Easter and Golden Week

We had some more visitors to our place during Easter holiday and Golden Week (Japan's holiday in May).
First, we had our friends who live in South Africa came to visit us with their son (about 2 years old). This is their first visit after we had our son so we were super excited to introduce him to them. Especially, I was curious about how their son react to our son.

Their son loved our son! He was very curious about our baby and wanted to see him and touch him. He was very nice to our son. When he hears our son crying, he would say "Baby, Crying" and he makes surprised face. He is so cute. I wish we live close by so their son will be our son's big brother and he can teach lots of things to our son :-)

Anyhow, as I have wrote here before, the father of this boy is a great cook and he always cook something great for us every time they visit us. (I know, they are visiting us so we should be making something for them but we just love his cooking so we have to have something from his cooking when we see them)

This time, he made chicken enchilada with mexican rice and beans. He showed me how to make this in a very easy way using store bought roasted chicken and enchilada sauce and stuff. It was really really good!

It is a great idea to use already made roasted chicken. This was great dish which we can make with quite a short time and effort but still taste excellent!

He also made some beans and rice and salsa. Since I don't like beans, I didn't eat beans but looks pretty good.

We also had visitors from Germany. My husband's best friend and his girlfriend were here for a few days. It was very nice that they got to see our son in person also. They loved playing with our son. They were so good with him!

Since it was Easter when they were all here, I made egg's benedict for everybody. This is something I make every Easter and my husband absolutely love this dish. I always think that I should make this more often since my husband gets so excited about this dish but I always forget about making this dish. So normally, we have this once a year on Easter weekend.

After Easter holidays, we had my sister visiting from Japan because Japan had a holiday on the first week of May called " Golden Week". My sister was not sure until last minute if she should come visit or not since she can only stay for 5 days and the fights were super expensive. However, if she miss this chance, she wasn't sure when she can come visit us next time and she really wanted to meet her nephew so she decided to come.

It was such a short visit but we had a great time and I was so happy that our son and my sister got to meet and spend some time. I am so thankful that she spend so much money and made an effort to come here and meet him. I have a wonderful sister! I love spending time with my sister.

When she was here, I made the chicken enchilada which my friend made for us during the Easter Holiday. It came out pretty good. It was not as good as his chicken enchilada but I think I replicate it pretty well and it was quite easy to make!

This is the one I made.

Mine didn't have enough cheese and sauce. I will try to have more cheese and sauce next time. But everybody loved it. I know I will be making this more often because it is easy but tasty!

Brunch at Williamsburg, Brooklyn

On the weekend, my husband and I went to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to have brunch with our friends. Williamsburg is a very popular area in Brooklyn and many young people live and visit this area. There are lots of cute restaurants and cafes and if you walk to the water, you can see a nice view of Manhattan. I always wanted to visit but never actually did so this was my first time visiting Williamsburg.

I had this egg, potato and toast combo for brunch. The scrambled egg was with homemade sausages and it was really good. Normally, I am not a big breakfast person but this one was really good and I liked it. Though the portion was little too big for me so I couldn't eat them all.... 

When we went to the restaurant, it was pretty crowded but there was no line so we were able to have a seat right away. Plus, we got a really nice table by the open window. The weather was perfect that day. Nice and warm so we had a perfect brunch! When we left the restaurant, there was a long line of poeple waiting for tables. I guess we were super lucky! 

After eating big brunch, we walked around Williamsburg. It was such a nice day and everybody was out enjoying the nice weekend. This is a picture I took from a park by the river, over looking Manhattan. If you look left when you are there, you can also see Williamsburg bridge. 

During the walk, we stop by at this cute coffee shop which is our friend's favorite coffee shop. They made an art with the form. So cute! 

As I have expected, Williamsburg was a wonderful place to walk around and have meals or coffee. I really liked it. I would love to come again. Next time, maybe for dinner because the night view of Manhattan must be spectacular also. 

There were lots of new apartment buildings right by the water over looking Manhattan. It must be really nice apartment but I think the rent or price tag will be really high also :-) 

Anyhow, we had such a wonderful weekend! 

Easter Sunday Brunch Eggs Benedict

It has been a while since we had Easter but I would like to show you guys what we had for Easter Sunday Brunch. Every Easter, I make Eggs Benedict for brunch. This is because when I was living in California with an Indian lady, she used to make Eggs Benedict for Easter. She introduced this dish to me and I loved it so I was eating Eggs Benedict every Easter while I was living with her.

When I started to live with my husband, I decided to make it myself to impress my husband. It worked! He was so impressed and loved it. Ever since I make Eggs Benedict every year for Easter to make my husband smile :-)

For Hollandaise sauce. I actually use McCormick's packaged sauce. I know it is better to make it from scratch but I always use this package for Eggs Benedict. It is pretty good.

First, I make Hollandaise sauce using this package.

At the end, I add some lemon juice for a bit of tangy flavor.

Then, I porch eggs. I learned from TV that if you add some vinegar when you porch your egg, it comes together easily. So I always add vinegar in the hot water in the pan. This is a good trick.

Toast English Muffins.

Saute some Canadian bacon and place on top of your English Muffin.

Place your porched egg on top and pour Hollandaise sauce over it. Sprinkle some chopped chives and freshly ground black peppers. I added asparagus on the side to make it look more springy!

