France & Germany

For France, we had a picnic with friends in the backyard, complete with baguettes, butter, grapes, cheese, apples, chocolate and sparkling cider. We had crepes several times during the 2 weeks we spent in France. We loved them so much we now eat them regularly for lunch. We made croque monsieur for supper one night and quiche with chocolate mousse another night. The kids loved France. They would like to move there.

But again, my pics disappeared into the netherworld.

We loved the German food as well. We made chicken paprikash (Hungarian, I know) with spaetzle, but that's a normal menu item for us. So to go "all out" and have real German food, we made jaegershnitzel. It was amazing. But crazy time-consuming. And not waistline friendly. As my kids would say, "It is a sometimes food, not an all-the-time food."

Norway

For Norway, we celebrated St Lucia's day. We made peperkakor cookies and the girls dressed in St. Lucia costumes (yes, as a matter of fact, those are pillowcases with holes cut for the arms).


We had a feast of dilled fish, potato dumplings and lefse. The lefse and fish were awesome.





The dumplings were like grey, slimy balls of nasty. Avoid at all costs!

Brazil

My friend Melanie and her kids came over for our G-rated Brazilian Carnivale. We made brigadeiro, arroz branco, bohnilo de quiejo and frango assado from this site. They were pretty good. The chicken was a little gooey. I like my wings crispy, so I would use much less liquid next time. But the candies were a hit. The kids colored pictures and made Carnivale masks and flutes.

But somehow I los the pictures.

Since I spent a summer in Venezuela in high school, we also took a day trip there and made empanadas.

Mexico

So, I'm a little behind here. After studying the good ol' US of A, we moved on to Mexico (in September). We made tamales, dulce de leche bars and a pinata. My sister and her boys joined us for our "fiesta grande".

First, the pinata:
Tip #1 - Mix cinnamon into your paper maiche. It will smell less like a bowl of sick.



Tip #2 - Brooms help for painting.


Tip #3 - Consider how you will hang the pinata before it is painted and dry. We used ribbon.




The kids had a blast smacking the tar out of it.

The tamales were great. Got the recipe here: www.crockpot365.blogspot.com. The kids were really interested in making them. Until about the 3rd one. Then they ran off. They turned out really good. You will need to rotate them at some point. The ones on the bottom of our pot burned.










We made dulce de leche in the crockpot too (cans of sweetened condensed milk, covered with water, cooked on low for 8 hrs.) We spread the dulce de leche on a cinnamon graham cracker crust. Mmm.



The kids made "rope art" and tissue paper flower decorations.
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Funny

Sorry I've been gone so long. I have a ton of stuff to post, just been short on time. (Imagine that, the kids sucking up all my time...) Here's a funny of Gabe: