Verano: aprendo los países (Japón)

Foto tomada por Amanda

Otro de los países que hemos estado aprendiendo es sobre Japón. Éste principalmente surge del interés de una de mis amigas porque van a visitarlo en sus siguientes vacaciones y aparte en Leiden hay un museo con historia muy interesante sobre el país. Hace un par de meses conocí a una mamá japonesa que me parece super linda y la invite a que nos ayudara a platicarnos de su cultura.

Foto tomada por Amanda

Tomomi, nos platico con ayuda de las flashcards sobre donde esta situado su país, les mencionó a los niños la fama que tienen las caricaturas de anime y como son originarias de Japón. También nos enseñó los trajes típicos e incluso sus hijos traían unos trajecitos japoneses pero un poco más modernos y para niños.

Foto tomada por Amanda

Hicimos juntos la bandera de Japón de forma muy sencilla. Solo recortamos un círculo de cartón corrugado rojo y lo pegaron al centro de la bandera blanca. También nos enseñó el abecedario japonés.

Seguido de la bandera hicimos una figura de origami. Nosotros seguimos las instrucciones para un pez de un paquete de origami que compré hace tiempo en la tienda Action.

Al final comimos sushi que nos trajo Tomomi.

Cuando despedimos a nuestros nuevos amigos, nos fuimos Amanda, los niños y yo a visitar el museo de Japón en Leiden.

Tiene mucha historia que yo desconocía y estuvo tan interesante que quiero volver a leer detenidamente porque los niños no nos dejaron muy bien ver todo con tranquilidad pero si disfrutaron ver la colección de objetos de Japón y bajar a la cocina antigua de la casa donde pudieron colorear y jugar memoria de artículos japoneses.

Como reseña del museo, es amigable con los niños sólo que los elevadores no están muy convenientes fáciles de entender y como quiera hay que subir y bajar muchas escaleras lo cual con carreola no es muy conveniente. Fuera de eso es museo chiquito, con aire acondicionado ahora que los días han estado calientes y las colecciones están protegidas por aquello de las manitas curiosas.

En resumen, tuvimos un día lleno de actividades que nos ayudaron a aprender más sobre Japón, su historia y cultura.

Verano: aprendo los países (Suiza)

Nuestra aventura de ayer (si ayer, disculpen que vaya un día atrasada pero miren, está muy interesante (no quiero decir difícil) sentarse a escribir un ratito con 2 niños en casa las 24 horas del día), consistió en aprender sobre Suiza.

Tengo una amiga muy querida que conozco desde que estábamos embarazadas las 2 con nuestros hijos mayores. Nos conocimos por Internet porque las dos pasamos por mil cosas para lograr esos embarazos. Esta amiga tiene una historia muy interesante y me parece simpática porque ahorita es lo común pero en los 80’s no era tanto. Ella es hija de padre suizo, madre mexicana nacida en Inglaterra y casada con un Holandés. ¿Apoco no está increíble? Bueno ella, debido a que tiene sangre Suiza nos enseñó todo sobre este bello país.

Fuimos a su casa y platicamos sobre los aspectos básicos del país como su bandera, sus tradiciones, comida, paisajes, flora y fauna entre otros temas que fueron saliendo como la trompa alpina y el queso suizo.

Los niños que se conocen literal desde bebés hicieron las banderas suizas y practicaron la letra S.

Luego comimos fondue de quesocon pan, papas redondas chiquitas y brócoli. Obviamente está de más decir que estuvo delicioso, pero ¿que cosa que tenga papas y queso no lo es?

Después jugamos un memorama de figuras geométricas. Tanto las flashcards como otras actividades las pueden encontrar en este documento.

Foto tomada por mi amiga Amanda

El memorama lo hice cortando cada figura y pegándole sobre un papel de color más grande. Cada par iba en un papel del mismo color así es más fácil de identificar para los niños de nuestras edades (4) pero si tienen hijos más grandes pueden usar un fondo del mismo color. Al final las laminé y quedan para usarse en muchas ocasiones más.

Terminamos nuestra sesión viendo el primer episodio de Heidi.

Después regresamos a casa y descansamos un poco. M fue a jugar con el vecino, la bebé a jugar con cosas de agua y seguir con la rutina normal. Un día que incluyo salidas en tren de ida y vuelta son más que suficiente aventura para esta mamá.

