Nathan Can Chew :)

We are very excited to announce that Nathan has regained his status as a card carrying member of chewing society. He still has a little pain from the swelling (it should continue to go down as time passes), and we have a couple more check-ups, but as long as we avoid really crunchy stuff he should be good. :)

In light of this exciting news we have decided to create a real blog that centers around more than blenders (although, I'm sure our blender will still show up on occasion)

Come find us at our new blog home at www.heybales.us. (<-- hahaha so punny!!! hey bales, hay bales... ok, I might get a little too excited about that...)

Our Family!!! haha bales... haha.. ok, I'll stop...

Hope to see you soon!
Elizabeth and Nathan

Happy Easter!

We always making deviled eggs for the annual GCF potluck. However, this year I stumbled across something amazing! About a week ago I was on Pinterest (or maybe Google+ or Facebook? I can't remember...) and saw a picture of deviled eggs that were decorated to look like chicks. I forgot to actually pin the original site, but I googled the recipe and it looks like Rachel Ray did a segment on how to make them, so maybe she is the inventor? The basic idea is you make regular deviled egg filling but you slice the top off the egg instead of cutting it in half. Then you pipe the yolk mixture back in and make little eyes and a beak out of olive and carrot slivers. 

All in all, they are pretty cute but also a little disturbing. To appease our consciences we decided to make a few but enforced a strict "no paprika" rule since adding red splatters seemed to be in poor taste... maybe we'll reconsider for Halloween.

Hunkered down with the dill deviled eggs

Making only a couple eggs into chicks also turned out to be a good idea because they are pretty big and it basically means you have to eat two deviled eggs at once, which is kind of a lot. In the end we made 5 chick-eggs and 38 regular deviled eggs.

Penguin approves of the results... probably because he doesn't realize these are eggs... otherwise he might have been traumatized.

We put one chick-egg per egg plate, these guys didn't last very long. Poor little dudes. Notice there is paprika is on the regular eggs but the chicks are paprika free.

In the end I'm glad we made them. They were a little more time consuming to make but they are pretty cute too. :)

Ingredients:

12 - eggs (hard boiled)

1/3 cup - mayonaise

2 tsp - dijon mustard

salt 

pepper

dash of tabasco (more if you want more kick)

1 or 2 - olives

1/2 - carrot

Directions:

1. Cut the top of each egg (low enough so that you can easily scoop out the yolk). 

2. Next slice a thin layer off the bottom of each egg to make a flat bottom so that your chick will stand up without wobbling. 

3. Combine yolks, mayo, mustard and spices, in a bowl until well combined, we used a hand mixture for this part to make it extra smooth. 

4. Pipe the yolk mixture into the yolk cavity of each egg. Make sure there is a good amount sticking out the top of the egg because you will need that to make the face.

5. Place the egg top back on the egg at an angle to make a little hat for your chick. Then add two small olive slivers for eyes and a small carrot piece for a beak. 

6. Admire you masterpiece. Your done!

Happy Easter!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Tooth Update!

Today was the big day! Nathan Finally got to see the dentist about his broken teeth! We had to wait a while since you have to be able to open your mouth to get teeth fixed and mouth opening has only been a recent development. We have an awesome dentist here in San Diego and he was able to put a cap on Nathan's tooth so that it no longer looks like he was in a bar fight... or in a bike ->face/pavement fight.

He would only make silly faces for me, but hey, at least you can see the tooth. :)

The cap is a trial and he's not supposed to bite into anything too hard, but we figured we'd give it a go and see how it worked (hopefully it will hold out until we have real jobs). The really good news is that his tooth was still a "Happy Tooth" in the words of my little second cousins (as opposed to the other option of root canal).

As you can probably tell from our most recent posts, Nathan has also started eating non-soup foods this week (and a little bit last week). They still have to be pretty soft, but he's eaten quinoa, carrots, noodles, and even a piece of pizza (the pizza was a slow process but he finished it, even the crust!). We'll post some of our non-soup recipes soon, and probably few more soup ones too. :)

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan

Chinese Egg Custard

I recently started using Pinterest, and I saw this recipe go by. It's for steamed eggs which it turns out are really good (and soft and easy to eat). The blog I linked to says they are Korean, but they seem to be common in Chinese, Korean and Japan cooking as well. Wikipedia seems to suggest they are Chinese in origin so I'll go with that. I also asked my mom and she said Chinese grandmother (my PoPo) made them when she was growing up so it's kind of fun to revive a tradition.

Ingredients:

2 - eggs

1/2 cup - water or broth

1/4 tsp - salt (less if you are going to top with soy sauce, or include salty ingredients like dried shrimp)

Optional ingredients:

mushrooms

Chinese sausage

green onions

dried shrimp

anything else that you think tastes nice in an egg

Start by mixing your egg, water and salt. Pour the mixture through a strainer to get any lumpy bits out of the egg (this results in a smoother texture). Then place the ramekin in the steamer basket of a rice cooker or steamer pot. We used our rice cooker so that I could make quinoa at the same time. :) 

As it cooks it might puff up a bit, that's ok, it will settle back down when it cools. I haven't figured out how to get a smooth top to my custards like in the link at the top of this post, but they still taste great and have a nice smooth texture.

Now for toppings!! The best part! I splash a little soy sauce, sesame oil and sriracha on my egg before I cut into it. You can use any sauces of toppings you like to make your own masterpiece. :)

Directions:

Mix the egg, water, and salt together and pour into a small ramekin (for an extra smooth egg custard strain the egg as you pour it into the ramekin). Add any extra ingredients you would like such as sausage or mushrooms and then place the ramekin in the steam basket of a rice cooker, or in a pot on the stove with a steaming compartment. Steam for about 10 minutes or until the egg is set (it will still be jiggly like jello but shouldn't be watery.) Garnish with toppings and enjoy!

Get well soon!

Elizabeth and Nathan