Isn't it pretty? For me, this dish screams Spring. When I eat this dish, I think of nice warm spring day with lots of flowers and sunshines. This dish makes me so happy. I am not a big breakfast person but once a year I look forward to this Eggs Benedict brunch.

Also, when I have guests, I sometimes serves this for brunch and everybody likes it. So I suggest you to invite some friends for breakfast and treat them with this beautiful Eggs Benedict!

If you can not find this McCormick's Hollandaise sauce, you can make it from scratch with egg yolk, butter and lemon. (Even though I have never tried. ) I found this Tyler Florence's recipe from Food Network website. Click here for his Hollandaise sauce recipe.  Tyler never disappoint me so I am sure this one is also good.

Enjoy your spring weekend brunch with loved ones!

Wonderful visitor from South Africa

My German trip report has finished and now I will report what is going on in NY. Over the weekend, we had good friends of ours came to visit from South Africa. They are a couple from California and my husband and I met them in California about 5 years ago. Since they live in South Africa, even though we talk on the phone, we hadn't seen each other for about a year.

They had a baby last year and this time they came to visit us with the cute baby.

They also like eating like I do so when we meet, we eat a lot. The husband of the couple is really good at cooking so he cooked some wonderful meal this time again. And I baked some stuff.

Their flight was arriving early in the morning to NY, so I welcomed them with homemade Cinnamon roll. I had never made cinnamon roll before but it came out pretty good. Everybody loved them!

For lunch, our friend made shrimp sandwich. This was really really good! I know I will be making this again. We had some Champaign with raspberry also. Isn't that pretty? It is perfect to celebrate our reunion.

I also made raspberry mousse the day before. It was a lot of work but came out pretty good. Though the red raspberry on top supposed to set like jelly but for some reason it did not so it ended up like raspberry sauce but that was fine also.

Also, our friend made Huevos Rancheros. I never had this dish before but it was really really good! I love the cilantro on top. He used vegetarian breakfast sausage for this dish. This was my first time eating vegetarian breakfast sausage. To my surprise, it was good! I think if nobody told me, I couldn't even tell that it was vegetarian. I guess vegetarian meat products are getting better these dates. I might even consider using those products more.

We were on diet since we came back from Germany but we ate a lot this weekend. We have to go back on diet again this week :-) BUT having great meal with your great friends are priceless. I really love enjoying good food with great people. On Monday night, another couple came from Manhattan and had dinner with us. It was wonderful and we had a great time.

Since we hadn't seen each other for about a year, this was the first time meeting their baby. He was really really cute. He is so friendly and always smiling to people. I don't think there is anyone who can not smile back when he smiles. He totally stole my heart. I wish they live closer so I can babysit him all the time.

Anyway, my husband and I were so happy that they came all the way from South Africa. They were on the way to California but decided to make a special stop over in NY just to see us. I think it muse be really hard to travel with a baby but they made an effort to see us and it means a lot to me. I really appreciate their effort. I hope we can be friends for a long long time until we get old.

By the way, the wine I bought this weekend was pretty good so I would like to write it down here to remeber it. It was Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley called AVALON.

Brunch with family friends and gourmet store Käfer

Friends of the family invited us for a nice brunch at their house. They have moved to this new house in the mountain a few years ago and this was first time for my husband and I to visit their new place. The house is surrounded by mountains and it was beautiful and peaceful. 

The table setting for the brunch was really cute and springy. 

It was a Easter season so this table setting reminds me of Easter and spring. It is so colorful and beautiful.  I would love to be able to have a table decoration like this. The mother of this family and also my mother-in-law are awesome at table setting. I really think they have great talent in table setting. 

The food was great. There are so many different kind of stuff so again I ate so much but it was so good! 

We stopped by at the bakery and bought some pretzel and bread on the way there. Those pretzels were amazing! I love pretzels in Germany. It is different from the pretzels we get in NY. 

Other breads were also very good. 

After the brunch, we walked around the house. There are so many greens and it was very refreshing. My body was refreshed with clean air and beautiful view of alpes. 

After the walk, we had cakes! Of course :-) We had Cheese cake and Strawberry & Rhubarb cake. It is Rhubarb again! I really think this vegetable (fruits?) is getting popular! 

We had a great time. 

The last day of our Munich stay, my parents-in-law took me to this gourmet food store called Käfer. It was pretty big and they had all different kinds of delicious gourmet items there. I loved it! My mother-in-law thought I would like this store. She was right. I loved it. I wish I had this store close by. 

All different kinds of cheese.

Fresh vegetables. 

My favorite! Mushrooms. 

It was Easter season so there are easter decorations at sweets section of the store. 

Easter egg chocolate

Macaroon

It was lunch time when we visit this store so we went to their restaurant to have lunch. 

It was nice restaurant. 

I had vegetable risotto. I tasted all the flavor from the vegetable and it was creamy and great. 

My husband had flamkuchen which is something like a thin pizza but no tomato sauce. I actually like this better than pizza. It was with bacon and caramelize onion. So good!

My mother-in-law had white fish with some vegetables. I had a bite from her dish and this was also really really good! 

My father-in-law had roasted (grilled?) duck dish. Even though I did not try this one, it looked really good also.

So, we also met many people and ate a lot in Munich. We had a lot of fun. After this, we went back one more time to Frankfurt and went back to NY. I still have some more delicious photos from Frankfurt so I will upload them on the next post. I went to my favorite lebanese restaurant in a city about one hour away from Frankfurt. I will also post those photos.