First Snow

Let me just say now, as much as I love being in Canada, I really, really dislike winter and snow.

And now I need to go clean off my car so I can get to work.

Menu Plan Monday: November 20

The weather has been very moody lately, as well as indecisive. I can't figure out if I should start making warm weather meals for days like today (frost, cloudy and a high of -2C) or a light salad to match the 17C weather we had earlier last week!

Since the weather and I can't make up our minds, I, at least, deferred the decision to my children by getting their input in this week's menu plan. Can you spot what I picked versus what they did?

Ham, scalloped potatoes and assortment of veggies.

Waffles with whipped cream and fruit.

Beef and broccoli stir fry with rice.

Tomato and garlic chicken thighs with spaghetti and garlic bread.

Pizza night, myo.

Bacon and egg bagels with fruit.

And that's the menu plan for the week, being linked to Menu Plan Monday.

Menu Plan Monday: May 22

Happy 2-4 Weekend fellow Canucks! What a lovely weekend it is turning out to be, despite the constant threat of thunderstorms and rain showers.

My youngest son and I actually had the chance to plant a veggie garden this weekend, including this little container garden on my back deck.

In addition to a tomato plant, I have a square box with 3 different types of lettuce, and a long, shallow box with various herbs. The big head of chives is one of only two things from last years attempt at a garden that survived (the other being oregano, which I've moved away from all the other plants in an attempt to keep it form taking over). The chives actually belong to my little boy, who has been known to stop by the garden while playing in the yard to pick one or two as a little munchie.

We did plant another garden bed, but as most of it involves seeds, it is rather boring to look at, so I didn't take pictures.

Now on to the menu plan for the week!

Sunday: Dinner at in-laws. (As much as I like to cook, it is still really nice when someone else cooks for me.)

Monday: bbq steak with bbq baked potatoes, asparagus and mushrooms.

Tuesday: chicken fajita salad (I'm making this recipe up, but will post about it later.)

Wednesday: I'm at work today, going in early and staying late, so I'm leaving options for the hubby for tonight since it is also a school presentation night.

Thursday: Spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread.

Friday: Left over night. I'm doing early in/late out work again today.

That's it for the week. I'm submitting this to Menu Plan Monday.

Menu Plan Monday: April 30

Last week was interesting and had an effect on my menu plan. The first few days went very well, with new recipes that were eaten by everyone (Beef and Orange Stir Fry being the favorite.) A last minute change to our schedule on Wednesday resulted in picking up something quick for dinner on the way home, rather than making what I'd planned.

Then things got really crazy for a bit.

If you live in the Ottawa area, then you know about the massive wind storm that swept through on Thursday, knocking out power for many areas. In our area, we also lost water and ended up with a boil water order for several days, with the city health unit handing out drinking water at the community centre.

While the shingles of my roof were being spread out on our lawn, the trees of our neighbors yard crashed into hydro lines, and another neighbors fence flattened and broke off, we were some of the lucky people. I know of at least one house where the trees went through the roof.

At the time this was happening, I was over at Saunders Farm, cooking a roast beef dinner for 50 people. With no running water and no power. Thank goodness for propane and generators!

Carving roast beef by propane lamp.

Salad, assembled and eaten by candlelight.

We were fortunate that our power was restored late Thursday night, rather than the predicted Friday afternoon, but I still had to throw a few things out of my fridge. The chicken I had defrosted for Wednesday's dinner was quickly bbq'd before it could go bad in the fridge, and enjoyed on sandwiches for lunch Friday.

With all that excitement out of the way, we should be good for an uneventful week, following my menu plan.

Sunday: BBQ chicken Kabobs with corn on the cobb and bruschetta

Monday: Nachos

Tuesday: Spaghetti and meatballs

Wednesday: Sauteed Chicken with mushrooms and green beans, with baked French potatoes (left over from last week)

Thursday: Spinach, mushroom and sausage calzones with salad

Friday: Bacon, eggs, toast and hash browns, by request

That's my plan for the week, which I am sharing at Menu Plan Mondays.

