dairy-free white russian

Do you love The Big Lebowski?  I do.  And I can't even think of this drink without thinking about Lebowski. 

I'm not usually one for cream-based drinks of any kind.  In fact, if I order a mixed drink of any kind, it's almost always a gin martini (stirred, not shaken, sorry 007), or a gin and tonic.  Because gin.  So why am I talking about a creamy drink, then?  Well, I had half a pot of extra dark brewed coffee that was going to go to waste, and less than half a fifth of vodka left from our Halloween party, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and mix them.  They were about equal parts.  I then made up about 1/2 cup of quick simple syrup and poured it into the jar with the coffee and vodka, put the lid on, and shook it up.

Well, then I thought about what I was actually going to do with it.  I mean, like I said earlier, I'm just not a creamy drink person.  But for those of you who are, you'll want to take note, because this even impressed me.  Now, you don't have to make your own Kahlua-esque liqueur for this.  The drink is so simple.  I poured my desired amount of coffee liqueur into a small mason jar (use a glass, don't be like me), and used canned coconut milk for the cream instead of dairy, just splashing it on top until it looked good.  Talk about YUM, and easy.  If you're the sort of person who is responsible, and actually has ice cubes on hand in your freezer, put those in your glass first (or last if you want to live on the edge).  Don't ever come to my house expecting ice cubes...I'm not that responsible.  I'm sorry in advance for that.  But I'll make you this drink if you want, and I hope that will be ok.  Happy Saturday, folks! 

thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a really great, relaxing Thanksgiving.  Ours was not super relaxing, but it was nice.  We host Thanksgiving at the school my husband works in (the school supplies the room, we supply all of the food and labor, it's still totally a family event), which allows us to not only accommodate our very large family, but also any students who do not have host families to spend the holiday with.  This year we had 32 people for dinner!  And you know what?  We STILL ended up with more leftovers than we knew what to do with.  Like, seriously, how does that even happen?  We donated most of the good leftovers to a local organization that feeds and shelters homeless teenagers, so they went somewhere useful at least, instead of perishing in my fridge.  But I still ended up with pounds of mashed potatoes, bags of unused carrots, roasted vegetables and a whole turkey carcass.

We played a rousing game of Bingo, wrote on our Thanksgiving tree, drank wine (OK, maybe only two of us drank wine...who is counting anyway?), and served an entirely delicious meal free of dairy and eggs.  BAM.  No one even knew.  Well, except we told them, and they could see that Nikola was eating everything, but you know what I mean.  No one missed the butter.  That's what I mean.

Sometimes I miss the comfort of doing the holiday in our home, because there is a lot of clean up afterward that you wouldn't have in your own home.  (Like I said, this is a family event, so we have to break everything down, wash all the dishes, return the facility back to its original state.)   But the amazing trade off is getting to welcome more people to our table than our home could, and isn't that what it's about? 

Until next year, Thanksgiving! 

Thanksgiving Tree

The holiday season is kind of the best.  From Halloween to Christmas, I love it ALL!  But Thanksgiving is just so bland that it gets overlooked and overshadowed.  I think the ol' turkey day needs to step it up a little, am I right?  I'm trying to respect the holiday by not exploding Christmas decorations all over my house but it's just so hard!

This year, our family is doing Thanksgiving a little different.  I mean, we always do it different from most people...but this year we're changing things up.  We live on the campus of a Japanese women's university, and we host our Thanksgiving dinner in one of the banquet rooms at the school.  Why?  Well...it's so much better than having it in anyone's home and having to cram people in, and cook in a tiny kitchen.  We have a commercial kitchen at our disposal, and ample space to party and visit.  We have a large family, and on top of that, we host any and all students who would like to come who do not have a host family to spend the holiday with.  What does that mean this year?  Well, we are looking at probably close to 40 people!

As the mother of a child who has multiple life threatening food allergies, the thought of going to a food-centered party is enough to give me palpitations.  But this year?  We're making all of the food there, in the kitchen, and it's going to all be "Nik-safe", as we say in our house.  It's going to be traditional Thanksgiving food, nothing foofy, but all safe.  Can we pull it off?  I think we can.  And if we do, I plan to put together a recipe book to share if anyone is interested!

