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Challah, apples and lots of honey – Rosh Hashana 2009/5770

Posted on September 22, 2009 10:32 am by TheAngelForever

The boys and I went to my parents house for dinner Saturday evening to celebrate Rosh Hashana together. Shhh. . . don’t tell anyone that I took photos, but I did.

Before we sat down the eat, the boys played for a little while. They had fun running around. The little guy was not as thanks to a nap after his meltdown at temple. NHL and JSL had a lot of jump tackling Daddy on the ground.

Soon it was time to sit down at the table to eat. Here is a look at everything that we had from start to finish:

1. Almost ready to eat, 2. Round challah with raisins, 3. Delicious chicken, 4. Green beans, 5. Corn and couscous, 6. Apple turnover Not pictured are the rainbow cookies that I splurged and bought. They were eaten rather quickly.

The boys both had fun dipping their apples in honey. JSL was a little confused about the sticky "dip-dip" as he calls it.

NHL was enjoying his honey so much, that he opted to have some challah with the sweetness on top as well.

We all enjoyed our meal, dessert and then it was time to head home. Nana requested a photo of the two boys with the shorts that they had given them. Do you think the boys were willing subjects? Here are two photos to answer this question.

Exhibit 1:

Exhibit 2:

Did you really expect anything different?! Oh well, we tried.

Next up is Yom Kippur on Monday. We will have to see whether the little guy and I head to services. These long days in temple are tough for him with nap time and not being able to settle there.

Categories:
family food glorious food holidays jl jsl nhl photos weekend yummy

From kindergarten to babies and beyond

Posted on September 1, 2009 8:36 am by TheAngelForever

When my son started kindergarten last year, I had a secret wish in the back of my head. I hoped that he would become friends with someone and continue on through school with that child. I was lucky enough to have this when I started school all those years ago. Back in my kindergarten days I met M and we quickly became friends. She would come over to my house, I would go to her house. We traveled all through elementary school in the same class. When we went to middle school we had a few classes together, but still remained close friends. In high school it was more difficult to have the same schedules. I still recall one of my favorite classes was Pottery and Sculpture because M and I were both in that class. It was fun seeing her and chat, plus the class was relaxing compared to all of the other academics within the day.

When we graduated from high school M went off to college not too far from here and I stayed at a local school. Time slipped by and we would e-mail each other every so often. When M was done with school she moved across the country. When she came back to visit several years later we got together. Many years had gone by, but we picked up our special friendship where it had left off. When M and her husband moved to Europe for a while we stayed in touch online. After that adventure they came back and settled in this area.

On Sunday I went to M’s baby shower. She and her husband F are expecting their first little one in just a few weeks. Each time I was introduced to someone we explained how we met in kindergarten. It made me smile and think of what an accomplishment that is. M and I may not see each other as much as we did when we were little, but our friendship has lasted over two dozen years – that is saying something.

M has watched me as I became a mother and now I will be able to see her in that new role. I look forward to meeting her little one and watching him/her grow up.

Moosekin, I wish you and F only the best as you begin this new adventure in life. I know that both of you are going to be amazing parents. Remember to enjoy this special time, learn as you go along and savor the moments because they truly grow up too quickly. It seems like just yesterday when we were in kindergarten together and look at us now!

Categories:
friends fun looking back me moments weekend yummy

Chinese food at home with Wanchai Ferry frozen entrée – Giveaway

Posted on August 30, 2009 8:08 pm by TheAngelForever

Chinese food is one of my absolute favorite items to splurge with and eat out. Of course, these days we do this less frequently thanks to budgets and trying to save money.

Recently, I was asked by My Blog Spark to review a sample of the new Wanchai Ferry frozen entrée. I thought it sounded like a great concept and wanted to try it.

Each frozen entrée has all the ingredients needed to prepare a great-tasting, complete Chinese meal for 2 in only 14 minutes! They come in five delicious flavors including Orange Chicken, Shrimp Lo Mein, Spicy Garlic Chicken, Sweet & Sour Chicken and Sweet & Spicy Shrimp. Additionally, all of the entrees have no added MSG!

I was sent a package of the Orange Chicken variety along with a Wanchai Ferry "Stay-At-Hom" prize pack (one being offered to a lucky reader here on The Angel Forever – please see details below). Thursday, the boys and I went to spend the afternoon with my mother. I brought along my Orange Chicken package to make for the two of us for lunch.

When I opened up the package there was a sauce packet, microwave rice steam bag, vegetables and package with chicken.

First, I heated some oil in a pan and tossed the chicken in to brown up. This only took 4-5 minutes.

Once the chicken was out, the veggies, sauce and some water went in for a few additional minutes to warm up. At the same time, my mother tossed the rice bag into the microwave.

The rice was finished just in time to put the chicken back in with the vegetables and sauce.

