May

May started very well when we got confirmation that Mario passed the Texas bar! Not that we had any real doubt that he wouldn’t, but it was still great to know once and for all that he did it!

I love how they're kind of making the same face. And note Scout's crazy prehensile toes!

We took our first real photos of the kids together for Mother’s Day cards. Pretty cute, huh?

"Nice pats" is one of the only ways Josh is willing to interact with Scout. She's usually thrilled to have his attention, although it doesn't look like it in this photo!

We also took advantage of some nice (albeit windy!) weather to take some new family pictures. We tag-teamed it with Jed and Crystal and got some nice ones of them too.

Jed, Crystal, Natalie, and Collin. And a freakishly huge (although quite normal for Alaska) mosquito.

 

 

One of my favorite photos that I've EVER taken. Mario the amazing dad, Mia smiley (with her mother's lazy smile eye - sorry I passed that one on to you, Scout!), and Josh loving but in his own way and his own time.

One evening as we were preparing dinner, we noticed this. 

 

Josh had found some leftover Easter candy and was going to town.

For my birthday weekend I requested that we try to go hiking. Scout loved the backpack as much as Josh did when he was her age. Josh did really well on the way out, then made me carry him the whole way back. 

Love this photo! It really shows his personality.

April (part 2 - a food entry)

With the return of a tiny bit of free time, I decided to try my hand at something I’ve wanted to do for a few years now: making cheese!

 
I’ve been making a sort of ricotta (technically it’s not actually ricotta as true ricotta is made from whey, but whey ricotta yields are ridiculously low – about 1/4c from a gallon of whey) for a few years now. It’s about as easy as cooking gets. You rinse a heavy-bottomed, large pot with cold water, then dump in a gallon of milk (I use whole). Heat on medium until it just begins to simmer, remove from the heat and add 1/3 c. plus 2 T white vinegar and a teaspoon of salt. Stir to incorporate and leave it alone. The curds should separate from the whey, and the whey should not look milky. If it is milky, add another tablespoon or two of vinegar until the whey is yellow-green and not milky. Let it sit for an hour or two, then pour it into a strainer lined with cheesecloth and let the whey drain for at least two hours, more if you want a more dry ricotta. Viola. This cheese is absolutely delightful folded into whipped cream with some lemon zest, fresh lemon juice, sugar and vanilla. Or you can mix in some softened chocolate ganache and fold into sweetened whipped cream. Or mix with pesto, herbs, and milk to make a quick white pizza sauce. The possibilities, while not endless, are nevertheless extensive.

 
But this wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to make real cheese, like the kind with cultures and rennet and such.
My first attempt was cream cheese, and it was easy as eating pie. Put two cups of heavy cream and two cups of milk (whole is best) in a bowl. Bring them to 70 degrees and stir in one packet of mesophilic culture and one drop of liquid animal rennet diluted in 1/4 c. cool, unchlorinated water. Stir well to incorporate. Cover with plastic wrap and let set at room temperature (ideally 70 degrees) for 24 hours. It should develop a consistency similar to yogurt. Pour the mixture gently into prepared cheesecloth (butter muslin or a clean, thin kitchen towel is actually best) and draw the corners of the cloth together. Tie in such a way that you can hang them suspended over a bowl to catch the whey that drains. Let the curds drain for at least 12 hours. Put the drained curds in a bowl and stir until you reach a smooth consistency. You can mix in salt, sugar, herbs, whatever you want. You can also add a few tablespoons heavy cream if you want a different consistency. 

Curds and whey ladled into clean, thin kitchen towel

Curds hanging to drain whey.

Ready to eat!

It was super creamy, a little tangy, and quite delightful.

 

The recipe for these beauties is linked below.

 

I then had to choose what to make that would be worthy of eating with my homemade cream cheese. What else but bagels?! (recipe from Ruth Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible) I also found a reputable recipe for soft pretzels and thought that would be pretty fun too. Holy smokes, are they ever good!!!! I have made them a few times now and am happy with the recipe for the most part, but I will note my changes at the end of the post. (But don’t even waste your time if you’re not going to use the lye. Live a little, people! Just be very sure your gloves are intact – I discovered halfway through my last batch that there was a small hole in one of my gloves and I had melted just a bit of my skin) I made my precious cream cheese into a decadent dip filled with parmesan and gorgonzola cheeses, crisped slab bacon, and caramelized onions. Wow. Just wow.

This is the pretzel bread recipe from The Bread Bible. Also very tasty!

