Tag: family

Let the Good Times Roll

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It’s been a while since we featured a random recipe, so before we launch off to a new country and the next state in our rotation, we thought we’d share this gem of a salad. You see, we’ve been on something of a roll with goodness lately (Yep, I have a song for this one too.). In fact, the kids haven’t even complained about what’s on their plates in nearly two weeks.

While we will take some credit for a few of the recipes winning them over, several of you deserve the credit too. In the last two weeks we’ve enjoyed recipes from Raymund at Ang Sarap, Courtney at Misadventures in Cooking, Charles at Five Euro Food, Sawsan at Chef in Disguise, John at From the Bartolini Kitchens, and Mary at Inside a British Mum’s Kitchen.

I kid you not, the kids have eaten all of these meals, enjoyed them and asked for more. We even heard phrases like, “Can we eat this every night?” and “Mom, you’re the best cook in the world.” I’m really astounded at this latest turn of events, especially considering none of these have been dessert recipes. Now I have no doubt this streak will come to an end, but until then, we wanted to share this Southwest Farro Salad with you all.  Continue reading →

All Stuffed Up

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Stuffed up with goodness that is! Just you wait and see.

We’re back a bit early this week for two reasons. First and foremost to express our gratitude to Deborah over at Taste and Tell Blog for featuring Eat, Play, Love in this week’s Blogger Spotlight. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Deborah’s blog, it’s a wonderful and delicious little space in the blogosphere. Deborah is a blogging veteran, a pro. She creates simple and tasty recipes and shares them through an honest writing style and tantalizing photos. To say we were honored would be an understatement. Thank you Deborah!

Now for the second reason we’re posting today – Blueberry Stuffed French Toast. It’s our latest contender in the French Toast Tourney and if this doesn’t end up as one of the final four, well you can butter my buns and call me a biscuit. In other words, you may not want to wait for the winner next March. This one is a must try, at least in my book.  Continue reading →

Buuz Cruuz

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By Mike

I’ve been on one cruise in my life, to the Bahamas for my mom’s 50th birthday celebration, and it was indeed a booze cruise. My grandma announced at some point that “this is my second daiquiri, and I am looped!” And by “some point” I mean in the hour or so between the time we boarded and the time the ship left port.

Sadly, I’ll never take a cruise to Mongolia, as it’s landlocked in Central Asia, so our virtual cruise around the world will have to suffice. With that, we bring you Buuz, a Mongolian meat-filled dumpling typically comprised of ground mutton and very little seasoning. For our Buuz we went with ground beef and a touch of seasonings.  Continue reading →

To Everything There is a Season

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“A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep.”

Before we wrap up our cooking tour of Mongolia we thought we’d share our latest gardening adventure – a first here at Eat, Play, Love. Now, I have to be up-front, I am not a gardener. I do not have a green thumb and I typically kill (albeit unintentionally) the heartiest of plants. So this year I figured I’d get the kids in on the action. Miss A after all has been a big help in teaching me not to kill yeast and to actually get a bread to rise. I’m hoping some of her natural ability rubs off on me here as well.

Miss A and I began our project by planting some seeds for sage, rosemary and lavender.  Continue reading →

Mongolia Rocks!

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Alright, who’s ready for some Mongolian main course meals? When we first started researching all we really knew of Mongolian food was that we’d eaten at BD’s Mongolian Grill and had heard of Mongolian Beef. Well, it turns out that the food served at the Mongolian Grill isn’t really Mongolian at all. In fact, here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

Although one such locale, BD’s Mongolian Grill, has opened even in Ulaanbaatar (ironically the first American chain to open in Mongolia), neither the ingredients nor the cooking method has anything in common with Mongolian cuisine. Rather, they are inspired by the Japanese teppanyaki.

And as for Mongolian Beef, well that has its origins in American Chinese cooking and is also not Mongolian. So we had to do some more digging. Mongolian diets rely heavily on meat – particularly from domesticated animals. As much as we try to keep true to the local traditions, we weren’t about to eat horse, yak or camel, so we opted for the next best thing – lamb, which is also a common meal. There are several ways to cook lamb, one we’ll explore later in the week, but by far the most interesting one to us was the traditional Mongolian Khorkhog (pronounced “horhog”). We knew that we had to give this a try.  Continue reading →

B is for Boortsog That’s Good Enough for Me

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Mr. N is in the driver’s seat for the next few weeks and he’s picked for us to cook some meals from Mongolia. I need to go back and look, but I believe that Mr. N has picked an Asian country more than half of the time. He loves Asian foods and if I had to guess, I would say that aside from pizza, it’s probably his favorite type of cuisine (followed by Italian). We laugh about Mr. N’s choice every time because Mike is dying to pick Thailand, but we don’t want to pick two countries from the same continent to follow each other, and Mike always picks after Mr. N. So this time, Mike has asked Mr. N if next pick they can make a deal. We’ll see how that holds up in a month or so.

Mongolia is a land-locked country in East and Central Asia, bordering Russia and China. As such, it is influenced by the foods of these two large neighbors. We usually save the dessert recipes for last, but we’re feeling rebellious this week. Woo! Okay, maybe it’s just that this happens to be a really easy recipe and it fit into our schedule, but rebellious just sounds more fun. So what is this Mongolian dessert recipe that we bring to you today? Boortsog – deep-fried cookies!  Continue reading →