My birthday

Today is my birthday.  It's actually the 2nd birthday I've spent in Nepal. Last year at this time I was here on a 10 day trip with my cousin to check everything out.  This morning as I was tip-Toeing out to the kitchen passed the kids rooms thinking they were sleeping and wanting to keep it that way, I heard "Happy Birthday, Mom" from every room.
Luke made me breakfast and gave me a card from our church saying Happy Birthday. They gave it to Luke before  we left 2 weeks ago. He saved it and I was very surprised to see it. Luke made me eggs and bacon--yes bacon. It's quite expensive, but it was a nice treat.

When the kids woke up we made a cake together. They each took a turn dumping in an ingredient for the cake. We made quite a mess, but it was fun. Now, we just got a gas oven. It has an electric starter on it. We only have power a few hours each day. Today it doesn't come on until 10am, but we go to our church fellowship at 11. I wasn't sure 1 hour was enough time. So, we tried starting the oven with our clicker thingy, but we could only get the broiler part to come on. I thought surely if I turn it on low the cake will cook just fine. It cooked beautifully. After about 40 minutes I pulled it out. The knife came out clean, so after a minute or two of cooling I decide to flip it out of the pan.

Now, since the broiler is cooking from the top down, apparently the very bottom wasn't cooked and I didn't know it till it was too late. When I flipped it over it started oozing out every where. So I scooped it back in the pan the best I could. The only problem now is that it's still an hour till the power comes on, so I can cook it right. But the only thing to do is wait.

At 10am, I stuck it into the oven. It seems to be cooking right, just a little disfigured. We made banana pudding last night, so if the cake is a flop and looks horrible we will turn it into a trifle--mixing it with the leftover pudding and frosting I made.

Now for the frosting....
I wanted a chocolate butter cream icing. The only problem here is that it's still chilly out, so my butter at room temperature is hard. I chopped it up and put it next to the stove with a pot of boiling water next to it to generate a little heat, but not enough to melt the butter. It worked perfectly. Until I moved it away from the stove and mixed it with the other ingredients--especially the milk, which was, yes, cold. So now we are back to hard butter. I can't find my hand mixer (remember no electricity). This is an old-fashioned hand mixer my mom found for me. After looking everywhere, I have come to the decision that I left it in America. :( (Mom, maybe you can find it at Christy's and send it with Justin.)

Have no fear, I will use my Tupperware chopper that has a mixer blade...but of course it's too thick. So then double boiler style (Thanks Grandma Joyce, for teaching me this.) I then proceed to melt all of the frosting, so that we wouldn't have chunks of butter in it. I have put it in the freezer and I hope that it comes out fine!

It is definitely very interesting getting used to limited power and resources, but I am not discouraged. I am actually enjoying this adventure.