Heating and flipping the curds

Ready to melt and stretch!

Stretching - finally got it right!

My next incursion to cheeseland was to attempt a fresh mozzarella. (Check your library for cheese making books) It took about 8 hours of semi-attention just to get the curds prepared (the luxury of giving a little attention to something other than my children for 8 hours was part of my Mother's Day from Mario :) ). Then came the stretching! So if you’ve done your curds correctly, you should be able to dunk them in hot water (REALLY hot water, mind you) and they *should* melt and stretch like taffy. Well, I dunked and stretched, dunked and stretched, etc. etc. for over an hour and, much to my scalded hands’ dismay, still hadn’t reached the taffy state. I was pissed that I had wasted basically an entire day, not to mention the supplies, for such a disappointing result. I started googling the process and thought maybe I just hadn’t used hot enough water. It was worth a shot. 

My lovely mozzarella.

Bingo!!! I had the beautiful mozzarella balls I was looking for! (My delight was somewhat short-lived, however, since my next attempt failed horribly. I’ve still got two packets of starter culture left so I guess we’ll see if I can figure it out again!)

Since we haven't been able to travel internationally in the past few years (and it may be a year or two yet), one of our favorite ways to reminisce is to make food from our travels. One thing Mario remembers fondly from his mission in Romania is a fried Hungarian bread called langos (langosi in Romanian). I've attempted langos before without great success. There was something missing. True langos is chewy, rich, and full of big air pockets. Then I found a recipe that used boiled potatoes in the dough. Mario assured me there was no way the langos he remembered had boiled potatoes in it. I gave it a shot anyway since I had seen them used in a few different variations. It was exactly what we were missing! The dough was perfect! It didn't taste like potato at all, which is what threw Mario off. We enjoyed the langos in Hungarian fashion - rubbed with cut garlic while hot, then spread with sour cream and topped with parmesan cheese. Heaven! You can find the recipe here. (I use active dry yeast and proof it with the potatoes, warm water, and sugar. This recipe makes a more than 4 langos, unless your langos are the size of dinner plates!)

Hungarian (and adopted by Romanian street food) langos

Changes for soft pretzel recipe:

• I proof my yeast with the warm water, butter, and brown sugar (or in my case, granulated sugar with a touch of molasses added). I have learned in my reading and experimenting that active dry yeast (which is the only yeast I have) is just fine even in recipes that call for instant (or bread machine) yeast. Simply increase the amount you add, e.g. if the recipe calls for 1 t. instant yeast, add 1 1/4 t. active dry yeast.
• I often have to add about 1/4 c. of additional water to the dough after I add the flour. If your dough doesn't come together and still looks shaggy, add water by the tablespoon until it becomes smooth.
• If your dough is too stiff, it will really give your stand mixer a run for its money. Either add more water, or divide your dough in half for the kneading portion.
• I find the texture is improved by a bit more rising and a bit less handling than the recipe calls for. For best results, don't cut the dough into 12 pieces. When the dough is done mixing, simply turn it out onto a clean counter, cover with a damp towel, and let it sit for 20-30 minutes. Cut off appropriately-sized pieces to roll out when you're ready. I found the dough dried out when I cut it into pieces, and then it was very difficult to roll out easily. If you're having difficulties with dry dough, wet a few fingers and get your work surface a little moist. This will help the dough stick to the counter a bit and roll into long snakes much easier.
• Once the pretzels are formed on the sheet tray (and if you care about your sheet trays at all, line them with foil, then parchment before putting the pretzels on them. The lye is strong enough it will eat right through the parchment and scar your pan during the baking process), put them in a warm oven to proof for about 30 minutes, then refrigerate for at least an hour. If you don't refrigerate sufficiently, the dough is too soft to hold its shape during its lye bath.
• To mix the lye solution, use very hot water. This helps the lye dissolve more quickly. Do this outside or in a very well-ventilated area. Use 4 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of lye. This is plenty for one batch (or even a double or triple batch) of pretzels, but is deep enough to dip easily. Measure out the water into a glass container (I find a pie dish or 8-inch square baking dish to be ideal) and then add the lye. Mix until dissolved if necessary, then cool to room temperature. Be very careful with this stuff. Make sure there aren't any kids or pets around. 
• For a new twist, sprinkle generous amounts of parmesan or sharp cheddar over the pretzels before baking, then bake as directed. Tasty!

April (part 1)

Aurora borealis with the moon rising

By April, I kind of started to feel like we were getting our lives back under control from the madness of the bar combined with a new baby.  

