Celebrating 19 years of parenting

Today we're celebrating 19 years of being parents. 

Might sound a bit weird to you, but here's my reasoning. The other day I was feeling a bit sad that this is the first birthday that we won't be with our eldest son. So, I decided instead to have our own little celebration: that of becoming parents and surviving this long. It's not an insignificant achievement and worthy of a cake! We won't go as far as having candles, party food, or presents, just a simple cake.

Even if my boys think it is a little odd (only guessing, it hasn't been said), no one is about to refuse cake—special birthday-cake recipe, no less.

A birthday

It was my birthday earlier in the week. One of our boys thanked me for having it! I asked if I should have them more often and he laughed.

It was a great day. I had a couple of things planned (lunch with a friend and dinner out with the family). But there were also some fun surprises, which is always lovely on a birthday.

At breakfast I got some delightful presents, including:

Pot plant from David. I think it is in the geranium family, so that should work
well with my not-so-green thumb. Gorgeous flowers.

A minion from our youngest fun-loving son. He's delightfully soft and cuddly (the minion, not my son). The giver feels he has some claim on him...but together we've decided to call this guy "George"!

The same son also made this small card for me, I asked for an interpretation and he said it was because I was queen of the kitchen and making good food! I love it!

After they all left for school some more surprises turned up: a message from a good friend in Australia wanting to video chat and one from a local friend wondering if she could take me out for coffee. I managed to do both. And my mum messaged me before I went out for lunch wanting to book a slot to chat! So I basically was with people or talking to people pretty much the whole day. No time to contemplate how big this number that defines my age is getting.

Dinner joy was nearly sabotaged by teenage foibles...but we overcame barriers and ended up with a lovely meal at a local Italian restaurant that includes all-you-can-eat pizza. 

I love this dish. It doesn't sound great: eggplant and bacon spaghetti, but its taste and texture is perfect.

Oh, and a cake, which we don't have a photo of, because we had it after I'd showered and was in my PJs!

I felt very loved. Online too, I received greetings from about 100 people on Facebook plus some emails!

Just a lovely day, perfectly delightful. 

Whole Orange cake

I made Whole Orange Cake last weekend. Love this cake! 

The boys have, over the week, given their whole and honest appraisal of the cake. They're not so totally enthusiastic. Their main beef being that the skin of the orange is included in the cake (despite the fact that they eat orange skin in a fruit cake with no problem).

It's super quick and easy, so I thought I'd share it here.

1 medium orange (about 240g)
200g butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten lightly
1 cup (220g) white sugar
1 ½ cups (225g) self-raising flour (or same amount of plain flour plus 1 ½ teaspoon of baking powder)

Icing
2 teaspoons orange juice
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 cup (160g) icing sugar
Optional: 2 teaspoons orange rind and 2 teaspoons lemon ride

1. Grease a 20cm cake pan, line base with baking paper.
2. Wash and dry orange, cut into quarters, remove any seeds. Process in food processor until it becomes pulpy.
3. Transfer orange to a medium bowl, stir in butter, eggs, sugar, and sifted flour until smooth.
4. Pour mixture into prepared pan. 
5. Bake in a moderate oven (180C/160C fan-forced) for about 50 minutes or until cooked. 
6. Stand for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack.
7. Icing: sift icing sugar into a bowl, stir in juices. If it needs a bit more liquid, add a small amount of hot water (1 teaspoon). Stir in rind, if you're using it.
8. Spread citrus icing over cake.

Enjoy!

Celebrating

This week in September has been a week of celebrations for nearly two decades of my life now. 19 years ago yesterday David and I got married and five years later our second son was born in the same week as our anniversary. David's birthday is also next week, so it often is a busy time.

Here's our teenager's cake: It seems he's still okay with "themed" cakes, as long as he gets to eat them. Design credit goes to the maths teacher in the house (I just baked a rectangular cake and he made this out of it, and used almost all the cake)!

Our newly 14 year old doesn't like parties, but it happy to celebrate with the family. He loves chocolate, though! So on Sunday we went to a local Chocolate Cafe for morning tea after church. It was fun. We sat around the table recalling good memories we have of our son/brother.

Yesterday we had plans for the two of us to go out for our anniversary, but they blew apart when a typhoon strolled into town and cancelled the school events that our boys were going to be a part of (and eat dinner at). So we ended up back at the same shopping centre, five of us. It is big enough, though, and they are big enough, that we could eat separately. They ate in the food court on the third floor (almost) independently ordering their own food. And we had Chinese in a restaurant on the first floor. It was short and simple, but it worked. Next year for our 20th we'll have to try to come up with plans that are a little more fancy . . . and robust.

Now I need to consider what to do for David's birthday next week. He's a low-key kind of guy, much like the majority of our family. So it will probably be a quiet affair.