Enough about the food.  That's not my angle for this post.  How do you bring together a gathering of 40 people and make it feel like an intimate family holiday?  Games, activities, social interaction, and hey, it's Thanksgiving, a movie or football too.  But let's remember the reason for the holiday, to be thankful for all of our many, countless blessings.  I mean, can you even count how many times every day you're blessed??  Blessings don't always come in the form of good things, either.  Sometimes a painful event spurred on something bigger, and we should be thankful for that too!  So, while our family (and plentiful host daughters) are breaking bread, we will be starting a new tradition.  Enter the Thanksgiving Tree.  It's simple, and it's not my original idea (I was inspired by the AMAZING Ann Voskamp here), but it's so good that we are bringing it in this year!   You can make your tree, or like me, use fallen tree branches from the yard.  I grabbed some interesting looking branches (they are HUGE), and painted them with gold.  I didn't cover them completely in gold, just accented them.  Then cut out (by hand) 50 leaves of varying shapes and sizes, painted them partially gold (and doodled a little in sharpie), then punched holes with the hole puncher and added paper clips.  I started out with cute ribbons, but realized there will be so many people that it couldn't work with ribbons, the leaves would be so bunched up.  The paperclip hooks should give each leaf a little space.  After all of that was done, I bound the branches and stuffed them into an extra big mason jar and just keep hoping that it doesn't tip over!  I'm going to have to find something to give it some weight but let it still look nice.  I put a slip of paper inside that reads "I am thankful for", to bring it together, and viola!  A really cheap DIY for a fun holiday activity that will hopefully become a tradition. 

We are hoping people will fill that tree up, and then we will read aloud the many things our family is thankful for later in the evening as everyone enjoys their pumpkin pie.  What do you think?  I'll post an update after Thanksgiving, with the tree full, and let you know how it went.  If you decide to make one, will you please share it too?  Thanks friends!

halloween

Halloween is kind of a big deal in my house.  Well, with three of us, anyway.  Richard could live without it, but he could live without all holidays.  I maybe married Mr. Scrooge, but we all know how that story ends, so I have hope!  And in the meantime, I love him anyway and just beg him to play along.  And he does, because he's the best.  So, anyway, back to Halloween.  We got up early and went to my office (where I don't work anymore, but that's a story for another day) and trick or treated there.  Everyone knows Nik, so we got very little candy (except Skittles) and more toys and little playthings.  I didn't have a costume, so I whipped up a really shabby Catwoman costume at 8am to keep with the superhero theme.  You would think I came up with an award winning costume, the way my kids when INSANE when they saw me.  I love how it takes so little to just really impress little kids.  We didn't go trick or treating at night this year, it's just too dangerous with Nik right now, so we went to my father in law's house and hung out with them, then passed out candy later.  I did make the boys go outside and let me get some adorable pictures of them in character, I mean, costume. 

Then, the next night, we had a party ourselves!  Yeah, that's right, I made Halloween into a two day affair guys.  I do that.  I'll share the cupcake recipe soon, they were so simple and so good.  I made two kinds of hummus, salsa, and cupcakes.  Kept it way simple this year. 

My child pretending to be a zombie made my mommy heart flutter.  He did it just for me.  I just love him!  See you next year, Halloween.

zombie party party!

I love a good party.  I even love a bad party, if it gives me something to talk about!  I just love parties.  A passion of mine, since having a child with allergies, is creating and hosting parties with awesome food and awesome desserts that are safe for everyone.  In this day and age, food allergies are so prevalent in children and adults, but that should totally not stop us from partying like it's 1999.  I'm going to start sharing some parties I've thrown over the years, and I hope that you come away either feeling inspired, or got a good chuckle out of it.  Whatever butters your toast! 

Today I'm sharing a very small party we threw for one of our host daughters, Nozomi.  She turned 20 during her stay with us, and we needed to celebrate.  20 is a pretty darn big deal in Japan!  Aaron couldn't pronounce her name, so he called her "No Zombie", and it stuck.  I took it and ran with it!  Who says a zombie themed birthday party can't be cute? 

For the bunting, I took origami paper and created mini flags.  I then went totally insane and freehand cut out the letters for her name, glued them to the flags, and sent her home with it. 

For the cake topper, I once again freehand cut a zombie out of heavy black card stock and hot glued it to two toothpicks.  Have you ever tried to freehand a zombie with scissors?  Don't be like me.  Draw it first please. 

The cake was a simple vegan vanilla cake, one layer, with frosting from a can.  Because I'm classy.  And because we had planned this party for a different day, and then plans had to suddenly change and so I got off work and rushed home to frost the cake as quickly as I could.  A homemade frosting would have been better, but you know what?  It was delicious anyway, and most store bought vanilla frosting-in-a-can is safe for Nikola so he got to enjoy some cake.  I chose the red inside and green outside because I wanted a cartoon-ish zombie feel and I think it was achieved. 

So there you have it.  A really simple birthday party, thrown together in almost no time, but filled with personalized touches.  We love Nozombie and I think it shows.  Party on Wayne!