Who needs a bumbo?

It didn’t take Josh long to remember what the deal is with Easter eggs. We had a fun hunt with our playgroup. They had to shovel a few paths through the snow in their backyard to make the eggs reachable as the snow was still about 3 feet deep. The surface of the snow was packed hard enough, though, that by the time the kids got out there the eggs had all slid downhill from where the Easter bunny had left them. Some of the kids ended up swimming through the snow to get their candy. Only in Alaska! 

Josh also had his own Easter egg hunt at home. YaYa sent a great package of fun stuff, including Josh’s favorite – a golf club (in the shape of a carrot, of course) and golf ball! Mario was, of course, thrilled to help him use it. 

We celebrated Easter pretty quietly with Jed, Crystal & Co.  We had a grand Romanian feast complete with sarmale and Romanian garlic fried potatoes. We also upheld the Romanian Easter tradition of red eggs. At Easter, everyone picks a red-dyed hard-boiled egg. Then you say to someone “Christ has risen.” They reply “Truly, He has risen!” and you crack your eggs together. If your egg doesn’t crack, you get to keep the egg that did crack and move on to the next person. The kids had a lot of fun smashing their eggs together. 

 

April also brought the return of the ground and the sun to Fairbanks!!! Once that snow starts to go, man, it really goes! One day our deck was still two feet deep and a week later it was all gone. Sadly, we didn’t win the Nenana Ice Classic. It’s a betting game that has been going on since 1917. Every year people try to guess the exact minute that the ice will go out on the Nenana River. The jackpot this year was $350,000. Sure would have been nice. Maybe next year?

The rapid melting makes for some pretty awesome puddles. Josh got this sweet little Styrofoam airplane from the dentist that quickly became a float plane due to its many, many, many water landings. It also quickly became coated in duct tape. He played with it all day and reluctantly told it good night when it was bedtime. He woke up at about 3am, though. When I went to his room to get him tucked back in, he very politely asked for his airplane. Sure, I thought, why not? I went and found it. He thanked me and then settled his little, mashed, dirty, duct-tape-covered plane right on his chest, pulled the covers over it, and went back to sleep.  

This video is a bit long, but if you're a fan of Josh you'll enjoy it!

This year there was an increased amount of solar flare activity, which means there was also an increased amount of Northern Lights. We tried to be diligent about checking the aurora forecasts, but they’re somewhat difficult to predict and usually at horribly inconvenient times. One evening was supposed to be pretty good according to the forecast, but we finally gave up and went to bed around 1am because they hadn’t showed yet. We had just settled into our nice warm bed when I happened to glance out the window and saw a thin green cloud on the horizon. Shoot, I thought, I’m so tired and I’m already in bed and everything! Surely there will be another chance to take photos of the aurora! Then I reminded myself of all the pictures I’ve missed in my life because I told myself that I would get it the next time. I hauled my tired, pajama-ed butt out of bed, got all gussied up in my winter duds (the best place to take aurora photos is on a mountain top and it was about 10 degrees outside – so you can understand my reticence to get out of bed!) and started the 20-minute drive to my photo spot. 

See, the thing about the northern lights is you can never really tell how they’re going to be or for how long. Some nights are forecasted to be amazing, and they very well may be dazzling for hours and hours. Some nights are hopping for ten whole minutes and that’s it.

 

This night was dazzling. I stood on that mountaintop by myself in my pajamas and parka and marveled at the rivers of electric green magic swirling above me. The waves stretched and curled, ebbed and flowed, and brought tears of gratitude for such a beautiful world we have. I couldn’t stop saying, out loud to myself, “This is so amazing. This is unbelievable. This is SO AMAZING!!!” It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and I will forever be grateful I hauled my behind out of bed to spend the night on a mountain in Alaska in winter.

 

The end of March

Scout kickin' it with me in the kitchen.

Although our dog sled adventure was by far the highlight of March (besides Mario finishing the bar and turning 30, of course!), we had lots of other fun as well. 

We hosted playgroup for the other two-year-olds in the ward. The letter for the day was H, so we made hats and I made colored coconut “hair” to go on our cupcakes. Very messy, but very fun!

Here is Mia modeling the bracelets we brought back from China in the hopes of having a baby girl someday to put them on. We bought these in a Yao minority village of rice terraces above the rural town of Longsheng, or Dragon’s Backbone. My mom was there with us and secretly bought us another set that she gave to us later. You can see the pictures from that trip here.

My awesome boys.

The Apreotesi girls