No Mardi Gras season is complete without a king cake. A traditional king cake is made with a brioche style dough mixed with cinnamon and sugar, then topped with a glaze and sprinkled with color sugars. Making brioche dough can be time consuming so I took a little shortcut. My easy mini king cake recipe captures the essence of a traditional king cake. Back in Louisiana, you could pick up a freshly baked king cake at every grocery store and bakery.  My local grocery store sells king cake but it disappoints me every time. When I only had one kid, we made king cakes from scratch. This time ..read more

  This post is sponsored by Xfinity. but opinions are my own. Winter break can’t come fast enough in our home. It’s been a challenging year for my kids and us parents. Both kids started new schools this fall while my husband and I have found a precarious balance of working from home together.  Which is why we’re looking forward to a quiet, low-key staycation over the holidays. Like any parent, I want more family time where all four of us do things together instead of sitting on the couch looking at our individual phones. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s good to change th ..read more

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through the links, we’ll receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thanks for your support! It’s that time of year again. Where I scroll through Etsy and various websites to find the perfect planner. Even though I know the perfect planner doesn’t exist. For the past several years, I’ve used a discbound planner so I can add or remove planner printables as my needs change. Printables are great because you print what you need as you need them. I don’t feel guilty if the pages since I only print a few at a time. I can’t say the same about th ..read more

Halloween is not a spooky affair for our family. We prefer to keep our celebration light and fun, like the 2016 Ghostbusters movie. Of course, an in-home movie night at home wouldn’t be complete without a themed food: enter the not so spooky mummy calzone. The mummy calzone is super easy to make. It takes less than 10 minutes to assemble and another 20 to bake. Which means you’ll have more time to watch all the Ghostbusters extras! In my recipe notebook, I sketched how I wanted the mummy calzone to come together. I usually make a shopping list on a piece of paper , but ha ..read more

  This year’s Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is September 8, 2014. It snuck up on me this year, but I have plenty of time to prepare. In Vietnamese, we call it Têt Trung Thu, which falls the 15th day of the 8th month on the lunar calendar (the full moon). Even if you’re not Vietnamese or Chinese, your family can celebrate too! The festival begin during the Xia and Shang Dynasties (2000 BCE-1066CE) in China as a harvest celebration. Since Vietnam is heavily influenced by Chinese culture, my family celebrates Têt Trung Thu (prounounced “teht troong too”) as well. Our family usually cele ..read more

Now that school is back in session, our afterschool and dinner family time is at a premium. I’d rather spend as little time in the kitchen as possible in order to spend more time sitting at the dinner table, sharing stories about our day. A go-to weeknight meal that can be made with mostly pantry staples is perfect to add to our dinner repertoire. These easy gluten-free tuna quinoa patties are easy and quick (with just a bit of prep work). The patties are packed with protein, with plenty of omega-3 fatty acids thanks to the tuna. My slightly picky 8-year-old requested seconds, so they are de ..read more

This post contains affiliate links.   Is it really almost Lunar New Year already? While we Vietnamese people call it Tết, most people call this celebration Chinese New Year. Koreans celebrate too. It’s one of the biggest parties thrown every year! In fact Chinese culture celebrates for 2 weeks while the Vietnamese has 3 days of festivities.  In China and Vietnam, everything shuts down so people can visit family and party. Our family doesn’t hold days long parties since we have jobs and school. Our family is excited about celebrating the new year. We’re going to stuff our f ..read more

I don’t remember the exact details of the first time kids teased me about my small eyes, but I can remember the confusion and shame I felt. Shame for being myself. For being a Vietnamese American. It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned to love my eyes and my heritage. But our children don’t have to wait that long. Their friends won’t be taught to tease others for their differences. And if they do, there’s a book that will help kids of AAPI background take pride in how they look. Every child, no matter how their eyes look, need a copy of Eyes That Kiss in the Corners written by Joanna ..read more

No Mardi Gras season is complete without a king cake. A traditional king cake is made with a brioche style dough mixed with cinnamon and sugar, then topped with a glaze and sprinkled with color sugars. Making brioche dough can be time consuming so I took a little shortcut. My easy mini king cake recipe captures the essence of a traditional king cake. Back in Louisiana, you could pick up a freshly baked king cake at every grocery store and bakery.  My local grocery store sells king cake but it disappoints me every time. When I only had one kid, we made king cakes from scratch. This time ..read more

Halloween is not a spooky affair for our family. We prefer to keep our celebration light and fun, like the 2016 Ghostbusters movie. Of course, an in-home movie night at home wouldn’t be complete without a themed food: enter the not so spooky mummy calzone. The mummy calzone is super easy to make. It takes less than 10 minutes to assemble and another 20 to bake. Which means you’ll have more time to watch all the Ghostbusters extras! In my recipe notebook, I sketched how I wanted the mummy calzone to come together. I usually make a shopping list on a piece of paper , but ha ..read more