Archeon

El lunes fuimos a una ciudad cercana (15 minutos en carro desde donde vivimos) donde se encuentra un parque temático, llamado Archeon, que te transporta a la época del imperio Romano y más atrás.

La entrada es gratis para los que tienen la tarjeta de museos (Museumkaart) y también es gratis cuando es tu cumpleaños.

Cuando entras y pagas, te ofrecen una tarjeta de actividades para los niños que cuesta 4.50€ y realmente la compramos por que no teníamos idea de que eran las actividades pero valió la pena. Las actividades que te ofrecen con esta tarjeta son varias que incluyen hacer pan al estilo de las cavernas, un casco de soldado romano después de la pelea de gladiadores, hacer una vela con cera de abeja, y hacer una pulsera con lana. También hay actividades sin necesidad de las tarjetas y están muy interactivas.

También tienen shows para toda la familia, fuimos a 2 de 3, uno de aves que disfrutamos mucho y uno de gladiadores que M salió queriendo tomarse foto con ellos y no ha parado de jugar a ser gladiador y saludar a otros como soldado romano.

Esta visita fue como un preámbulo para aprender sobre Italia al día siguiente.

La verdad es que la visita al parque fue una grata sorpresa porque no esperaba estuviera tan interesante. Las réplicas son muy lindas y reales y tienen gente que está actuando y haciendo trabajos de época según donde estén. Todos nos la pasamos de lujo. Realmente lo recomiendo y si van, recuerden llevar snacks, y mucha bebida sobre todo si van en verano. También puedes entrar con tu propia comida y hay mesas de picnic en varios lugares. Fue un buen día en familia, M quiere volver así que seguro volveremos pronto.

Mexican Recipe: ChilliDogs

I have been asked or told in occasions by non Mexican people to make chili con carne because they think it’s mexican. According to Wikipedia (LOL) it’s origin is Texan and they do have a lot of true Mexican influence in their cuisine but in my opinion Mexican American food can’t be considered Mexican food but TexMex which in other post I remember explaining it would be a whole different thing and it is also delicious but not commonly what a Mexican living abroad is looking for.

Anyways, the recipe I’m about to share is very similar to Chili con Carne but it is Mexican at least it’s very popular in some regions in the north part of Mexico specially Monterrey, where I’m from and it is served mostly at children’s birthday parties for the merienda (meal around 4 PM only given at these events)

I recently made it for my daughter’s 1st bday, as I did for my son’s 1st bday 4 years ago. So here it is. The ingredients are for a big, BIG crowd, so size them down to your needs.

Ingredients

2 kilo ground beef

4 onions

4 garlic cloves

6 tomatoes

5 big cans of brown beans (bruine bonen from AH)

2 medium cans of chili beans

15 to 20 sausages

250 gr of bacon in blocks

1 bottle of ketchup

1/2 cup of sugar (or more to taste)

1/4 cup of jalapeños vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons of dry cilantro

2 tablespoons of dry peterselie

Procedure

Chop the onions, garlic, tomatoes and sausages and have them ready on the side.

On a deep pan (I used the biggest from Ikea, that holds 10 liters) start cooking the bacon and wait some time and add the onions and garlic until it the bacon has become a bit crunchy. Then add the beef and cook normally until its completely brown.

Add the sausages and cook too.

Then add all the beans and mix.

Add the vinegar and ketchup. Taste.

It should be sweet but not too much. If it still taste like beans add the sugar and keep tasting until it’s sweet to your taste.

Then add the spices and mix well. Taste until its good for you.

This is normally served in Monterrey inside a bread like the witte puntjes they sell here. Open carefully just from the middle, do not open like a hotdog but more like a canoe, just to fill the inside so it doesn’t come out and make a mess. In kids birthday parties is served together with jello and chips.

Renovating myself

It’s been a long time since I write mainly because I have been going through so much that I haven’t had a time to sit and write.

When the year started I wanted to do so many things and so many projects were in my thoughts, but also I was holding on to stuff that didn’t let me go through. I was a bit anxious, lonely, depressed, stressed, overwhelmed, tired but with a positive attitude about overcoming all this and succeed.

I had to break up with these things and reorganize my thoughts about myself, my projects and let go.

When I finally said goodbye to what was holding me, I felt free. It wasn’t a one time thing, I had to quit to projects, I had to take decisions, I had to let go of friendships and accept my present, my today, myself as I am and look at the moment.

Motherhood has been hard for the past year and some months. Life has been busy, I had let go of myself and I was drowning. I had to recover myself in order to serve my family properly. In order to put my dreams into actions.

It’s happening people. For some time now, I have felt free, I am rediscovering myself, I am accepting who am I now, and also working on my own personal projects. I’m learning from my mistakes, I’m maturing and growing into a better me. My children are more relaxed, cooperating, feeling loved and I’m enjoying them as I used to, not feeling overwhelmed by what I think people say or react towards them or my parenting, but just focusing on their needs and prioritizing them. It made a difference. I’m busy growing my business which is something I love doing and it’s my thing, it’s my moment when I feel myself, and looking into how can this become a real full time job and generate a proper income to modify it from a hobby to a way of living.

Everything that led to this moment was meant to be. It took me in the right direction to look for God and search for help. I have been for the past 2 or 3 weeks working on renovating my home but if I’m being honest, the renovations that take place and can be seen on the outside are happening too on the inside. Every time I rearrange a room, a box of utensiles, every time I clean a shelf and organize the stuff on it and get rid from the ones I don’t need or bring me bad memories or simply doesn’t serve to any purpose, I realize, that I’m feeling lighter. It brings a sense of peace and order in my mind and therefore in my house so it’s kind of a two way action.

I won’t lie and I’m not yet in the place I want to be but I’m working so hard on setting the right atmosphere at my heart to reflect it in my home and in what I do and viceversa. I’m working extra hard on keeping my mind in line and not letting anything disturb it. I’m working in not loosing myself but in bringing me back and don’t let the past haunt me and stop me from being the chatty, sparkly, high energized always doing something woman, creative dreamer and extrovert I normally am.

I always think, if I were in Mexico, would I be going through all this? My answer is no. So this is kind of part of the expat life for me. It never hit me this hard until now. Being alone, without help, without my family and tribe makes it even harder cause I can’t have a day to just rest and be me. I’m a mom 24/7 and can never get a chance to send them to grandma and just reset. It’s just hard. I slowly started to go out with my friends for dinner recently but I took the youngest because she just doesn’t drink formula and would scream bloody murder until she cries herself to sleep if I don’t nurse her. I need to go out, I know if I were in Mx, I would leave her with my mom and go for a drink with my friends or my husband. I haven’t been me in a while and recovering myself will take time, self love and lots of patience from myself and from the people here who really care for me. They have been supportive even though actually no one knows I’m going through all this.

So I’m in the process of renovating the house but also myself. And here is a photo of how it is coming along.

Blue corn Tacos

Today I’m sharing with you 2 very easy recipes for tacos. One is a vegetarian recipe and the other is not.

Today I was gonna make meat with something else for dinner but then the post man arrived with a surprise: blue corn tortillas made by my friend Angie. She sells the best tortillas in my opinion really. I’ve been buying from her for like 2 or maybe 3 years now and I’m always happy with them. But now I wanted to try the blue ones and they are amazing… So yummy.

So I changed my menu and made ‘Rajas con queso’ and ‘carne picada’. Here is what you need.

ingredients.

4 punt paprika’s

1 big onion or 2 small

1 small can of corn

1 bag of shredded cheese.

A piece or meat that doesn’t have lots of fat.

Tortillas from La Tradicional

Salsa (I use the red salsa from La Morena)

Lemon

Onion and coriander finely chopped.

Salt and pepper

Preparation

First, prepare the punt paprika’s the same way as we did for the Pastel Azteca. So, burn the skin completely, rest in a plastic bag for 10 minutes, take off the burn skin and cut in stripes.

Now, while the punt paprika’s rest, cook the meat. Look at the photo to see the kind of meat I used. I honestly never look at the names of the pieces but I just know how they look. This one is like a steak but has no fat and it’s also not used for shredding. You can grill it and then leave it to rest until you are ready to mince it in the food processor.

Also saute some onions like in the picture below.

