How to make Pasties

How to make Cornish Pasties

One of my favourite foods from our time in England is the Cornish Pasty. A buttery pastry filled with beef, lamb, vegetables and gravy, purchased for 70p at Sainsbury's, their ancestors were made by housewives in the 1700's and carried out to the fields wrapped in a handkerchief by farmers for their midday meal. They are hearty, sturdy and filling, plus they are one of those foods that tastes delicious both piping hot and at room temperature, making them an ideal convenience food.

So! Let's get started!

1 cup of cold butter, chopped
1 tsp salt
and 3 cups of flour go into your big bowl.
Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or two forks - it takes a little while to figure out, but once you get the rhythm, it is easy peasy. We're looking for a coarse meal texture, here.
Add about 1/2c water, 1TB at a time, until your dough sticks together and makes a ball. Knead it a few times to mix the butter through, and form it back into a smooth ball.
Dust the ball with flour, wrap it in wax paper and stick it in your fridge while we make the filling.
SO chop about half a large onion
2 ribs of celery
1 carrot
2 handfuls of cabbage
2 or 3 small potatoes - enough for about a handful of chopped spud
and about 1/2-3/4lb of beef or lamb. I like to use a London broil for this, because it gets so tender. This needs to be in 1/4in cubes, super tiny, so that it will cook through inside the pastry.
This is 2TB of Dale's Marinade (or worcestershire sauce, or liquid seasoning of your choice), 1tsp pepper and 1tsp salt.
Put all the veg, the meat and the spices into your bowl, top it with a good sprinkle of flour (that will help make gravy inside the pastry) and mix it up. Ta da! Filling!
Retrieve the dough from your fridge and divide it into six pieces.
Roll out a piece on a lightly floured surface, aiming for about 1/4in thick. Flip the pastry over so that the floury side is facing up. Put about 1/2c of the filling into the middle of your pastry - don't worry about spreading it out, just let it be a little pile of tasty goodness.
Fold over the pastry, and press around the filling, to kind of seal it in there. Don't worry if there is a huge excess of dough around the filling because...
You get to cut it off with a knife! Leave about a 1/2in 'rim' around the filling.
Seal the edges of the pastry with a fork, like so ^ and cut a few holes in the top with a knife to let the air escape.
Brush them with butter and pop those suckers in your oven (preheated to 350'F, of course) for about an hour. You don't have to use parchment paper, but I like it because I know they won't stick. I don't play when it comes to my pasties.
An hour later, this will emerge fragrant, buttery and golden brown, from your oven. Go ahead. Admire your handiwork.
Oh, check out the flakiness of the crust, the tenderness of the beef, the spice of the pepper - truly, these are a gift from the angels!

Kaiserslautern Christmas Market

It is Christmas Market time again here in Germany! Today we ventured out in the snow to visit Kaiserslautern's annual Christkindmarkt. By far one of the smaller Markets we've been to, it certainly wasn't lacking in all of the Christmas Market necessities; namely rides, gluhwein, dampfknudeln and hats.


Joseph and Ella enjoyed this small ferris wheel, and were positive that they could convince me to ride it with them. Mommy: 1 Small Children: 0


And here's Will with his two favourite market items: chocolate crepes and gluhwein cups! He has a whole collection of the mugs on top of our kitchen cabinets, but this is the first with a picture on the inside. He's very, ridiculously excited about it.







Like I said, it was snowing and cold, so we all bundled up in our warm winter clothes. Joseph and Ella love their coats and hats and gloves, so this is easier than you'd expect. You can't see, but Joseph is incapable of keeping track of gloves, so the ones he wore today were not matched - one was teal, one was brown. To be honest, Ella can't keep track of these things either, but she's bad with hats - that's why she's wearing last years' set rather than the new Hello Kitty stuff I bought her a week ago.



We're all home now, and our tummies are full of home made pasties, which were awesome, and I'll post the tutorial for those in a little bit for my friends. We're hoping to hit two more 'big' Christmas Markets this year - Deidesheim and a super cool one that is inside a cave - and we'll post pictures from those when we're done :)

A Day in Our Life

This is a project for a swap on Swap-bot, but I thought I'd post it here in my nearly defunct blog, on the off chance that someone still reads this thing :) We were asked to photojournal a day in our lives, so here's what our days more or less look like here in Germany!

0700 - Wake up time! We get dressed in nice, warm clothes, and get ready to take Joseph to the bus stop for school!

It is cold and rainy here in the winter, so coats are a must, even when you don't really want to wear them :)


0730 - Time for breakfast! We head over to the bakery in our village for some warm bread. The bakery is right down the street from the bus stop, so it is quite convenient on busy mornings. As you can see, it is still very dark outside. In the winter, we'll only have sun in the middle of the day, so it is dark when Joseph leaves for school, and dark again when he comes home!

Joseph and Ella are very good at paying with Euros. That is what we use here instead of Dollars. One Euro is about $0.70 USD on a good day. See that crescent thing by Joseph's elbow? That's the German version of a croissant. It is less flaky and less buttery, and more like plain German bread.
Showing off our breakfast bags!
We eat our pastries in the car, because it is very cold outside! Today, it was about 35'F and drizzling all morning.
0800 - The bus is here! Kids in Germany don't ride yellow school buses, they ride big touring buses that are all different colors. Joseph especially likes the blue bus, because it has rainbow seats.
0830 - Ella helps me make a shopping list, because we really, really need to get some groceries today! I try to write my lists in sections that match the sections of our grocery store. It makes sense to me, but seems to confuse everyone else :)
0900 - We get to drive on the Autobahn here, which is a very well made road that is super smooth, so you can drive very, very fast. This is my speedometer in the slow lane, going about 130k/ or 80m/ph. There were Mercedes and Audis in the fast lane that were flying past me - they can get up to 120mph on these roads!

1000 - I had a doctor's appointment today, and Ella came with me. This is her favourite picture at our ENT office - a picture of a healthy sinus and a picture of a sick one. I'm having surgery next week to fix a lot of the things that are wrong with the sick sinus picture, and she likes to show me what I will look like afterwards :) She knows all of the parts of the nose and sinuses now, because she asks so many questions about this picture.

She also really likes this ear model. It is missing a few pieces - the eardrums and the small ear bones, but she still loves to show where the blood flows and where the air comes out. She says she wants to be a nurse some day, and I think she's starting already!

1200 - Checking the mail! All of our American mail is shipped to this post room at the hospital. If we have a package that won't fit in our little box, they'll put a special slip in. We take the slip to the window to pick up our packages! Alas, there were no slips in the mail today :(

1230 - Grocery shopping! This is our favourite grocery store: Globus! It is like a little tiny mall, full of different shops selling everything from expensive clothes to flowers to vacations!

There is also a restaurant in the grocery store, and we love to come here for bratwurst mit brotchen (sausages with bread), pommes (french fries) and Cola for lunch. Ella really loves brats!

We get lots of fresh produce from all over Europe, especially Spain and Greece. The grocery store has a huge cheese section, and a full butcher's shop, too. You don't get grocery bags at the stores here, you have to bring your own. We bring reusable bags to the store every time, or else we'd have to carry our food out in our hands!

1400 - We have a waffle from the vendor outside the store - you can see his cart in the first picture. Warm waffles with sugar are one of the best cold-weather treats!

1600 - Time to see Santa! We picked Joseph up from the bus stop (I forgot my camera for that part) and put on our nice clothes, then headed over to the Community Center on base to see St. Nick!

He was super nice, and even though Ella was upset about the other reindeer being mean to Rudolph, Santa assured her that everyone loves Rudolph now, and they are all friends. He promised to bring Rudolph by on Christmas Eve when he brings our presents!

1730 - Dinner time! Homefries, veggies and chicken for dinner - yum! After dinner is bedtime and then mommy can finally take a deep breath and relax :)

Playing Catch Up

I forgot - we checked out the Dinosaur Park in Kaiserslautern a few days ago. It was basically the coolest park I've ever been to, EVER. There are giant, life-sized dino statues all over the place, plus half a dozen different little parks with swings and ropes and slides and water playthings, and flowers - oh my gosh, the flowers - that made the whole parks smell amazing!



So Danny and Bill Sr. (Will's dad and brother) are finally here! After a lunch of tasty doner kebaps from our local shop, we visisted Schloss Nanstein, the gorgeous castle ruins in Landstuhl. Will had a great time messing around with his new tripod and remote control camera shutter, so we have plenty of random pictures :) Tonight we're just relaxing, but we've got a fun day planned for tomorrow!

What a Loooong Day

Okay, the last few days are mostly a blur, but I'll see if I can sort them out...

Friday night was dinner at my friend Deborah's house. Her three girls remind me of my sisters and I, if we liked each other more :) Logan, her youngest, is great friends with Joe and Ella - they're all so darn cute together!

We made snickerdoodles (they were awesome - props to Alyshia) and grilled out. The kiddos picnic'd in the yard and rubbed chicken all over their faces, from the look of things.

So after dinner, we headed over to Lana's (have you met my friend Lana?) to see how she was doing getting ready for her mom to come visit in the morning. She was a tad panicked about driving all the way to Frankfurt airport by herself in the dark, so we had a bit of an impromptu sleepover so I could drive with her.
Three hours after we finally went to bed (they have a super comfy couch) we woke up to drive the hour in the dark, through a city to the airport, got lost parking, got lost finding the terminal, finally found her mom, couldn't get back to the car... it was a very long morning.