Fun with cupcakes

Thirsty

Canada Dry Gingerale, with lime, also known as "A little nasty."

Happy Halloween!

A few images from what I've been doing for the past month. Sadly, today was the last day the Farm was open until next year, and I will miss it and the people I've been working with.

Cortland apples, ready to be candied and carameled. Sorry, no pictures of caramel - they would disappear off the trays almost as fast as we could make them.

I love how the red candy apple drips and the blue candy apple drips co-mingled together. Such pretty colors.

Gourmet chocolate apples. These ones still needed a drizzle of white and dark chocolate before they were done.

Best seller this year, a combination I made up, Skor toffee bits with cinnamon chips, on milk chocolate, drizzled with white and dark.

Ever seen a blue candy apple before. Pretty.

Kettle corn, fresh from the kettle. Highly addictive stuff.

Chocolate dipped marshmallows. Very popular and alot of fun to make.

Pretty gourds. So many beautiful pumpkins and gourds at the farm. Now all covered in snow.

Ghosty sugar cookies, with royal icing. Probably could have done these for the September Daring Baker's Challenge, but waited until October instead.

More pretty pumpkins. Would they look so happy if they knew they were about to be devoured?

Pulled pork. Smoked with applewood chips on the bbq, long and low, pulled by hand and then tossed in a smokey bbq sauce before being served on a soft kaiser roll. Too bad you can't get them again until next October!

I made many more things over the last month: cinnamon buns, pumpkin cinnamon buns, maple pumpkin pies and tarts, pumpkin chocolate chip scones, pumpkin streusel muffins (notice a theme here?), but did not take as many pictures as I normally do. So fun to "work" at what I love doing, being in a kitchen and covered in flour.

PS Have you seen the newest Pamela Von Twilight video, Saunders Farm Monsters? Based on some of these pictures, can figure out where I am in it?

Happy Mother's Day, Mark Bittman Style

I'm a mom.

Meet my punks, my boys....


Yup, that's my oldest. Growing up so fast and gaining maturity. (hehehe)


And my little Sous Chef, in a very normal, typical position for him.

If asked what I've accomplished in my life so far, those two are my answer. I have two beautiful, silly boys, each confident in their own selves, polite to others, and unique in their own way.

My little one greeted me this morning with a couple of lovely Mother's Day cards he'd made at school, then jumped right in to make juice for me. But first he said, "Pancakes! I want you to make pancakes for breakfast this morning!"

I declined on the pancakes and instead jazzed up my selection for this week's entry for the I Hearts Cooking Club, where the theme was Breakfast in Bed.


I have been craving scones lately, so when my copy of How to Cook Everything just happened to be open to page 252, where Cream Scones are featured, I took it as a sign I should make my own.

What I'd really like is white chocolate blueberry scones (thanks so much Starbucks, you put the idea in my head!), but I keep forgetting to pick up dried blueberries for them. Instead I made only one change to this recipe (other than shape) - I replaced the dried currents/raisins with vanilla bean instead, to give these scones a delicate vanilla flavor.

The scones on their own, not bad, but as I've found with almost every Bittman recipe I've made so far, lacking in the flavor department.

So I added some....


Now, I don't know that I'd want to eat this in bed exactly, unless I had a very big napkin to catch any drips I might make with that lovely, bright strawberry juice. I'm a messy eater, and probably would splash something.

Happy Mother's Day to all you other Mom's out there. May your morning include breakfast in bed, and funky homemade cards from your own punks.

Menu Plan Monday: How I did on the pantry challenge

I know this isn't the Menu Plan Monday banner (I put that below this time). I just wanted to put something different up, just because, and just for fun. This is my oldest son, being silly this past summer.

