This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support!
Hey, Alicia here with another international recipe. Last year my family picked a country from our heritage every month and made one recipe a week from that country. It was really fun, educational, and delicious. This year we're not doing that same thing, but we still love experimenting with food from other cultures.
That's where bao, steamed Chinese dumplings, come in. My husband works at Pixar, and you may remember that short that played before Incredibles 2 called Bao. Bao (without giving anything away) is about a woman who makes bao and one of them comes to life and she basically treats this cute little dumpling as her son. The director of the short, Domee Shi, shared her mother's recipe for bao with her Pixar colleagues and an illustrated version with Time Magazine. My husband really wanted to make them because he loves Chinese food. So we did. It's a pretty simple recipe, though it can take a little time preparing the filling. The first time my husband minced everything by hand. The second time he decided to use the food processor and it was perfect. We also don't have ground pork so we used pork sausage. The dough is a very simple 3 ingredient yeast dough. The results were so wonderful. A favorite part was the fresh ginger used in the filling. Don't skip it as it really adds to the flavor. It's so good. The hardest part of the recipe is folding the dough around the filling. I was not very good at it, so mine had a lot of extra dough at the top. If my bao had come to life, it would have been a completely different short, probably in the horror genre. But they still tasted delicious! My husband got the knack for it though and made some really cute bao. Another thing is you will need a way to steam the bao, as that's how they cook. we used the basket that came with our rice cooker.
I'm not sharing the recipe directly on our page because it is Domee Shi's but you can find the illustrated version on this page and a video of YouTuber, Emmy Made in Japan, following the recipe and making the dumplings. We found the video especially helpful.
So go forth and enjoy bao. Let us know how you like it!
2 Comments
This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your continuing support!
Today for What to Read Wednesday I have an upper elementary book that all ages can enjoy: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.
Kate DiCamillo is a favorite children's author who wrote other childhood favorites such as The Tales of Despereux and Because of Winn-Dixie, both award winning novels. She also writes the Mercy Watson series for younger readers. So when my friend let me borrow The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, I knew the book was going to be great, as Ms DiCamillo doesn't disappoint.
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is about a china rabbit that lives with a girl name Abilene who loves him and dotes on him. Though Edward doesn't necessarily return the favor to the girl. Then one day he is lost and his miraculous journey starts, beginning at the bottom of the ocean, eventually finding his way to Tennessee, passing through many new and different owners. Through this physical journey he learns to love and lose and hope. It's truly a special story. I listened to it with my kids and they liked it too. At some points I shed a little tear, but I never all out bawled. The story touched my heart and I'm sure you will love it too.
Have you read any of Kate DiCamillo's other books? Will you be giving The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane a try? Let us know in the comments below!
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support.
Around Thanksgiving I made this cute poster print on Mixbook of my babies wearing sunglasses and being insanely happy about it. It was so easy to make the poster and it turned out so cute. I also loved their selection of backgrounds and layouts. It was really easy to use their upload tool and making the poster took me no time at all. I was really pleased with the quality when it came in the mail as well. Especially considering both photos were taken with cell phone cameras.
What I wasn't sure of was how to display the poster in my home! That's when I had the idea to make a magnetic poster frame. I have always loved the minimalist look of these simple wooden frames but the price tag on the bigger frames was enough to turn me away. When I saw these paint stirrers for 5 gallon buckets for less than $2 how to make one struck me like lightening. Watch the video below to see how I did it.
I love how customizable these frames are. You can use them to hold a variety of size of prints and posters. And you can paint them, use a wood burner on them, or decorate with Washi tape.
And they're the perfect thing to display my Mixbook poster prints. I can't wait to order more and change them out, because it's so easy to change the picture displayed in these frames! Some tips for making these:
With Mother's Day (and Father's Day after that) coming up this could be an easy and thoughtful gift to give to your mother or grandmother! Especially if you include a photo print, of their favorite people.
That will be especially easy right now because Mixbook is offeringup to 50% off orders until May 1st. That's tomorrow so get your orders in soon! Also if you are a new customer you can get 45% off with the code AFNEW19. Two incredible deals! If you aren't a new customer there's another code for Mother's Day that works until May 7th. MOMDAY19A will get you 45% off $139 or 40% off Sitewide
Let us know how yours turns out!
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support.
This week's What to Read Wednesday was inspired by the recent picture of a black hole's shadow. It is such a cool scientific feat. It got me thinking about other scientific discoveries and their backstories. It reminded me of a book I listened to called amzn.to/2Di6CURThe Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean.
What to Read Wednesday: The Disappearing Spoon
The full title is The Disappearing Spoon: And other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the Periodic Table of Elements. The New York Times Bestseller does just that. It's a smart book that reveals the stories that filled in the periodic table of elements. It's not just for science minded people either. No, you don't need to have a degree in chemistry to enjoy this book. Anything science related you need to know is explained in the book, but it's really more of a study of the people behind the discovery or use of the elements.
I wholeheartedly recommend The Disappearing Spoon to anyone who asks for non-fiction book recs. Everyone who read it has told me they loved it and I've seen them in turn recommend it to their friends and family. Now there's a Young Readers Edition of the book, for your aspiring scientists. And if you're looking for a book that is great to listen to on your commute this is one for you. That's how I read The Disappearing Spoon and I was looking for excuses to get in the car and drive, so I could keep listening to the book. One of my favorite stories was that of the disappearing spoon. Gallium is a metal that melts at a low temperature. So as a prank chemists would serve each other tea with a spoon made of gallium. When the drinker would use their spoon to stir their tea it would melt away in the hot liquid. So will you be reading The Disappearing Spoon? Let us know in the comments below!
|
Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
July 2024
|