Sultana Carrot Cake

I posted a photo of this cake of mine on Facebook last night and someone asked for the recipe. Here it is:

Ingredients

2 eggs

1 cup* white sugar
¾ cup oil
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
1 cup plain flour
1 teasppon bi carb of soda
½ teaspoon mixed spice or cinnamon
1 cup sultanas
1 ½ cups grated carrot lightly packed (about two medium carrots)
Optional: ½ cup chopped walnuts.

Method
1. Combine the eggs, sugar, oil, essence and sifted dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat on low speed or with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth.
2. Stir in sultanas, carrot and walnuts (if using) and mix well.
3. Pour mixture into a well greased 20 cm (8 inch) tin.
4. Bake in a moderate oven for about 45 to 50 minutes.

Cream Cheese Icing

30g (1 oz) softened butter
60g packaged cream cheese
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind (optional)
1 ½ cups icing sugar

Method 1. Combine all together in a bowl, beating well.
2. Spread over cooled cake.

Enjoy!


* Australian cup = 250ml

Celebrations

It's been a little busy over the last few days. We've had a 13th birthday, a cross-country meet, and an anniversary. 

This boy was my first child to opt for a non-traditional cake for his birthday. He had a hard time deciding, but eventually chose my ultra rich chocolate cheesecake.

His "big" present was really more of a family gift. It's a board game that he can't play on his own. The boys knew we'd bought it, they convinced me back in August when we visited a board game shop downtown. They collectively decided that waiting till Christmas was too difficult, so opted to ask if we could give it to them for their brother's birthday. A little weird, but the truth is that most presents around here end up being "ours" rather than "mine". Lego's a classic in this category.

On Saturday we went to watch the older two run cross-country races, as is our usual habit in September. I'm having difficulty trying to get good photos of the boys. This time I only managed to get a back shot!

 Here's another go at the end of the race. Large swathes of beautiful green grass like this aren't common in Japan. This was a special treat. Many runners enjoyed lying down on it after their race.

On Sunday we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. Often it gets lost in the midst of a busy schedule and birthday celebrations (we have two birthdays as well as our anniversary in a space of ten days at the end of September). This time, however, it fell on a Sunday and we decided to make the effort to do something fun on our own. Mid-afternoon the boys went to the house of friends and played games/watched movies. 

We weren't sure where we were going, but hopped on the train and figured it out from there. It was unusual for us to do something with so little planning, but that added a fun element to it, one of the things we can't easily do with our boys is a trip like this without much planning. It ends up being way too stressful for all of us.

So we ended up in Roppongi, a well known area of Tokyo. There are many embassies there and the night-life is apparently popular. We were looking at trying a Swiss restaurant, but got there too early, so we wandered around till we found something both open and appealing. We ended up at an Egyptian restaurant. Trying something novel was fun.

The restaurant included a large TV screen, which was playing Sumo. We couldn't forget which country we were in.

What sort of food do Egyptians eat? We ate Nefertiti Salad, Falafel cakes, Egyptian Enchiladas, Perch, Mint Tea, and Cherry Juice. Accompanied by flat bread. Very tasty and not too much. I'd love to go back and try some other dishes, including the roast pigeon!

We decided to make it a progressive dinner and went for a stroll after our main course to find some dessert. We found a French Chocolate shop and enjoyed these ice creams, though the caramel ice-cream wasn't as sweet as I would have liked. Do French like their ice-cream on the bitter side?

18 years. Wow! What a privilege of forging a friendship and partnership over so many years. And we're looking forward to many more to come, Lord willing.

My favourite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe

On Saturday I did my usual quiet-Saturday activity of baking snacks for the week/s to come. I baked Chocolate Chip Cookies, Butterscotch Cookies and a light fruit cake called a Norfolk Vinegar Cake.

The butterscotch cookies came about because an American friend of mine had some butterscotch chips to give away that were past the use-by-date (significantly, but they still taste good), so I jumped at the chance to try them out for the first time ever.

Anyway, Lesley asked for my Butterscotch Cookie recipe. Truth is: it's my Chocolate Chip recipe with butterscotch "chips" substituted for chocolate chips and the nuts left out. My mum reckons you can't buy butterscotch chips in Australia. They look a lot like chocolate chips, and aren't hard like butterscotch lollies (US=candy).

The recipe is an Australian Women's Weekly recipe from the book "Kids' Party Food". As it is a copyrighted book, I'm not supposed to reproduce it here. I have found the recipe online in several places (legally or not, I'm not sure) here is one. By the way, I use only one cup of chocolate chips/butterscotch chips, instead of 1.5 cups.

The Norfolk Vinegar Cake is from a bona fide UK "English Tea Time" recipe book that my sister-in-law gave me when she and her British husband were moving back to Australia after living in the UK for a while. It's has the most unusual method I think I've ever seen for a cake, but it's pretty simple and works well as a substitute for those of us who have trouble getting mixed fruit.