By then the punt paprika’s should be peeled and cut. Add them to the onions together with the corn and mix. Add the cheese, lower the fire and cover with lid until the cheese has melted.

Season everything to your taste with salt and pepper.

Heat the pan (I have an authentic Comal) and warm up the tortillas turning sides until they are soft.

Serve in the tortillas, but see, here is how…

the ‘rajas’ which is the name of the vegetarian dish, you just serve it like that on the tortilla and add salsa if you like.

The beef tacos, you serve the minced meat, then add the mix of onions and cilantro, squeeze some lemon juice, add some salt and salsa and enjoy. These last ones are actually street tacos. Delicious! They really were delicious. My son ate 3 tacos!!!

If you like the recipe please make a comment and share with others the joys of Mexican food. Don’t keep it to yourself! 😂

33 years

Today is my bday.

I’m 33 years old now… I don’t feel 33, sometimes I feel 21, others I feel 35. I get a little philosophical when it’s my bday, you know because it’s an end of something and a new beginning.

In 33 years of life I have been incredibly blessed with so many things and through so many people. I have also been challenged by so many situations, by so many people and some of these challenges I overcome, others I don’t and I keep going through them probably cause I haven’t passed the test.

All of these experiences of life leave me something. I consider myself a very positive person but I do have a depressive side of me that sometimes pulls me and want to take over the normal, positive, happy, dreamer, everything-is-possible-me. Normally this area of my personality comes through when a challenge of life becomes too much for me or its emotionally too hard for me to overcome. I’m going through a challenge I keep having every certain years and each time I do learn something but apparently I need to learn more. The last time was almost 12 years ago. It’s about relationships and every time it happens it hurts me and shakes me.

Today is my birthday, I’m 33 and while I nurse my baby to sleep, I keep thinking on these past experiences because they do something inside of me. I need to learn once and for all the lesson because I don’t want to go through them again in 5 years or 12 or 20 years and also because I need to prepare my kids properly for the world. I just want to stop this cycle and be mindful about my friendships, my reactions, and just have peace in my mind and heart.

A birthday is like a personal new year. I did make some new years resolutions but never put them into paper. So I want to write down my new year/birthday resolutions. They are in no particular order of importance. I want to do them all.

1. I will do anything I have to do to be emotionally healthy.

2. Focus on my personal goals including being the best mom I can be to my 2 kids, be a better wife and woman and treat myself gently.

3. Organize myself better to accomplish these goals and keep track of my plans.

4. Be healthy physically, emotionally and spiritually.

5. Shake off the bad experiences and negative comments about myself, my family or what I do. I can’t control how people think or talk about me but I can control my reaction to them.

6. Do more of what makes me happy, that is baking, crocheting, reading novels, watching movies, working out, blogging and basically anything that keeps me busy and happy.

7. Use my talents to help others.

8. Be creative

9. Be kind and gentle first to myself and then to others.

10. Do more outdoors activities with my kids.

11. Get into a routine for my social online life to achieve my blogger and networking goals.

12. Get back into my biblical Journaling and personal Bible study.

13. Invest more into my positive friendships.

14. Administer my business better to grow it and enjoy its fruits.

15. Get closer with my family.

16. Write on a journal.

17. Enjoy alone time with my husband.

18. Don’t let the hardships of life turn off my light.

19. Put everything in the hands of God and let things takes their place and time to work out everything. That means not rush into anything

20. Worry less about what people will think or do or say or feel, if I’m not doing it with a bad intention or to hurt anyone, specially if it stops me from being happy or doing something I like or just being myself. If they can’t handle me, then they are not good for me.

I think those are mainly the things I will work on and hopefully this new year that I start will be better than last year and that this challenge Im still overcoming can be passed and I won’t ever have to go through it again.

This birthday had some bittersweet moments but I will take the sweetness and print it in my memory and therefore I will only say the positive, I have had 33 wonderful years and for real I’ve had one of the best days today with my family in a long time. They showered me with love and spoiled me and I received some very special treats from very special people too. God even gave me snow for my bday and I spent the best weekend with my 2 cubs and my loving husband.

Happy birthday to me, may this year be even more blessed than the one I just ended.

