Cherry blossoms

We went to Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park at Southwest Portland last Saturday. We are lucky to see the cherry blossoms on a sunny afternoon. As  stated in weather forecast, it will be sunny from 12 noon to 3pm.

Sakura....

MS was busy looking at the ship.

The three girls having fun with their friends, YJ & YY.

Mum, can we pick up the flowers?

We are tired running around, chasing each others. Taking a rest under the sakura tree.

Walking along the river.

After viewing the beatiful scenary, we wanted to look for oodoo donuts, that we saw in food network last few weeks. Passed by the morning market.

Wow, It was a loooong queue. It will be about 45 minutes waiting. We decided not to try this time as the girls were quite tired after spending a few hours in the park. Next time!

Yesterday morning, while we are preparing for breakfast, ES took out her April homework. One of the activities is she has to draw her favourite animals and write a story about it. She drew an orca. But she did not write any story about it. Infact, she wrote a story about her Sakura trip!

This is what ES wrote:

Yesterday I visit the sakura trees. It was fun. My friend was there. We played near the trees. We sit on the rock. We took pictures. I pick three flowers. I gave it to my friend, she gave me a smile. I eat a donut.

Cupcake Friday: Raspberries Poppy Seed Cupcake

Baked some raspberries poppy seed cupcakes last two days, with raspberries cream cheese filling and raspberries buttercream frosting. Was totally amazed by the natural colour produced by raspberries when mixed with butter for the buttercream frosting. It gave a nice pinkish colour, without adding artificial colouring, that is what we are looking for.

Raspberries buttercream frosting:

Ingredients:

1 stick of unsalted butter

1 cup of powdered sugar

3 teaspoons of raspberries puree

a pinch of salt

Methods:

(1) Beat butter in an electric mixer for a minute.

(2) Add salt.

(3) Add sugar.

(4) Add in raspberries puree and mixed till desired consistency is reached. The frsoting should be nice and thick.

Made another design for my girls for today's breakfast, with a heart shape on top.

Mushroom soup with sourdough bread

Always tempted to make a bowl of mushroom soup, but keep on delaying. As we are having vegetarian meal on Friday, I made this when the girls went to school.

During dinner, I prepared a bowl of mushroom soup for everybody. Did not brought out any bread as they already have potato wedges and vege pipe rigate. When ES saw this, she went into the kitchen quietly. Then, she brought back a slice of sourdough bread, wanted to dip in the soup. Haha, mushroom soup have to come with a slice of sourdough bread. The tangy taste of sourdough bread really yummy after dipped into the soup. MSLS too, enjoyed the soup with bread.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

 15 ounces fresh white mushrooms ( slice into 1/4 inch thick )

1 cup chopped yellow onion

1 carrot, chopped

1 teaspoon thyme

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups chopped leeks, white and light green parts (2 leeks)

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup dry white wine ( I omitted this )

1 cup half-and-half

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

Methods:

(1) To make the stock, heat olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in a large pot. Add the chopped mushroom stems, the onion, carrot, thyme, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and cook over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until the vegetables are soft.
Add 6 cups water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Strain, reserving the liquid. You should have about 4 1/2 cups of stock. If not, add some water.

(2) Meanwhile, in another large pot, heat the remaining 1tbs butter and add the leeks. Cook over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until the leeks begin to brown. Add the sliced mushroom caps and cook for 10 minutes, or until they are browned and tender. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the mushroom stock, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the half-and-half, cream, and parsley, season with salt and pepper, to taste, and heat through but do not boil. Serve hot.

A surprise from ES

ES requested for some colour papers yesterday. She wanted to make us " something ", and I was not allowed to see what she is doing.

The flower beside ES is from our backyard.

She made an envelope, and there are two notes in it.

To mom, I love you

To dad, I love you

While she was working on her important task, I made some sourdough buns ( for duo cheese steak burgers ) and baked sourdough donuts for this morning's breakfast. The girls prefer the baked donuts rather than the burger, even though I made them some mini burgers. Think they are still learning how to eat burger as a whole. They always separate it into vege, meat, buns and have it one by one.

Sourdough breads

Sourdough Cranberries and Walnut Bread

Jumbo walnuts were added into the bread.

Basic Sourdough bread

We had been baking loaves of breads at home every week. Since we started making our own sourdough starter, we had been baking some tangy taste and chewy texture of sourdough breads. During our visit to San Francisco last year, we maanges to visit one of the famous bakery, San Francisco bakery. San Francisco sourdough is the most famous sourdough bread made in the U.S. today. In contrast to sourdough production in other areas of the country, the San Francisco variety has remained in continuous production since 1849. Sourdough also became popular because of its ability to combine well with seafoods and soups such as cioppino, clam chowder, and chili.

What is so great about sourdough:

(1) It is delicious and has a unique flavor

(2) With sourdough bread, complex carbohydrates are broken down into more digestible simple sugars and protein is broken down into amino acids. Enzymes develop during proofing which are not lost in baking since the center of the loaf remains at a lower temperature than the crust. It’s the fermentation, partly from lactobacillus, that makes eating good quality bread an aid to digestion of all complex carbohydrate foods including other grains, beans, and vegetables. It helps restore the functioning of the digestive tract, resulting in proper assimilation and elimination.

Sourdough makes certain minerals (iron, zinc, magnesium, and others) in whole grains more available for absorption by our bodies by facilitating the breakdown of phytic acid, a compound in grain bran that inhibits mineral absorption.

It is more digestible for those with gluten sensitives and removing anti-nutrients.

(3) Sourdough bread has a lower glycemic index — a measure of how high and how quickly blood sugar spikes after eating a food — than bread made with commercial yeast. This makes it a better choice for people with, or at risk for, diabetes.

(4) longer shelf-life.  Sourdough bread does not mold as quickly as other breads as the fermentation acts as a natural preservative.

Baking a sourdough bread really needs time, patience and planning as it need more than 10 hours, and sometimes more than a day for making a bread!

                                         

Sourdough Hearty Buns

Baked some sourdough hearty buns as a surprise for the girls,  with homemade strawberry jam and cream cheese filling.  

Snowing in Spring?

First day of Spring falls on 20th March. However, It was still snowing on Wednesday night ( 21st March ) and the snow accumulated till Thursday morning.

In front of our house.

The garbage truck came once a week. Snow covering the garbage bins as we usually put in front of our house the night before.

From the side window.

At our backyard.

The girls usually wake up quite early.

" It's snowing again." they said.

We went out to the backyard and had some fun.

Grabbing snow from the tree. 

 The girls footsteps

What are they looking at?

" Snow covering our grass." ES said.

ES said she is making a tunnel.

We build a small snowman. 

We brought the snowman into our house. MSLS were so excited, and they wanted to " destroy" it.

ES was rushing to school in the morning. I " reserved" a small snowman for her, to give her a surprise when she is back from school. She was so excited when she saw the snowman and started to decorate her snowman.

However, she was sad that the snowman is melting after awhile as the weather is not that cold in the evening,