Homemade French Toast Challah

For those of you in Seattle area, you should try the French Toast Challah in Portage Bay Cafe. I love love love them so much.

Finally after seeing the recipe from Kudos Kitchen by Renee, I brave myself to make one this past weekend. I  must say I am proud of myself. The challah bread was easy to make and french toast is french toast. I just thawed berry mix from Costco to add to my french toast and voilaaa.... The only thing missing from the french toast is home made whip cream. There is always next time and there will be =). Yummm...

Avocado Butter Chocolate Cookie

No butter chocolate cookie

I love avocado. When I see a post that we can replace butter with avocado - I am super excited. Then I see a lot of post on using avocado as butter for chocolate cookie. That's IT !! I am doing it.

It's so easy and it's really yummy too. Proven by my kids (seen above enjoying the cookie) and my hubby.

I used the recipes from yummyeasyhealthy.com - minus the chocolate chips.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1⅓ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• ⅓ cup coconut oil, melted
• ½ cup avocado, mashed or pureed in the food processor
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, combine the flours, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a standing mixer bowl, blend the brown sugar and Truvia. Slowly beat in the coconut oil. Add in the mashed or blended avocado, egg whites, and vanilla. Blend on low speed until smooth.
3. Add the flour mixture and chocolate chips and blend on low speed until the dough is just combined. Dough will be crumbly. Refrigerate for about 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 300º F. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Roll the dough into small balls and place on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly and bake for 17-19 minutes (do not over bake!) Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool. Enjoy!

Remlinger Farm

Summer is almost here! I am creating this year summer activity bucket list and cherishing what we did last summer.

As I go through my pics, I came across this one. We went to Remlinger Farm 2 years ago with a Groupon deal. This farm is definitely one of the biggest farm we've visited so far. Going with a 2.5 years old and 3 months old, we did not get a chance to do all of the attractions.

H was really into backhoe and transportation at that time so that's all we did. Haley really enjoys playing the manual backhoe. I don't think we've seen it in other places.

They also have petting zoo, but H was not really into petting at that time so we just stopped by. I did not recall seeing pony ride there, but I just saw it in their website now. Maybe it's new.

I love that they have food stand in the middle of the farm and that they have plenty of shaded area for me (mom carrying the baby) while dad is playing with the toddler. They also have a small farmer market section selling fruit and produce from their farm at the entrance.

Overall I think our kids was too small to fully enjoy this big farm at that time. I wonder maybe we should try this year since A and H are bigger now. I guess I'll watch out for Remlinger discount. What's your experience with Remlinger farm for 2 and 4 years old? Have you tried doing strawberry picking there?

Make your own pizza

Cooking pizza for kids

H loves pepperoni pizza and she had been asking for it many times. I thought why not make pizza with her. It's easy and fast enough that she can do it end to end. And it's FUN.

We tried it. We loved it. And we've been doing it together many times already. I even made H birthday party at our home as Make Your Own Pizza party.

The tips is to use tortilla as opposed to pizza dough because it is faster to bake so the kids don't have to wait a long time for their creation to get done. Plus we love the thin crispy pizza so tortilla is the thinnest you can get.

So here it is. Do you have other recipes that you love to cook with your kids?

Ingredients:
- Pepperoni (If you have a toddler, you may want to buy the small size pepperoni so they can eat it)
- Shredded cheese
- Tomato sauce
- Tortilla (I use the medium size to make it easier for the kids)
- Tomato sliced

Steps:

1. Me: Put each ingredients in bowl. Lay down the tortilla in a plate. Pre heat the oven to 400 F
2. Kids: Spread the tomato sauce. 
3. Kids: Put cheese on top
4. Kids: Decorate with pepperoni and tomato
5. Me: Bake it in oven for 12 mins.

Tiramisu Oat for breakfast? This overnight chocolate oat taste like one !

Tiramisu Overnight Oat

I love oatmeal, but not so for my hubby. I try the overnight oat because it is easy and I don't have to wait for it to cool down for my kids to eat; I mean it's the right temperature right of the bat.

To my surprise, my hubby also loves it. He actually begs me to make it almost daily, which I am happy to do. My daughter is also proud to *cook* healthy food for her dad.

I've seen so many overnight oat recipes with fruits online, but I am not a big fan of berries. So I use chocolate yogurt. Yes yes... some people may find that chocolate and yogurt do not match, but you gotta try this. Here it is our fave overnight oat recipe. What's yours?

Ingredients:
- 1 cup chocolate yogurt (I use Brown Cow). I tried using non fat yogurt but I find the result is not as smooth.
- 1/2 cup of oat or oat bran. My hubby likes it better with oat, but since oat bran has more fiber I sometimes mix them both.
- 2 tsp of chia seeds/wheat germ/flax seeds
- 2 tbsp milk

Steps:

1. Mix all ingredients in a glass jar. Stir well.
2. Refrigerate overnight.
3. Enjoy in the morning. Optional: My husband adds sliced almond in the morning before he eats it. 