Fantastic Bake along – Ode to Chocolate

“Anything is good if it’s made of chocolate” – Jo Brand

This month’s bake along hosted by Tracy from a it’s a sweet day was in charge of Tami from Tangle Wood Knots and the challenge was to make any chocolate recipe you like. Well, I’m not exactly a fan of chocolate things in general… But I love chocolate cakes or brownies whenever you need a glass of milk to down it. And the following recipe is like that. This cake was my most sold out cake when I was in Monterrey and I made cakes as a side business. My mom found this recipe in 2007 and told me to do in for my boyfriend, now my husband. It is super easy even though it does have a lot of steps.

Ingredients:

For the cake batter you need:

1 stick of unsalted butter

3 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 1/4 cup of milk

1 cup of all purpose self rising flour

1/2 cup of cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

For the icing you need

200 ml of whipped cream (here is called slagroom, and it’s not whipped but you have to whip it your self)

1 envelope of klop fix which is a stabilizer

3/4 of cream cheese package

1/4 cup of powder sugar

Other ingredients

Besides you will need a chocolate ganache which I did this time using chocolate paste and milk but you can use your favorite recipe.

Also you need strawberries, and sliced almonds.

Preparation

For the bread you can watch out live video, it’s in Spanish though but I made it this time into muffins. First you cream the butter and sugar and then add the eggs 1 by 1.

Then add the dry ingredients and finally the milk. Set them in the muffin tray previously prepared with butter and flour so the muffins don’t stick and put them into the pre heated oven at 180 Celsius degrees.

Bake for approximately 15 to 20 minutes until you know they are done by sticking a knife and it comes out clean.

Once they are done, take them out and let them cool completely.

Put in the freezer a bowl and the paddles that you will use to whip the cream. Now this is very important, they must be super cold if you are doing it, if you have the whipped cream like the heavy cream kind not the one that melts that usually goes in the pies… Anyways… If you do it from. The beginning you need to start mixing and exactly at 45 seconds add the stabilizer… Then mix until you reach 2 mins and 30 seconds and stop. Add the cream cheese and with a hand whisker mix it well and add the powder sugar until you get this consistency.

Then decorate with it the cupcakes or cake and add the ganache, strawberries and almonds like this.

And that’s it… Enjoy!

Mexican Recipe: Pastel Azteca

I would say there are two categories regarding Mexican Food, like real Mexican food, not including texmex because that’s another story.

First we have the culturally traditional, fancy if you want, complicated recipes, known by every Mexican such as Tamales, Cochinita Pibil, enchiladas, sopes, Mole, Chile en Nogada and much more which are internationally known and admired in the gastronomical world. These are eaten on special occasions such as independence day, Christmas maybe and other celebrations. These are the meals I miss and try to eat at least once every time I am in Mexico as cooking them outside is hard cause you need lots of very local ingredients. But then you also have the home traditional meals, regional and different for every state and city in our country. The ones, your mom used to cook cause are passed on by generations, the ones that vary from one family to the other even though it’s the same recipe and they don’t stop from being real Mexican food.

The recipes Im sharing and adapting to the dutch ingredients or better said to ingredients that can be easily found here are in this last category. They are Mexican, but not the kind you will always find in a restaurant but the ones our people truly eat at home regularly, for instance like picadillo.

And the recipe I’m sharing today, my dear readers, is my favorite… Well, one of my favorites to be fair. It is called Pastel Azteca, which translated literally would be Aztec Cake. It’s like a Mexican lasagna.

My friend Diana, requested this recipe and I have to say, it is not very easy to find all of the ingredients here but thanks to the internet you actually CAN find them all and I’ve got you covered if you want to give it a try cause I will mention every seller who has said materials. Click on the links to find out.

Let’s get started.

Ingredients for 4 to 6 people.

16corn tortilla (the real ones not the ones from the supermarket)

3 chicken breasts boiled and shredded.

4 puntpaprika cooked and cut fajita style. (the original recipe is with poblano pepper)

2 small onions sliced

Lots of cheese to your taste

Tomatillo sauce or in case of not finding it, then use tomato sauce made by boiling and blending 3 tomatoes, 1 small onion and 2 garlic cloves with salt.

