One of our favorite order-in meals - Sate!

There's a man who sells sate from a cart on a street not far from our home.  On occasion Josh will get on his bike in the evening and drive over to his cart and place an order for sate and lonton.  Our kids love this stuff!

This is lonton - rice cooked in banana leaves.  It tastes like rice - not bananas! :)

Josh usually orders about 50-70 sticks of sate - it comes with chicken meat and the occasional chunk of fat.  There is not much meat per stick, so we all eat around 10 sticks of sate. (Goat meat is also an option, but not one we've opted for yet.)

The meal comes complete with veggies - about quarter to half a cup for 70 sticks of sate - and includes shallots and cucumbers in a sweet/salty sauce of some sort.

We add our own shredded cabbage, drizzle on some peanut sauce and we're ready to eat!

The Boy's Birthday Gifts and Party

Surfing T-shirts from Nana & Papa

Grandma & Grandpa pitched in a bit to help us buy the boys bikes:

Their birthday party included games like Mafia, Taboo and several rousing rounds of Spoons!

They all enjoyed Dirt Cake instead of the traditional birthday cake - but who can resist Oreos and gummy worms!  Sugar overload!

Not sure why there was so much smoke when they blew the candles out...

Happy Birthday, Spencer and Mitchell!  We love you so much and are proud of the young men you are becoming!  We thank God for His great gift of you two!

The Boy's Birthday Meal

For birthdays here, we follow their tradition of having yellow rice for a special meal.  One part of that special meal that we love is the peanut topping.  As I was working on it, my house helper pitched in to refine my skills!  Here are photos of the process...

I chopped up 3 chunks of tempe - fermented soybeans - and fried them in a pan - no oil.

I also fried about 3 cups of peanuts - shelled but with skins on. 

I cracked open some kimiri nuts (candlenuts) and dry roasted them on a hot pan.  These are used as a thickener.  Apparently they are poisonous if eaten raw.

My helper got the rice going - this is not the way I cook rice - but nationals here do.  I use a rice cooker.  She put fresh tumeric into the rice water, not sure what other seasonings she used.

I chopped up some shallots & garlic and "tried" to pulverize them in my mortar and pestle.  

Thought I'd done a good job, 'til my helper came along and "finished the job".  Wow!

I added some water to tamarind paste to work out the seeds and other stuff, and ended up with this tamarind/water mixture which is essential in flavoring the dish.

This is what stayed in the strainer when I worked the tamarind pulp through.

I grated some palm sugar to add to the tamarind.  

Then we fried the spices in a little oil...

 ...added the tamarind and palm sugar...

...the fried peanuts...

...the fried tempe...

...and mixed them all together!

The end result?? Sweet, tangy, caramelized peanut and tempe mixture.  We used to also put some dried spicy peppers in it to give it a nice kick, but noticed the kids weren't as nuts about it spicy.  Little by little we'll add that back in.  Locals also add tiny dried fish, but since this is my house, we leave those out!!!  

Here's a photo of "Nasi Kuning", presented with garnishes of "Sambal Kacang" (the peanut dish we just cooked) along with cucumbers, shredded chicken, local hot sauce and omelet slices.  

One of our favorite meals!  Thanks for having a birthday, boys! :)