Team KoalaBunny's Adventures

 The reason for our big move to Taiwan is a long story to explain. I (Linda) will do my best to do that here.

If you go back to our first post with our story you'll read that we got married as we both sensed a call from God to be missionaries to Asia. Fast forward to right after we got married, my dad received a diagnosis for plasma cell leukemia which is a rare and aggressive form of multiple myeloma. Being a nurse, I knew my dad didn't have long so we moved back to be near my parents. God provided a job that fit my PhD dissertation perfectly at my mother's alma mater. We settled into a comfortable lifestyle, the pay and schedule was great as it enabled as to live with just me working and Phil going to seminary and taking care of the kids.

I thought my dad had 3-5 years but it turned out he only had one. At that time I was pregnant with Joy during my dad's last days and it was stressful to say the least. Suffice to say, our time was really stressful and moving to the area we didn't find many friends. The town we were in seem to have this attitude of "if you haven't been here for a decade, we can't accept you or befriend" and maybe small towns just have that attitude which I didn't notice when I lived there back when I was a child.

Two years after we moved back near my parents, a year after my dad passed away, we begun to get restlessness. Perhaps it was from all the stress, perhaps from the lack of a good community but we just sensed that we needed to move. We talked with several missions agencies and I even did a field visit to China but just sensed that wasn't where God was calling us at this time.

Unfortunately, none of the churches or ministries Phil was interested in gave him the call. So we thought perhaps we just needed to stay where we were and instead gave a lot of money towards missions. If Phil could finish his PhD at my university he could end up earning a great income and our two incomes put together could enable us to support a family on missions full time, alas that wasn't to be either. I couldn't believe they rejected his application. Then circumstances just came to be that Phil was asked to go back to the school he was teaching in Taipei and that's how we came to see the move to Taipei as the next step from the Lord.

Our hope as we move to Taiwan is to save the world through small acts. As Saint Mother Teresa (or Saint Teresa of Avila depends on who you ask) says: "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." We've felt the call from God to go abroad and always thought we'll do something great for Him but recently we've realized that maybe all we're called to be is to live authentically as Christ followers and show small acts of kindness with great love.

I get the feeling that God is refining us with this move, that He'll help us to come to know ourselves, accept ourselves and be ourselves. 

For awhile this blog became my recipe repository. I think it is because I needed this blog to be the recipe repository at that time. My father, who will always be rememberd fondly as a chef, was dying of terminal cancer at that time and I needed a way to connect and remember him. To this end the blog will still be a recipe repository from time to time but it originally did start out as the record keeper of our adventures. Now it will get to be that again, the record keeper of our memories that we would like to hold onto that's similar to what we have in our emails. We didn't do it intentionally but when koala and I started dating, it was through emails and we now have hundreds of pages of emails recording exactly how our courtship went down up in the cloud storage.
But back to the blog, it will be a place that we will keep our close family and friends informed of our adventures as we're doing life apart from you all. It is a way to keep connected. Just like how this blog helped me to still feel connected to my dad after he passed away. Only I hope we'll get to see you all on this side of heaven for a long while.
I suppose if this blog had a mission/purpose/value statement it would be to help us to stay connected to our loved ones. 

Yes, we are cleaning out our freezer and I thought we'd clear oursevles of seafood as we'll be heading off to where there are fresh seafood :)

Here's the popcorn shrimp I cobbled together from various recipes:

Have 3 bowls ready for dipping the shrimp into:

First bowl of 1/2 cup of flour
Second bowl of 2 eggs
Third bowl with the following contents

2 tsp Old bay seasoning
1/2 tsp of garlic
1/2 tsp of parsley
1/8 of sea salt
1/8 oninon powder
 1 cup of crumbs
 1/2 cup of grated cheese

Here's how it turned out:


We're not affiliated with Line characters, just our usual bunny is on vacation?

We had chicken teriyaki the other day and then I discovered some leftover salmon in the freezer so made this recipe that was a big hit with the kids (I suspect is all that brown sugar)

https://chefsavvy.com/easy-teriyaki-salmon/

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 4 salmon filets, skinless
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon water
• green onions for garnish, if desired
• sesame seeds for garnish, if desired

 Marinade:

• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ½ teaspoon ginger, minced
• ¼ cup low sodium soy sauce (It is important to use low sodium. I find regular makes the sauce too salty)
• ⅛ cup water
• 2-3 tablespoons brown sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
• 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil

Add garlic, ginger, soy sauce, ⅛ cup water, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil to a medium bowl. Place salmon filets in the ziplock bag and marinate for 30 minutes. I made another batch for the reserved marinade that's used later.