Optional: sour cream and corn

Don’t forget the salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:

This time I didn’t have my tortillas made so I had to make them from scratch by using Maseca and following instructions in the package. You need a special device to make them flat and round and a pannenkoek pan in case you don’t have a real ‘comal’.

And also the punt paprika is prepared in advance by burning the skin, then setting them in a bag to steam for about 10 minutes and then clear them from burned skin, take off the stem and the seeds and slice. After that, saute the onions in a pan together with the punt paprika and you are ready to go.

When you have all the ingredients ready the steps are quite easy. Set a bed of tortillas in a baking bowl like in the picture. Then spread a layer of chicken, the punt paprika-onions and cheese. Here you can also add a bit of cream and corn if you like and cover in some of the sauce. I used two packs of sauce for this recipe. Then add more layers in this order, tortilla, chicken, punt paprika and onions, cheese and sauce until you end up with only tortillas and cheese and cover up in sauce.

Put in the oven covered with foil paper until the cheese melts and not burn like mine (baby was crying so I left it a bit longer and forgot the foil paper but still good, only the top cheese was burned 😂)

When you take out of the oven, cut it as if it was a lasagna and enjoy. If you are like me, I add more cheese and more sauce at the end and put it 30 seconds in microwave to melt the last layer of cheese. I love everything super cheesy. That’s it.

Please let me know if you made it and what do you think. I would love to read your comments. Tot ziens!

Fantastic Bake Along: Mary Berry Gingersnaps

This is my first bake along since my friend Lucia from Crochet, Knit and moretold me about it. We share a lot of common interests and when she told me about this I knew I had to be part of it. And it’s funny because around the time she told me, I was already thinking on looking for some baking lessons or courses to improve my baking skills. I’ll tell you more about it on other posts in the future.

The fantastic bake along is hosted monthly by Tracy from Its a sweet day. Since I follow her almost 2 or 3 months ago, the recipes look yummy but I haven’t had the time to make them. And this week I was a bit busy that only today I could give them a shot.

The recipe for this month was given by Rebecca@Twinklehook. She had chosen to make the Ginger Snaps by Mary Berry who is a judge on “The Great British bake off”. Now, I know the show but I only watch it when I’m in London which is like once a year maybe (because I tag along with my husband’s business trips). Anyways, my friend Lucia also told me “It’s Mary Berry! ” like I’m suppose to know her, but she is surrounded by British so to her its a well known name, so it was funny because for me it was like hearing any other name, so I googled her and then I remembered seeing her on the show the 3 times I’ve watched it.

But without more storytelling here is the recipe I followed.

Mary Berry’s Ginger Snaps

• 60g butter plus extra for greasing
• 90g golden syrup
• 125g self raising flour
• 2tsp ground ginger
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
• 1tbsp caster sugar

1. Grease baking trays
2. Combine butter, golden syrup in a small sauce pan and heat until melted. Leave to cool slightly.
3. Sift flour, spices and bicarb into bowl. Stir in sugar, add the cooled syrup mix and stir to make a soft but not sticky dough.
4. Roll dough into balls of the size of walnuts and Place well apart on baking tray, flatten the balls slightly.
5. Bake in preheated oven 190 degrees for about 15 minutes.

I was happy as none of the ingredients were complicated and I already had most of them at home except for the golden syrup which is one I have never heard before. So I went shopping and looked for it but only found other kinds of syrups so I took the one that looked golden (silly me but I’m very practical so when I don’t find something I substitute it for what I think will work in a similar way) I used Agave syrup which it’s also supposed to be healthy so there, these are healthy cookies so no guilt while eating them.

The steps to make the cookies were easy to follow and I only got confused on the temperature of the oven since it said degrees and being used to American terminology I assumed it was Fahrenheit but Lucia again got me out of my doubts and told me Britain also uses Celsius. You see, always learning… Love it!

Now with the right temperature the 2nd batch of cookies turned out amazing: crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. They taste like Christmas which is perfect, cause you know, I love everything Christmas. The house smelled lovely while they were in the oven. It gave a nice atmosphere inside for a cold winter day.

I’m gonna make them again for sure and will be added to my recipe book where I’m saving and collecting all the yummy recipes I’m learning during my wife and mom years to pass on to my children some day.

For now, I’ll grab another cookie, drink a sip of my tea and crochet while binge watching Friends on Netflix.