Whaaaaaaah!
My babies have outgrown their portable cradles. They're now able to hold their heads up enough to do those little exersaucer things that I don't think are made anymore because too many babies accidentally rolled themselves down the stairs and HOW DID I EVER SURVIVE THE 80's?
Now that we've busted those out though, my boys cannot keep their butts
out of them.
The 4 year old pretends it's his space ship. The 2 year old is genuinely entertained by the attached Pooh toys.
Argh.
I think I owe ya two recipes. Did I post last week? No. Heeeeere goes.
My boys have learned what "dessert" is and of course now they ask for it every night with their supper. Most of the time I'll serve up berries or cut up an apple, but I'm all out. Sidenote- what is up with kids and apples? My boys eat like 3 a day. My 2 year old sneaks them into bed with him. It no longer grosses me out to find an old core buried in his sheets.
I had an abundance of almond milk so I figured I'd whip up an easy vanilla pudding, but with added chia seeds for a boost of fiber and healthy fats.
This recipe is pretty much the classic Betty Crocker vanilla pudding recipe that I've memorized by heart. It takes less than 10 minutes to cook, and about an hour in the fridge to cool enough.
Vanilla Chia Pudding
makes 4 servings although in the photos I've doubled the recipe
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
2 cups unsweetened almond milk (or cow's milk)
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla (or half teaspoon vanilla bean paste)
2 tablespoons chia seeds
In a small saucepan, stir sugar and cornstarch until blended. Stir in milk. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring nearly constantly. Meanwhile lightly whisk egg yolks together in a separate bowl (I like to use a Pyrex container for easy pouring- you'll learn why).
Once milk mixture comes to a boil, pour a teeny bit into the yolks and stir well. Keep adding a bit more of the hot milk into the eggs, continuously stirring. This is "tempering" the eggs- it allows them to blend smoothly into the milk mixture. If we just poured the yolks right in, they'd cook immediately and we'd get super lumpy chunky pudding. Pour the smooth egg-milk mixture back into the saucepan and boil for one more minute, stirring continuously.
Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and chia seeds. Either refrigerate as is, pour into a large bowl, or into 4 small bowls/ramekins.
Per serving: 145 calories
Okay, now that we've had our dessert first, here's another simple recipe I made for last night's dinner. I have never shared my Asian marinade recipe. It might look like it's a lot of ingredients, but it comes together SUPER easy and the amounts are also pretty slick to memorize.
Here are your players:
Sesame oil (could swap vegetable or olive oil), minced garlic, rice vinegar, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, and ginger root (or swap ginger powder). The ginger root was the product of another Wal Mart grocery fail. Who knew that 1/4th pound ginger is a massive starfish-y looking chunk?
In a 2 or 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup, add 1/2 cup sesame oil, 1/2 cup hoisin sauce, 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 teaspoon ginger. Stir together! Pour in a resealable bag! Add chicken, beef, shrimp, or tofuuuuuuuu! Can you tell I'm excited about this marinade?
My intention was to have a meal of carrot zoodles (coodles?) stir fried with the marinated tofu. After manually zoodling (coodling?) two pounds of carrots I was donnnnnne, but still didn't have enough for all of us. Ehhhh I ended up cooking some basic spaghetti pasta to help bridge the gap.
I simply added a tablespoon of oil to a large skillet, sauteed a diced onion, added my carrot zoodles and whole bag of tofu, marinade and all. I let that sizzle for a few minutes, then added the cooked noodles. If you want to thicken up your sauce, stir together a tablespoon of corn starch plus just enough water to make a milky liquid. Drizzle that over and the sauce will become thick.
Yum.
There we go- a complete meal- dessert and all!
