Sweet
Honolulu
Bon Dance @ Higashi Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii
Sunset @ Lanikuhonua
Winter sunset @ Hawaii Kai
Bon Dance @ Higashi Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii
Lilikoi-Butter Butter Mochi
Happy New Year 2020! Christmas came and went and I can't believe it's time to start another year. This holiday season I tried to keep things simple and wanted to just enjoy all the festivities, music, and lights. I ordered most of my gifts online, barely baked anything in the last 4 weeks, and hardly took any pictures or video of anyone during all the performances, events and parties we attended. This gave me the opportunities to spend a lot of quality time with my family and friends and to be "in the moment" of whatever I was doing. It was nice, and I sure felt less stressed than I normally do during this time of year.
It seems like I wasn't the only one keeping things manageable for the holidays. My mother-in-law also decided to have our New Year's Eve family dinner at a restaurant instead of at her house. Less cooking and cleaning up for her and my sister-in-law, a sentiment which I can totally understand. Even so, she still invited everyone over to her house for coffee and a light dessert after our NYE dinner. I chose to make lilikoi-butter butter mochi as my family's dessert contribution. I used my kids all-time favorite lilikoi butter - the Liko Lehua brand (made in Hilo of course!) And although the end result produced a delicious and perfectly textured butter mochi (my kids loved it), I personally was a little disappointed that the lilikoi flavor wasn't as bold as I wanted it to be. To me it was very faint. So keep on the lookout in the future for a lilikoi butter mochi post. If I can get my hands on more fresh lilikoi, I may try baking one with real lilikoi juice instead of using lilikoi butter.