So I gather up my kids and zoom home. I get the rum cake in the oven, shower and dress everyone for our egg hunt while it's baking, stuff Easter eggs while it's cooling, throw everything in the car and head out to our Easter BBQ at Kathleen's house :)

There was a fantastic lunch - a full grill-out, and tons of sides and desserts provided by the guests. After we all stuffed ourselves, we dyed eggs (I know what you're thinking, but it actually worked out really well!) and had a spoon race, which Joseph won!

And finally, the main event - the Egg Hunt! Easily two hundred eggs were hidden in Kathleen's yard, and when we ran out of hiding spaces, the balance was just tossed on the grass. It really did look like the Easter Bunny threw up back there. Everyone got about a bazillion eggs and had a blast - my kiddos were so tired when we left :)

We picked up groceries on the way home, and Jamie dropped our little friend Aidan off to spend the night, so that she and her husband can volunteer with Airmen Against Drunk Driving (AADD), an organization that puts soldier volunteers to work picking up intoxicated soldiers in the local area and returning them to the barracks in one piece :) Between calls, you get to hang out in the lounge, playing video games, watching tv and chillin' with the other volunteers - all in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday night.

So here I sit, exhausted, looking forward to a relaxing day of... doing absolutely nothing at all :)

Pools & Pizza

Oh man, today was a great day!

We met Lana and Deb at the pool today for some swim time - after everything that's happened in the last week, I just needed to spend some time with my close friends. It was awesome! The kids love to swim there, because it has a slide and a little kiddie climbing thing. And I got to float in the water with Nana, Lana's baby, which was nice :) Poor thing was so sleepy, I thought she was going to fall asleep right there in the water.

Then a few friends came over for pizza and playtime, and we spent several hours chatting it up and hanging out, enjoying each others' company. Even a couple of husbands came, so Will got to meet some guys and hang out, too.

And best of all, Ella stayed dry in her big girl panties ALL DAY! She had one little accident when her friend was here tonight, and I think it was because she got so caught up playing that she forgot she wasn't wearing a diaper. She was dry all night, and even in the car today - I'm so proud of her! She was very, very upset when daddy forgot and put a pull-up on her at bedtime, but we fixed it :)

*sigh* So today was great. And we might go swimming again tomorrow, just for fun... who knows?

Been a While...

I know it's been a while, but I really need to get back in to blogging, for my own sake. Basically, my handwriting is awful, and I can't read my own journal entries anymore. So... time to catch up!


Kaile (Joe and Ella's Godmother) came to visit. We went to Paris. It was...swell? I don't know - we had a great time and all, but so many little things went wrong - at the very least it's a great story to tell :) Actually, several stories - we also visited Heidelberg Castle, and the Nazi Prison, Gross St. Martin and the Chocolate Museum in Cologne and went for dinner and dancing in Kaiserslautern... so many, many stories that I will torment her with for years to come :) I absolutely can't wait until she comes back to visit again, but that won't be until after she finishes basic training and AIT :( We'll be waiting for you in the fall, Kaile!!



Ella turned three! She had an Abby Cadabby (Elmo's best friend on Sesame Street, keep up!) party at Yabadoo, and had a blast. She's been clinging to the Hello Kitty wallet and stuffed EVE from Wall-E ever since. Ella also contracted Hand, Foot and Mouth two days after being bit by a hamster. Completely unrelated, but still an interesting timeline, in my opinion. The little rodent took the tip of her finger off, but it is healing nicely and at most, she'll have a lack of fingerprint there for a while :)






Joseph has a best friend ever now. His name is Jackson, and Joseph refers to him in all things. 'If Jackson were here, he wouldn't run in the house because he is a good boy' and 'Jackson doesn't like (insert random thing here) but I do because we're friends.' It's funny to hear him talk about friends now, and it makes me feel pretty good about things. Jackson's mom, Lana, is my best Germany friend, so we do a lot of hanging out with their family. It's nice to finally have a good family to hang out and bbq and just... be friends with, I guess.


I learned this week that Andy, an old boyfriend from Scotland, passed away last fall. I found out when I was redirected from his website to his memorial page, which is honestly not how I would have chosen... There is no information on cause, but I'd wager that the bacterial meningitis they had been trying to contain with amputations finally overcame him. I'm struggling to remember him not as the angry, hurt man I last spoke to, but as the loud, fun guy with the glass eye that I remember from my time in Scotland.

Will's brother and dad are arriving in the near future for a weeklong visit. I'm trying to work out an itenerary, but finding it rather difficult... I don't know what to do! Tulips in Holland? A day in Amsterdam? Berlin? Black Forest? Castle tours? I just can't decide! Ah well, I'll figure it all out somehow.

Oh, and today starts potty training for Ella. I absolutely can't handle diapers anymore - they arealways out of her size at the commissary, so it's become rather a necessity to get her out of them. I'm trying cold turkey this time - lots of water and juice, and no more diapers. I have tile floors and a mop - we're just going to ride this out, if we have to.