Mochi

And there I went again... The littles and I have been so busy playing outside that I am having a hard time keeping up with the housework, let alone spending extra minutes in front of the computer blogging.  There are some pictures of what we've been up to lately on my Flickr account here.

Last weekend we had a birthday picnic for Roo at the arboretum playground with lots of friends and even more cupcakes.  Hopefully, a good time was had by all.  The birthday girl certainly enjoyed herself, and came home with an armful of hand-crafted birthday cards from all her friends.

One of our friends' little ones is on a gluten free diet, so we made a batch of Hawaiian mochi to bring along as a sweet treat he could share.  There are enough potentially new ingredients in the recipe to make posting it a worthwhile endeavor.  Also, please note that this is seriously easy stuff to whip up, with no raw ingredients, so make it with your smalls and be sure to lick the bowl and spoon afterwards.  Here goes:

Hawaiian Coconut Mochi
from Neil Young (Yes, really.  We went to college with him.)

1 box Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour, or 1 package Dried Sweet Glutinous Rice Flour (And yes, there is a difference between the green package and the red package, so get the green one!)
(We've always been able to find one of these two options at our local grocery store in the Asian foods aisle.)

1 can Coconut Milk (We like this brand and it's is a bit cheaper than the Thai Kitchen brand, so it's what we've always gotten for our Indian/Thai/Hawaiian cooking.  It is also available at our local grocery store.  Yay Hy-Vee!)

2 C sugar
food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9" x 13" pan.
Mix mochiko and sugar in a large bowl.  In a quart measuring cup or medium bowl, combine coconut milk with water to make 3 1/2 C total liquid, and add food coloring to tint.  Stir into the dry mix till completely combined and smooth and pour into pan.  Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour; remove from oven and let stand for a minute or two before loosening the cover - watch out for the hot steam!  Let cool for 3-4 hours before cutting; roll pieces in corn starch to keep from sticking together.  Store tightly wrapped or freeze, and eat it up quick so you can make more!!!  :)

And in other, unrelated news, something keeps digging up my zucchini seeds from the garden and I am starting to get annoyed.  This morning will be the third time I've tried to plant them.  Nothing much else in the garden is being harassed, and so I am wondering if I have some exclusively zucchini-seed-obsessed ground hog living nearby this spring?

We're off to UW Madison to hear Neil deGrasse Tyson give a talk on the Terrace.  I am very excited about this.  I am also a big nerd.

Happy Thursday!