooked up. I thought they were UGLY when cooked, having changed from Sunset Violet to something like this reddish pinkish brownish bag . A whole lot of work for something vaguely unappealing.

Late July Adventures

I checked out this awesome book from the library,  because Zach is going through a ‘no-white-flour’ kick. It’s the first cookbook I’ve ever read that truly addressed the challenges of cooking with whole grains, and not just substituting 1/2  a cup of whole wheat flour but still making essentially fluffy white breads.

Thanks to this YouTube video, I now know how to make a 6-braid challah! I also know now that I don’t really care for poppy seeds on top of bread.

Here is the poor Chibberty in my shirt, which I had heard can calm a dog down in a thunderstorm. I don’t believe he was calmed by our laughter or this photoshoot.

In our little town, the moving of this house from its place by the cemetery, across the busiest intersection in town, and into the lot next door to the cupcake shop, was big news and a spectator event.

Hee Hee. A modification of the Fleming Street sign downtown where the road begins.

I bet my Walgreens is cooler than yours. Formerly the Strand Theater. The place where I spend buckets of money on athletic tape for my poor, injured footie.

As a reward for learning to swim, the Boogedy received Perplexus. Possibly the coolest toy ever invented. We are all addicted to this game. As Zach says “there’s no better reward for a physical workout than a toy that will put you on your butt for hours”.

Minkies

When the Boogedy was little, he called his favorite food “minkies”. We still call mangoes “minkies”.  Now we live somewhere that gorgeous, ripe mangoes literally fall at our feet. Look at these beauties! The flavor of these doesn’t even compare to grocery store mangoes, even the best you’ve ever had.

Zach is going to get allergic, just like my poor sister. Gluttonous mango-sticky-face!

The quilt in the top photo is “Mad as a March Hare”, made for me by my mom in 2004 when I lived in grey San Francisco.

Fishy Adventures

Yesterday I made homemade goldfish crackers with my friend Paige. I saw the recipe at Smitten Kitchen and took a few days debating whether to order the (frivolously expensive) cookie cutter. But I’m a sucker for cookie cutters, and all things tiny, so it was pretty much inevitable.

Paige mixed and I rolled and cut. She drew all their little faces.

Which mostly disappeared because of melting cheese.

The grownups thought these were delicious. Our children both turned their noses up at them, and the Boogedy even referred to them as “so garbagey”.  He pointed out that these are not real goldfish crackers. I just had to laugh.

In Key West, several of the local tourist attractions have a “locals get in free day” once a month. So on March 6th we went to the aquarium and I spotted this giant fish just sitting there agape. Tiny fishes swam in and out of his mouth. I was fascinated because I could see straight through his gills. I have never gone fishing, cooked a whole fish, or dissected a fish, and I didn’t realize this is how gills work.

Across the street from the aquarium is the Shipwreck Museum, which we’re planning to go to next month. I love walking past it because they’re always playing sea chanties like The Mermaid, by my favorite band Great Big Sea.

Today was a beach day… Zach rode with us on his lunch hour. The Boogedy ran around and around the huge peace sign, which is visible on Google Earth, by the way.

And he balanced on the coconuts.

First Day of Preschool

Yesterday I dropped the Boogedy off for his first full day of preschool. He was so excited! Zach and I rode our bikes to the Southernmost Beach Cafe for our first breakfast alone together since….um…since….well, I don’t know when the last time was.

Their sign:

Interior (I love the paint colors!):

The view from our table. (All this and the food was good, too!):

Later I rode my bike over to the KnitWits yarn shop, without man or boy to distract me or hurry me up. YES! There is a yarn shop in Key West, and it carries gorgeous yarn!!

After picking the Boogedy up from school, we headed to the dog beach with a tennis ball and a bag of sand toys for diggin!

The dog hasn’t been this happy since we left Hollywood and he stopped getting his daily walks in Griffith Park.

Once in bed for the night, it took the Boogedy a full hour to wind down, stop talking to himself, and go to sleep after the big day.

Airboating in the Everglades

I hadn’t really considered how LOUD the airboat would be. Deafening even with cotton balls in the ears. No conversation possible.

There were beautiful banana trees in the “River of Grass”

And the most gorgeous, gigantic grasshopper. I wanted to keep him for a pet!

Afterwards we ate fried frog legs and gator tail bites. Undelicious.