1. Heat oil in a large skillet. Add salmon filets making sure not to overcrowd pan.
2. Cook 3-4 minutes on each side until desired doneness.
3. Meanwhile heat the reserved marinade in the saucepan and bring to a simmer.
4. Add cornstarch and water to a small bowl and whisk to combine.
5. Slowly whisk in the cornstarch mixture to the marinade and simmer until thickened.
6. Serve immediately with the teriyaki sauce drizzled on top as well as green onions and sesame seeds for garnish, if desired

Excuse the mess on my stove...things get a bit sloppy when you have kids :D

We were really in the mood for chinese noodles so I made a variation of this recipe from the site here:

https://omnivorescookbook.com/homemade-zha-jiang-mian-fried-sauce-noodles/

Ingredients:
lb of ground beef
1 tablespoon minced ginger
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
200 grams (or 7 ounces like 1 cup) sweet bean sauce
100 milliliters (like 1/2 cup) vegetable oil
400 milliliters (around 2 cups) water
1 small onion, chopped
240 gram (9 ounces however much of the box of american pasta) fresh noodles
(optional) stir fried tomato and egg
1 cucumber, julienned

Directions:
Add beef, ginger and rice wine into a large bowl. Mix well.
Add sweet bean sauce to a medium sized bowl. Slowly blend in water and stir constantly, until water is fully incorporated.
Heat a wok (or a heavy bottomed skillet) over medium high heat. Add oil and wait until oil is hot, 2 to 3 minutes. Add beef and stir constantly, until the surface turns mostly white. Swirl in sweet bean sauce. Turn to medium heat and keep stirring constantly, until the sauce turns almost black, about 10 mins. If the sauce thickens too quickly and starts to feel like it’s sticking to the bottom of the wok, slowly blend in warm water, 1/2 cup at a time. Reduce the heat if the wok gets too hot.
Add onion into the sauce and keep stirring, until fully cooked but still crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Stop heat and transfer the sauce to a large bowl.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook noodles according to instructions.
Add noodles to serving bowls. Top noodles with sauce, cucumber, and stir fried tomato and egg.
Serve warm.

We had a lot of mandarins and yogurt left so I tried out Martha Stewart's recipe for orange yogurt cake:
https://www.marthastewart.com/948283/orange-yogurt-cake


Unsalted butter, softened, for pan (be sure to put lots of butter and the cake will just slip right out)
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar (I only used half as much yogurt)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon grated orange zest, plus 1 tablespoon orange juice (I just used 2 little mandarins and blended them with a baby food masher)
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch round cake pan. Stir flour, 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, the baking powder, baking soda, salt, yogurt, oil, orange and juice, egg, and vanilla in a bowl. Pour into pan. Bake until a cake tester comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Had this great recipe

http://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a45873/copycat-olive-garden-zuppa-toscana-recipe/

Ingredients:

1 lb. Hot Italian sausage, casings removed (We just bought the Italian sausage that looked like ground beef)
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
kosher salt - (just a pinch)
Freshly ground black pepper (or whatever spice you like)
6 c. low-sodium chicken broth
4 large russet potatoes, diced
1 bunch curly kale, leaves stripped and chopped (chopped was fine)
3/4 c. heavy cream
4 slices cooked bacon, chopped
1/4 freshly grated Parmesan, for serving (I didn't have this)

Directions:
In a large pot over medium heat, cook sausage, breaking up with the back of a wooden spoon, until browned and no longer pink, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a plate to drain.
Add onion to pot and let cook until soft, 5 minutes, then add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute more. Season with salt and pepper. Add chicken broth and potatoes and cook until potatoes are tender, 23 to 25 minutes.
Stir in kale and let cook until leaves are tender and bright green, 3 minutes, then stir in heavy cream, sausage, and bacon and simmer 5 minutes more.
Season with pepper, garnish with Parm, and serve

Here's the final product and it was delicious!