Finale of the Int’l Family Meal Challenge

For the final night of the Int’l Family Meal Challenge, our girl drew Asian cuisine and she had some fun tricks up her sleeve. They didn’t quite work out the way she had envisioned but it was still super fun to see her in action giving it her best shot and giving us a full range experience of all different types of Asian food.

What’s For Dinner

She started us outside using an outdoor grill hibachi-style. The crazy winds of Colorado had other plans so we ended up having to move indoors.

Check out the menu/open-flame style:

• Her inspiration for this meal came from this video: “Hibachi Style Dinner“
• California Rolls
• Grilled Steak
• Grilled Shrimp (Midway through dessert, she realized she had forgotten to grill the shrimp – we never would have known)
• Grilled Chicken
• Homemade Yum Yum Sauce 
• Fried Rice
• Stir Fry Veggies (Scallions, Onion, Squash, Mushrooms)
• Korean Banana Milk (her concoction of pureed bananas and coconut milk)
• Coconut Tapioca with Lychee and Pineapple  – For this Thai dessert, she went in search of lychee which is especially hard to come by during a quarantine (surprise, surprise) but ended up with the most delicious passion fruit. We had some fun trying out a couple of other exotic fruits, one which made the final cut – pics below.

Quite the Vision

Bright, colorful and oh so cheery!  

 

A medley of zucchini, yellow squash, onion and mushrooms served hot off the grill – simply the best!

Chopsticks, of course, where an essential part of this culinary experience.

Now check out these beauties!  Golden pineapple always a crowd-pleaser but curiosity got the best of us and we explored a new fruit called a cherimoya. It is a green, cone-shaped fruit with scaly skin and creamy, sweet flesh; and the best part – its heart shape center!  The piece de resistance was opening and tasting the tropical passion fruit. WOWZA!  It was the clear winner for the dessert and goodness was it delicious.

Hibachi “beating heart” rice and flaming volcano onion tricks didn’t quite come out the way she wanted with the rice on the crunchy side and the flame being taken out over and over again by the crazy wind but it was still fun to circle around to see the firework attempts.  Despite all that, the flavor was outstanding.

One Last Memory Run

 

Have to finish out this challenge with a memory run of our first born. She has blossomed into such a beautiful, grounded young woman. Even in the midst of quarantine chaos and finishing out her freshman year of college in a new kind of way with an unanticipated extended stay at home due to COVID-19, she has taken it all in stride.

Family, friends, training, school and life still keep on going in a new way shape and form.

“After all, time is a one way street.”

That’s A Wrap

Well that’s a wrap on this two week extravaganza of family meal challenges.

Truly believe something pretty unexpected and special has come up out of this and has been imprinted on our hearts and minds for a lifetime.

Here’s to continuing to find new ways of making the best of it and treasuring every minute.

Much Love,

Elayne

www.sharinglifeloveandfood.com

P.S.  The votes are in and much to mom’s dismay, she was declared the two-time champ, even though she thought Greek was the clear winner, ha!