Baking Attempt

This is my first attempt at Challah bread. I didn't know that it was a Jewish bread until tonight, but that is okay, I have always seen it, thought it was pretty, and wondered if I could make it. Well, now I know I can! I made it tonight for dinner with the Bakker family, and it was good. It is a kind of sweet bread, it calls for a half a cup of sugar, but it was yummy. Kinda like Hawaiian bread or something. I think it will be fantastic for French toast or even just toasted with butter and jam in the mornings. In France this is kinda what the bread tastes like there. And Lavar usually likes that bread, so maybe this will be a hit with him also. I saw on some blogs the other day that there are some people that do what they call the BBA challenge. It is the Breadmaker's Apprentice challenge. The Breadmaker's Apprentice is a book that has a bunch of bread recipes. I would LOVE to do that and I think I will, maybe soon. But for now I have my certain recipes that I am sticking to and I haven't finished all in the book, so that should be my first goal. The book I use is called A Passion for Baking by Marcy ... something. I love that book, most everything in there is good, so far, and I have baked a fair share. My new thing now is going to be making sure that I have fresh bread to give to people that come over or when I take dinners places. I think that would be a nice touch. Anyway, that is all for now. I thought I would post the pictures because I am proud of my bread!

International Cuisine: Bahamas night

Okay so I had a new idea the other day. I decided to combine two of my most favorite things: food/cooking and family. Maybe initially it sounds a little weird so I am going to let you know how it started. As you might know, I love to cook. I don't think I ever tire of it. I could bake all day for someone else, and then still make dinner for the family. So this last trip to the Bahamas, I asked my mother-in-law to pack up some good Bahamian food, including Lavar's favorite, conch, so I could try it out in the states. Well we have been back for a couple weeks now and I have been looking for a day to try it. I thought today would be great. So we invited our friends Paul and Tanesha with their two kids, Isaiah and Nadia over for dinner, along with my brother, parents, and our friend Bri. I made Cracked conch (deep fried conch), BBQ chicken, grouper (fish), corn, Bahamian Mac n Cheese, and rice. It was good! I did it! Lavar liked it, which was the big challenge! Now I know that I could live in the Bahamas if we ever did move there. SO going back to my thought. While I was cooking the other day, I saw a box of tempura batter in the cupboard. I said to my mom that we should have a family get together, once a month, and each month it should be a different type of international cuisine. We have a well traveled family, so we thought this would be fun. I also would love to learn different things about different countries and the way that they prepare their meals. So it was decided then. Next month, inspired by the tempura batter, is going to be Japanese! I don't think I have ever really had Japanese food, so this should be interesting, but I know that I will have a blast trying. I told my brother and sister-in-law and they would like to come up for as many as they can as well. So this should be a fun new tradition that we start. Hopefully it pans out. I am not sure how well it will work when my immediate family leaves the country, but hopefully they will carry it on without me. We will definitely do Japanese before we leave... I hope. I attached some pictures of tonights Bahamian dishes.

Sophia Amberly Lantz

Today we had a new addition to the large and continuously growing Larson/Lantz/Beauchamp/Durso/Thomas (am I leaving anyone out?) clan. Little Sophia Amberly Lantz was born to Amber and Jeremy Lantz this morning at 6:26am weighing 7lbs 8oz and is 21 inches long. She is a beautiful little girl making it 3 girls for the Lantz family. They are such a cute family and are so excited to welcome her into the world. She has big hands and feet, I didn't get to see the feet, they said they were big, and is rather tall! Tae was also 21 inches when he was born! I love that the rest of our family is going to be tall also, even though the majority of them are girls, it will be good that Tae won't be totally out of place! We are breeding tall people! Well it was very exciting. I love my family so much, and am truly proud of every member, extended and immediate. The Lord has blessed us beyond our imagination! I will put up more pictures when I have them.

Emily Beaty's Shower

My mom and I just put together a shower for Emily Beaty welcoming her new baby girl, Aubry Beaty. As always, my mom and I had a lot of fun coming up with creative ways to pull it all together. We did a strawberry pink with a lighter pink and brown. Personally I thought it was so cute she needed to do her nursery in those colors!! But if I have a baby girl, I will end up using them, so I guess it is good she didn't. This time around I was responsible for all the food which might seem like a huge burden for some people, but I LOVE it! I baked a sourdough breadbowl from scratch, which was so fun, bruschetta, a pecan-strawberry-feta cheese salad with homemade dressing that I made, and a chinese chicken salad with homemade salad dressing. The second was a little spicy, but people said they liked it. Next time I would use half the chili-garlic sauce to take some of the zing out of it. Then for dessert I made a vanilla cake with black raspberry reserves in the middles layers and Chambord Liqueur frosting. That was fun. I also had little "strawberry creams" they were called. I thought they were cute, they were in little glasses that were so cute and we got them at the dollar store! Anyway, it was so fun, and I would love to be doing this more often. We will see if I get some opportunities in the future. People are amazed that I enjoy it so much and that it isn't a complete burden! So pass my name along! Hopefully, Emily enjoyed the shower, she got some good stuff. I think she is due early September, so that is exciting! She looks fabulous, too, not like she is 9 months pregnant!

Inspired!

Okay, so along with probably the majority of the women who saw Julie and Julia, I have been inspired. Partially because I love cooking, yes, but mostly because I want to keep better track of my life and my memories. I have a crazy wonderful life and a horrible memory! If I don't write these things down there really is not much hope of me remembering them later. What I love about Julia Child and Paul Child (her husband) is that they wrote letters when they were in Europe, back to their family and friends in America and that is what they used to remember their time in France when writing My Life in France. Well, it is 2009 and blogs are the "it" thing. I think this well help me be in touch with family and friend and update people about anything new in our lives! As of now, we are in Simi Valley waiting to see where Lavar's next team will be. It is between Spain, Germany, and Turkey I think, they have shown interest but made no offers. So we will see!