So, we're set for at least the week to come and I'm getting lots of "we love your baking Mum" good vibes from the troops.

Party weekend

Well, no alcohol was consumed at either party on the weekend, nonetheless I'm still recovering. Maybe I am 40 after all?

My 40th party

What I valued most about my party was the time to hang out with friends. Asking others to do all the practical things about the party left me free to just interact with people, which is how I like it. I end up in a terrible tug-of-war if I'm responsible for practical details as well as an opportunity to socialise. Usually it is the practical that gets ditched and my conscientious side feels guilty later. So Saturday night was a perfect way to celebrate my birthday.

The only practical thing I did was after almost everyone had left: I vacuumed the room, then disposed of all the left-overs in our fridge and freezer.

Here are some photos:

Here's my best Japanese friend, Tako with her youngest daughter.
I met her seven years ago, when my middle son was at
Japanese kindergarten with her daughter.

The party was casual and relaxed.

Catching up with friends was the best part. In the red is my
friend Teresa who had us all laughing with some fun games
between mains and desert. 

We had a large range of ages.

I love this photo of one of the games. So nice to see busy,
often stressed missionaries, having fun. 

Games, just like the sort we used to play at church socials,
when I was a child.

This is a nice action shot. "Go Christine!" The detail I love about it is
our colleagues to the left of Christine: Tim with his hand on his wife's
leg. Sweet!

And of course, I had to give a little speech. It was very little, so small that
I forgot to thank the friends who made the party possible.
(Like Nancy, the lady on my left, who cooked all the food!)

Our youngest son's birthday party

Comparatively, the party we held the next day for our new eight year old, was very small and easy. He ended up with three guests (out of five invited), and we basically guided them in playing, outside and inside, and fed them cake and snacks. Our son had a "ten out of ten day". My most precious memory of it was his reaction when he first saw the cake we made and decorated for him. He was speechless for a time, which is unusual for him!

A gorgeous day allowed a good hour of outside play in nearby small parks. 

Here's the cake that I baked and David and I decorated together. It is a definite family tradition, and one that David and I enjoy doing together. Thankfully we had two eyes on the situation when the candles were lit, because one of the cones caught alight! We could have had a disastrous end to the party.

TMNT birthday

A huge week, as predicted! But I've made it to the end with my health intact, and finished with a bang with a family party for our youngest son.

Do you like the cake? A true family effort. I made the cake on Wednesday, my only home-based day this week. My husband made the icing last week and he with the boys put it all together this morning. The idea for the cake came from this website and the recipe to make the fondant came from here (substituting sugar dissolved in water for the corn syrup). Now we can make fondant icing (like the stuff you find on wedding cakes), we can do all sorts of things on cakes!

It was a successful birthday. He was extremely happy with his presents and loved the party. I'm feeling a very satisfied mummy tonight.

Some glimpses of Thursday

I'm exhausted. So here's a few photos from Thursday, instead of me writing much.

This is what I did most of yesterday - took piles of clothes and hung them up or folded them and put them on tables. These are winter coats, every time I went up to the sorting place there seemed to be another huge armful of them. The supply was endless.

Racks and racks of bags of all shapes an sizes. I worked on these a little too.

During the day we had PE classes generously spend their class-time with us in Thrift Shop set-up. Here my son and his friend helping with hanging up jackets (and snow suits).

It was my "baby"'s sixth birthday too. So we had to have a cake and a small family party. This is an ice-cream cake - an echidna (see here). I didn't do it, I worked at Thrift Shop until nearly 6pm. David did the cake - isn't he clever? But it was very easy - one of the easiest we've done.

Here is the birthday boy doing what we do on birthdays - taking to people on the Skype "phone". He's talking to his Nanna (my mum).

Four-year-old's Birthday

Despite the headache I had all day, we managed to give our boy a memorable birthday. He walked around all day muttering comments like, "I'm so glad it's my birthday." and "I've got two spidermen, one Lego car, a firemans' hat and coat and something else I can't remember..." To top it all off we had a family plus one party. Of course the highlight of the party was this much anticipated cake. He chose it months ago and has been drooling over the picture in the cookbook ever since. The only indication that it might not have lived up to expectations was that he didn't actually finish his slice of cake - the tip of the sword, of course. But I can kind of understand. By the time we'd eaten the food he'd selected for his birthday tea: sausages, sausages-in-bread and chips (I slipped in some salad for our artery's sake), we'd all overdosed on salt and fat. Then the cake was about 60% cake and 40% icing (and about 80% of the icing was butter), actually the tip of the cake was only about 25% cake. However, it is much easier to shape icing than sunken cake, so I don't apologise for the ratios! Nevertheless, he went to bed a happy boy. And us, tired, but happy parents.