The sauce thickened up nicely and everything was ready to be plated. Here is our lunch all ready to eat:

Our thoughts:

My mother and I were the ones that ate this meal. Both of us felt that it was a nice option to have at home for a quick and easy Chinese meal. The flavor of the sauce was very good. We thought that by making it another time the speed of preparation would have been better (I was not in my kitchen – so that hindered things some). Each of us felt that we would probably like something along with the meal, soup or salad if this was going to be our dinner. My suggestion was to add some additional frozen vegetables to the sauce to make it more filling and add still keep it on the healthy side. There was plenty of sauce and we felt it would work nicely. Since we keep kosher at our house, I could see making these when I visit my parents.

Where to buy:

You can purchase your own Wanchai Ferry meals in your grocer’s frozen food section and be sure to print out a $1.50 off coupon before you go. You can also find tips to enhance your Wanchai Ferry Frozen entrée on their website.

Giveaway:

One lucky winner will receive their own Wanchai Ferry "Stay-At-Home" prize pack which includes two coupons for a Wanchai Ferry Frozen entrée of your choice and an Asian inspired meal set (pictured below):

Rules for Giveaway:

MAIN RULE – Answer one of the following questions: What is the best fortune from a fortune cookie that you ever received? OR What is your favorite Chinese Food dish?
1 Bonus Entry – Subscribe to my RSS feed (or let me know if you already are) in a separate comment.
1 Bonus Entry – Follow me on Twitter @TheAngelForever
1 Bonus Entry per day – Tweet about the giveaway. Be sure to include @TheAngelForever and Wanchai Ferry frozen entrée in the Tweet. Please leave a direct link to your Tweet in a separate comment for each daily entry.
1 Bonus Entry – Add TheAngelForever to your blog roll and leave a separate comment.
1 Bonus Entry – Add me to your favorites on Technorati. Be sure to leave your user name for me to check in.
1 Bonus Entry – Look around my blog and leave me a comment on another post. Please let me know which post you went to here so you get the bonus entry.
1 Bonus Entry – Head over to my hubby’s blog TechyDad and leave him some comment love. Be sure to let me know which post on the comments here for your bonus entry.
3 Bonus Entries – Write a post on your blog linking to my blog about the Wanchai Ferry giveaway. Be sure to leave 3 comments about this to get credit for all of your extra entries

To enter, please follow the rules above within the comment section. Contest starts today August 30th and ends at 10:59 EST on September 9, 2009. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to U.S. residents only.

Disclosure: This review and giveaway was made possible by My Blog Spark. They provided me with the package of Wanchai Ferry frozen entrée and the prize pack. The opinions of this review were mine and I received no other compensation.

Categories:
food glorious food giveaway Product review yummy

To cheesecake or not to cheesecake

Posted on August 14, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

The month of August is filled with many birthdays. First there is JL’s, then my Dad’s (Happy belated B-day on my blog Dad), and NHL’s. For JL’s birthday, he wanted to try a recipe that we found for a tie-dyed cheesecake like the one that we loved at Disney’s Pop Century Resort. The cake was decent, but did not live up to our expectations. We came up with modifications that we thought would improve the recipe. Since my father’s birthday was coming up, and he likes cheesecake, we offered to make one for him. Below is a photo of Disney’s cake and our original:

Pop Century Resort Tie Dye Cheesecake All that is left

Tuesday evening, JL and I baked another tie-dyed cheesecake altering the recipe in order to better replicate the cake from our Disney dream. Here is a look at our finished product:

JL wrote all about what we did with a lot of photos documenting the process on TechyDad. Head on over there if you would like to take a look at all of the fun we had.

So my question to you is inspired by our cheesecake baking:

What is your favorite type of cheesecake? If you are not a cheesecake fan, what is your favorite dessert?

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #61

Categories:
Aloha Friday baking food glorious food photos yummy

Amazing eggplant meal and more

Posted on August 10, 2009 6:23 pm by TheAngelForever

I will admit it, I am a very lucky woman. Why you ask? The real list would be quite long if I tried to elaborate. Today, I am thinking about dinner at our house. If you are married, does your husband cook dinner often? I can honestly say heck yes on this!

Not many wives can say that their husband does approximately 99% of the meal making for dinner. I can and am forever amazed with my husband for doing this most evenings. JL comes home from work and makes a meal, or has prepped it the night before. Seriously, he does this week in and out. I am not a huge fan of experimenting with new recipes, but JL likes to. Thanks to this, he has pretty much cooked dinner since we got married eight years ago.

We have a kosher kitchen at home. Most of our meals are meatless because of the extreme cost of kosher meat. We typically have chicken 2-3 times a month and fish 1-2 times a week. The rest of our meals are pretty much vegetarian by nature. We had been eating a lot of soy products – veggie burgers, Morning Star galore and other items like that. JL and I liked these meals, until they started to make me violently ill. I now believe that I have a soy allergy/intolerance. This puts another major kink in our menu planning. Now we are looking for recipes with lots of beans and vegetables in them.

Each week, JL and I sit down and plan out a menu and grocery list. On Saturday, we decided to try something new with the slow cooker. The dish was called Eggplant Italian and cooked for only four hours. The smell in our house was amazing and I could not wait to try this. I was not disappointed. Here is a tease of the dish.