Something for your Charlie fix

I'm sure I'd probably get scolded doing two posts with neither one having a Charlie photo, so here's a little something for you!

Bracketology

Dave and I have our own little NCAA tournament wager going on. If I win, I get a pedicure and Dave cooks me dinner. If Dave wins, I go to an action movie with him. (Personally, I think he went pretty easy on me, so it won't be too bad if he wins, but I sure would miss that pedicure and dinner.) We are using a point system of one point for every win in the first round, two points for each win in the second round and so on.

At the moment, I believe I am ahead 65-61 (correct me if I'm wrong, Dave, I couldn't remember your score for sure). We each have two Final Four teams correct: UNC and Memphis for me and UNC and UCLA for Dave, and both of us have UNC winning the whole thing. So that makes Saturday's Memphis/UCLA game the deciding game. If UCLA wins, then I'll be seeing a lot of people getting killed and things exploding on the big screen. If Memphis wins (which they will), then I will have pretty feet for the approaching sandal season and a night off from cooking. Go Tigers!

Out of curiosity, I also filled out a bracket using the coin-flip method. For each game I flipped a coin, heads being the high seed and tails the low seed. We'll just say there were a lot of tails popping up. The championship game in that bracket was Butler and Texas A&M with A&M winning the whole thing. I think I only got one team in the Elite 8 correct in that bracket, and that's as far as it went.

Did you fill out a bracket this year? How'd you do? Anyone have Davidson going to the Elite 8?

Getaway

This past weekend I got the opportunity to meet up with Dave in San Francisco while he had a couple days off with the Mavs. It was our first getaway together since Charlie was born, so we were thankful for some quality time together. Unfortunately, the two days were pretty short, but we managed to cram in quite a bit of sight seeing. The team's hotel was at the very top of one of San Fran's many hills, so we also got in some good workouts since you couldn't go anywhere without climbing up and down the hill. On Friday we did Alcatraz, the ferry building market and Fishermen's Wharf, and then had an amazing steak dinner. Saturday we drove to Sonoma with Dave's co-worker Mike and his wife Robyn. It was a beautiful drive, and we had a great day sampling some of the area's wines. All in all, our trip was great, but I feel like it was just a preview, so we need to go again!

view of city from Alcatraz

view of Golden Gate Bridge from Alcatraz

our hotel

lighthouse and warden's house at Alcatraz

Gloria Ferrer vineyard, our first stop

Mike, Robyn and Dave

On the way back from Sonoma, we took the turnoff for the GG Bridge observation area. It took us quite a bit a way from the highway, so we were starting to doubt our navigation skills, but then we turned a corner and had the most stunning view of the bridge.

Charlie spent the weekend with Granny and Grandaddy, and all reports came back that he did really well. Dave and I enjoyed our getaway, but we both missed him so much!

Easter

We had a great Easter with both sets of our parents. I think it was my first time hosting a family holiday dinner. I really enjoyed cooking, and we all had a great time together. Charlie's first Easter was also the first time we got paged to get him from the nursery during church. Someone's going through some separation anxiety. I think the day ended up wearing him out, because we caught him sucking his thumb, which he hasn't done since he was a newborn.

Grandpa and Grandma's visit

My parents came to visit over the last week, and we had a ball with them. We went to the arboretum, had a couple breakfasts at Cafe Brazil, watched a lot of basketball, went for long walks, did lots of cooking, Mom and I planted flowers, and Dad and I went to the Mavs/Celtics game. We even got to see Sue, Doug and the kids on Friday. They were visiting Doug's sister in Krum for Spring Break, and we all got together to celebrate Adrienne's and her cousin's second birthdays. We really enjoyed Mom and Dad's visit and look forward to them coming again in May!

I stole this one from Doug's blog. It's pretty rare to have all 10 of us together (let alone standing still for a photo!)

Don't I just look all grown up?

Charlie Video

Here are a couple CDub clips from that last couple of days.

Fun with Friends

Last week we had a lot of fun spending time with friends. First, Charlie and I spent some time with Lynette and Caedmon. Caedmon is getting a new little sister who is due the day after Charlie's birthday. Then we got a visit from Dave's friend Doug and his family. Dave and Doug spent a lot of time working at golf tournaments together back in the day, so it was fun to catch up with him, Molly and their kids Clare and Patrick.

Recipes

As requested, here are the recipes for my Grandma Hochhalter's dumplings and kuchen. The kuchen recipe from Grandma said to use frozen sweet roll dough, so the dough in the recipe below is from a kuchen recipe my mom sent me from the newspaper.

