Oriental cravings

I should not blog while hungry. Seriously, it's bad, there are so many good recipes I've found and so little time and energy to make them with!. Today's kick is oriental food.

I am aching to try this lovely looking Wonton Tutorial by Gourmet Fury. Seriously! Don't they look so good! And so easy too! I have some boneless ribs at home that would be wonderful for it. The wonton wrappers you can get at just about any grocery store in the special produce section (walmart has them for sure).

I'm loving homemade sushi as of late! It's a lot easier to roll than I was expecting, and I love being able to put only what I want on it. There are some great video tutorials on Youtube that are great for learning how to roll it on your own. It's actually a pretty affordable meal at home depending on what you use. Alan and I love a California roll (rice on the outside) with crab, (we use imitation, I know, shame on us, but it's way cheaper and a lot easier to work with) cream cheese, avocado, and cucumber! It's especially good with a little eel sauce and a touch of spicy mayo. *EDIT: If you are looking for an alternative to the seaweed wrap for your sushi, you can use this really simple egg wrap.

My only problem with it is that I'm having real difficulty finding a good sushi rice recipe. I use a rice cooker, so the good recipes that don't require a bunch of ingredients are currently eluding me. If anyone knows of a good one please let me know!

I love the adorable little Bento boxes from Lunch in a Box. She totally makes me want to get up an hour early to make Alan and I one for work. She lists prep time for each of her boxes (most are half an hour or less, though they would probably take me significantly longer, hence the hour early for work), and there's almost 100 pages of bento goodness on her site!

I think the kitty's legs are mozzarella cheese or possibly tofu, but I could be mistaken.

(And yes, that adorable thing in the corner of the bagel box is an OctoDog, with the tutorial on that link)

Most of the dividers are silicone, so they bend and mold around the other food. My favorite are the silicone cupcake liners, because they are multi-purpose, and according to the great Alton Brown, the only single-purpose item that should be in the kitchen is the fire extinguisher.

If you're looking for a great date night with a fun twist, I love Sam Hawks Korean Restaurant in Provo, Utah. It doesn't look like much at all, but the food is SO GOOD! I love the beef Bulgogi

It's a korean BBQ beef that is to die for! You wrap it in lettuce with rice, kimchi, and other awesome goodies. If you're going in a group (5 or more) it's a good idea to call ahead and let them know you're coming, also if you know what you want order it then. They're a really small restaurant, but they are so worth the wait!

Yum!!

Creative laced tank/vest tutorial

I am planning to make one of these

With this tutorial by Ucreate

I'll probably also do it in black, with a stretchy jersey knit for the bottom rather than the lace like the example pic, Though I'm still deciding which colors to do it in. I seriously just need to spend a day of sewing at my parent's place, because my mom has the most fabulous collection of fabric, sewing machines, and crafting paraphernalia I've ever seen. One of these days Alan will have his tricked out garage and I will have my craft room sanctuary, but for now, I am happy to drive the half an hour over to their house, rather than dig my sewing machine out and re-thread it with the black, white, or brown thread that I have available.

Sewing machine

I never though to wonder, but it's cool to really know how it works now.

Babehs!

Hello, I'm Ani, and I'm baby hungry.

Scoff if you wish, but I think it qualifies as an addiction. Poor Alan has to hear about it all the time, especially when I tear up at little things like Playskool commercials or clips of babies on AFV.

I was watching a documentary the other day called The Business of being Born, and I can honestly say it's one of the best "alternative birth" (watch the documentary and you'll see how ironic that term is) documentaries I have ever seen. Sadly, that's probably because it's the ONLY one that is publicly available.

As a warning, this is a documentary about birth, so there are naked women giving birth everywhere, and you should not watch it if you have objections to boobs, bellies, butts, and baby heads. Netflix totally has it in their instant queue, so if anyone doesn't want to spend the $8 for the DVD from amazon.com you can totally come over to my house and watch it with me for the 5th time (seriously, it never gets old, and I learn so much every time I watch it).

I really really wish that I could find a doctor and a midwife as good as the ones Abby Epstein had in the documentary. I have NEVER seen a doctor that is that enlightened about birth. He admits that most births have no need for a doctor's intervention, and that outcomes for the vast majority of women (above 90%) who do not have serious complications, are BETTER outside of a hospital. Doctors are wonderful and necessary for those that need the medical intervention, and I wouldn't give them up for the world, but I do agree that medical intervention has gone too far.

I am so grateful for the wonderful advancements that medicine has made over the past few years. Lets face it, C-sections have saved a bunch of women and babies that would have not survived without that medical intervention, but they are actually part of the cause of our high infant and mother mortality rate. In the developed world (England, Germany, New Zealand, ect.) the US has the second to worst infant and mother mortality rate. In Europe and Japan, midwives deliver 70 percent of all births; in the U.S. midwives deliver a mere 8 percent of births. Coincidence? I think not!

Some may ridicule me for speaking out about this, having never had a baby myself, and yet, I have more experience than most first year medical students. I have been in attendance at 1 hospital birth and 3 home births, and I can honestly say that the atmosphere was so incredibly different. In one, there was screaming, yelling, medical malpractice, major bleeding, anxiety, exhaustion, and panic. In the other, calmness, peace, comfort, and better care for the infant and mother. Can you guess which one was which? In my experience, the home births were by far a better environment to bring a baby into the world.

Kind of a roundabout way of getting to it, but I am looking for a midwife. Because of the lack of demand for them, there are relatively few of them that can remain in practice for long enough to gain much experience, and the ones that do usually have mega long waiting lists, hence the looking before I'm pregnant. I'm also looking for a doctor who would be ok being my backup if something does happen to go wrong, so if you know one I would be happy to hear about them as well!