Grow a grass head: *Gardening* for toddler/preschooler

Grass head 

H got this something similar to Grow-A-Pet Dog "Spike" from my sister in law last week. So perfect for her! She is such a nurturing girl (not sure where she gets that gene from). She loves watering our plants outside everyday. Our lettuce has been growing well because of her too. But lettuce, bulbs and others takes time to grow.

This grass head toy is so easy and perfect for toddler and preschooler. She watered it for two days and it's growing already. We did not even put it in a sunny location. You can see that she needs a hair cut by day 3 already, which is super awesome. Both H and A love scissor. I wish I had this a year back when H sneaked out and cut her own hair. Anyhow, the piggy got a hair cut from both H and A. And I think she LOVES her new hair cut.

Coconut crepes with blueberry fillings

Coconut crepe with blueberry yogurt

I saw a bag of coconut flour in Costco and I thought I should buy it. There must be a lot of Indonesian cakes recipe that use coconut flour. WRONG !!

So I searched for coconut flour recipes and I found this one from Kitchen Stewardship.
And I am hooked !

I am not doing gluten free diet and I don't like cherry so I modified it a bit. It is so yummy and easy to make. It tastes much better than regular crepes in my opinion especially if you love coconut smell. Top that with: My picky eater hubby loves it and it is LOW CARB - yayyyy !!! I've made it a couple times since.

Here is my modified version:

Made: 8 crepes (small ones - I would say for 2 adults)
Cooking time: 20 mins

Crepes:
- 2 eggs - put in warm water if you're just getting it out of fridge.
- 2 table spoons coconut oil coconut oil - melted
- 1 tbs maple syrup or agave
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 2 tbs coconut flour; sifted
- a pinch of cinnamon
- 1/3 cup of whole milk
- 1 tsp of vanilla

Filling
- 1 cup of yogurt (plain) or blueberry
- 1 tbsp of cream cheese (I use lowfat)
- 1/2 cup of frozen blue berries
- 2 tbsp of honey (if you use plain yogurt) - if you use blueberry yogurt then you don't need this

Steps for crepes:
1.  Whisk eggs, coconut oil, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla and salt. It's nice to have room temperature eggs, because coconut oil solidify fast so having a warmer egg will prevent that.
2. Add coconut flour and milk. Continue stirring until there is no big lumps.
3. Heat up small frying pan on medium heat. I use 8 - 10" non stick pan. I would say you have to use non stick pan because this batter breaks easily.
4. When hot, I scrape the left over coconut oil and brush it on the pan. Pour 1/4 cup of the batter and tilt the pan to spread out the batter.
5. Cook until dry (1 - 2 mins). Flip it for a short time (half a min).

Steps for filling:
1. Put all ingredients in blender.
2. Pour 2 - 3 tbs for each crepes. Fold the crepes. Enjoy...

For presentation, I sprinkle powder sugar on top, but honestly... it does not make a different. We ate ours without the powder sugar =).

Pacific Science Center: For the budding engineer and scientist

Butterfly garden

Raptor and dinosaur footprint

What I love about Pacific Science Center is: you get a little bit of everything in 1 place. It's a great rainy day activity - my go to place in Seattle weather.

• Aquarium experience. It's a small section where kids can touch sea creatures. It's not to be compared with Seattle Aquarium, but it's enough for my toddler.
• Insect section
• Butterfly garden
• Dinosaur
• Planets
• Toddler play area (water play, slide, blocks and many others)

And it's not only for the kids. I find them interesting for me as well. They have Live Science Stage with rotating shows from Human Space Flight, Live Snake Shows and many more. I always learn something new every time I go.

Tips:
- They do have small cafe, but I usually bring my own sandwich or snacks because the cafe is a little bit out of the way.
- The general admission only price (it does not include IMAX and exhibition): Adults: $18 and Kids (3 - 5): $10
- I usually park in Pacific Science Center parking itself. If you have bigger car, then it maybe better to park outside. It's cheaper and probably has bigger car space than the ones in Pacific Science Center.

New Castle Beach Park

Yesterday was a sunny day. H had asking to go to the beach for the longest time so we decided to go to New Castle Beach Park. She went right into the water. A opted to play in the choo choo train in the park first. It's great that the park is next to the sandy beach area. Last year they renovated the park, but it's done and open to public again now. I also like this park because it's right off the freeway, parking is  free and the restroom to wash up after playing in the beach is very close.

Since it was a weekday, it was not too crowded yesterday. We actually got a spot in the shaded table, but H preferred us to sit on the sandy area. So we laid out our picnic blankets on the sand, ate our ham sandwich and cantaloupe while watching the kids played in the sand and in the water. It was perfect. She even had a free kayak ride. A kayak er stopped by, brought an extra life vest and gave free kayak ride for the kids.

Tips for going during sunny weekend:
- Parking in New Castle Beach Park during sunny weekend maybe tricky. You can always park on the street but be prepared to bring a stroller to haul your stuff.
- I saw some people bring small tent. During crowded times, it maybe hard to get a shaded spot.

Enuf said. The picture says it all.