Dumplings
Thaw frozen bread dough or frozen dinner rolls (approx. 2 hours at room temperature). Pinch dough off in pieces about the size of large walnuts, tuck edges under to shape dumplings. Dip one end into flour. Place on cookie sheet to rise (about 1-2 hours depending on how cold your dough was). Spray skillet (electric or regular) with Pam. Add 1 c. water, ½ tsp. salt, 2 T. Crisco, some diced onion or dry onion flakes. Bring to a rolling boil. Place dumplings into pan. Cover and cook at medium heat (320° in electric) for 30 minutes. Listen for doneness. You can hear it sizzle when liquid is gone and dumplings begin to fry for the crunchy bottom. Remove cover, prick with fork and serve.

I love her comment: "Listen for doneness." Sure sign of a handed down recipe. Next time I'll add a little more salt or onion because they didn't have as much flavor as I remembered. Also, mine needed to cook a little longer to get the nice crispy bottom.


Kuchen
For the dough:
1 qt. whole milk
1 c. plus 2 tsp. sugar, divided
3 eggs at room temperature
4 tsp. salt
1 c corn oil
10 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional as needed
2 pkg. dry yeast
1/2 c. water (105 to 115 degrees)

In a medium saucepan, bring milk just to the boiling point over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent it from burning. The milk will not come to a rolling boil; it gently bubbles around the edges. Remove from heat, stir in 1 cup of sugar and cool until lukewarm.
In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, salt and corn oil. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooled milk and the egg mixture. Add the flour and mix well. Flour should still be a bit warm from the milk, but not hot. In a measuring cup or coffee cup, dissolve the yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar in the water. When the yeast mixture doubles in volume, add it to the flour in the mixing bowl and stir together. Continue adding flour until the dough can be kneaded without sticking to your hands.
To knead, leave the dough in the bowl and pull a bit from the edge and then push it into the middle of the bowl, turning the bowl as you do this. Knead for approximately 10 minutes. Dough should be soft, uniform and elastic. Form a ball and place in the bottom of the bowl. Cover and place in a warm spot until doubled, about 2 hours.
For filling: Cook non-instant vanilla pudding according to directions on box. Amount depends on number of kuchen. Add a little sugar before cooking if you like it sweeter.
Punch down and cut off a piece of dough about the size of a fist. Roll out on a floured surface about 1/4 inch thick, large enough to fit into an 8- or 9-inch pie tin with the dough going up the sides of the tin. Prick edges with a fork.
Top with fruit (canned, fresh or frozen, thawed). Top fruit with 1 to 1 1/2 cups custard. Sprinkle with sugar and a little cinnamon. Bake a 350-375 degrees until crust is brown and custard is set, about 20-25 minutes.

Grandma's traditional flavors: peach, apple, cottage cheese (mix with the custard and sprinkle with raisins)...Help me Hochhalters, am I forgetting any? I tried white chocolate chips and banana slices, but the bananas floated to the top and turned an ugly kind of brown, but tasted yummy. I was able to use one can of apple pie filling over about 3 kuchens, and I cut the apple pieces a little smaller. This recipes makes 10-12 kuchen so make sure you have plenty of pie tins handy! I think two family-size packs of pudding should do the trick.

Enjoying the sunshine

roooaaar!

Another Hochhalter fave...

Kuchen!

Since I had success with Grandma's dumplings, I thought I'd try another of her staples. Kuchen is a traditional German pastry, with a sweet, bread-like crust filled with custard and fruit. Sounds good, doesn't it? And while I cheated by using frozen bread dough for the dumplings, I made the kuchen dough from scratch, totally by hand. There is a real feeling of accomplishment looking at dough that you kneaded yourself. I made Grandma's traditional flavors of apple and cottage cheese, and then tried a white chocolate banana flavor, too. They turned out pretty well, but I definitely learned a few things to do differently next time. Although, they weren't exactly easy, so "next time" might be quite a while! (But don't worry Dad, Mom, and Sue, there are plenty in the freezer for you to have when you're here over Easter.)

I'm really excited to have had success with these recipes so I can keep the traditions going.

Play time!

Play group at the mall today! It was Charlie's first time in the play area.

Addie and Charlie

Charlie was interested in Doak's rattle

Anna and Charlie

Obviously Charlie likes Anna, maybe a little too much! Ashley said, "You better check with her Daddy first!"

Goin' for a walk

Today was a gorgeous day, so we decided to take advantage of it before it got nasty again tomorrow (snow in the forecast!). We packed up Charlie and the dogs and went to the nature preserve for a nice, long walk.

trying to show off the 8th tooth that cut through yesterday

I also had to share this picture of CDub in the same hat 6 months ago. Aunt Connie and Uncle Ed like to keep some Minnesota gear in his wardrobe.