True story, rather funny, to tell about him and this past week's menu plan: Last week I planned that the boys were going to have club sandwiches using the left over turkey for dinner on Tuesday. I was going to be out here, enjoying myself, but expected to be able to have a sandwich when I got home, if I wanted one. Knowing we had all the ingredients on hand, I decided I wanted a BLT for breakfast the next morning and was going to gather them all together to make my morning a little less hectic the next day. No bacon to be found in the fridge. None in the freezer. Could they have eaten an entire pound of bacon in one night? Seemed unlikely. Hubby said no, there should be some in the fridge, our oldest had put it in a tupperware container. Checked again, fridge no, freezer no, just in case, pantry no. No bacon.

The next morning I ask him. He checks the fridge. He knows he put it in a container, but where did he put it? Checks the freezer. Next thing you know, there are three of rummaging through the fridge and freezer, where did he put this bacon!

Lightbulb goes off above my head - I checked the tupperware cupboard and voila! Bacon!

No, I did not have a BLT for breakfast that morning. Not with bacon that had been out all night.

So the pantry challenge.... It went pretty well. We had a few hiccups this week, the first being diner on Monday, the beef and broccoli stir fry I made. While the stir fry part was fine, for some reason the rice tasted odd to everyone at the table, and had a subtle, but again odd, texture to it. We ended up not finishing out meal that night and had an "emergency" chip run. But even with the chips added in, I still finished the two weeks with $2 left in my $100 budget.

My second little "bump in the road" didn't happen until Friday, when we did end up having take out for dinner, but it had less to do with the pantry challenge and more to do with my having worked a 12 hour the day before (open to close), followed by opening the next morning, and I was exhausted. This isn't likely to happen again, it was unusual circumstances, but it made me realize I am not as resilient as I used to be.

This week I've decided to continue with the freezer challenge, but had to restock several items in my pantry. I'd run out of canned tomatoes, which are a staple, and my stock of cereal, a very in demand item in this house, was completely depleted. The boys, big and small, could still find something for breakfast with what we had left, but I'm much pickier when it comes to cereal and we had not had anything I considered edible for the entire two weeks. Breakfast has been a bit rough on me, no cereal and no BLT's.

On to the menu!

Sunday: Turkey soup with biscuits (I took pictures and hope to post about this later this week.)

Monday: Chicken Korma with rice. Carry over from last week.

Tuesday: Sheppard's Pie.

Wednesday: Grilled steak with Caesar salad.

Thursday: Lasagna, from the freezer.

Friday: It's birthday time around here today, combination of my oldest son and my mother-in-law, as well as my father-in-law from the day before, so we will be out celebrating with them.

Ottawa Food Bloggers, Urban Element and the Chicken Farmers of Canada

Any where else, other than a gathering of food bloggers, this would seem odd. But when a bunch of food bloggers congregated together at the Urban Element on Tuesday, February 2nd, this was the norm. Amazingly, the staff didn't even bat an eye when asked to "pose" with the various hors-d'oeuvres!

We were all there at the invitation of Chicken Farmers of Canada, for a social gathering of Ottawa Food bloggers, with appetizers, cocktails, a cooking demonstration and to hear Ron Eade give a talk on sodium and writing about food.

Ron didn't spend his entire evening talking about salt, but touched on alot of little things about food writing: the time it takes not only to write a blog, but to read and comment on others, the passion that comes through in some blogs, picture size, links and recipes. And one I've been guilty of lately - frequency of blogging. (I owe my blog a big apology for the neglect it's seen over the last few months.)

Pulled pork with smoked tomato jam

Cod cakes

Mini chicken pot pies

Sundried tomato strata with C'est Bon goat cheese

Chicken dumplings with peanut sauce

Caramelized onion tarts and pear tarts with Bleu Bénédictine

I am allergic to penicillin, so fortunately I only took one small nibble of this tart, without any cheese, when I realized it had blue cheese on it and I really should not be eating it.

In-house pork rillette with Rochon farm zucchini relish

The food made for us by the staff was not only beautiful to look at, but pretty darn good too. I did find it ironic that an event hosted by chicken farmers had cod and pork as part of the appetizers, though the cooking demonstration for the evening was centered around chicken: chicken liver pate, made for us by Chef Candice Butler.

Not being a fan of anything involving liver, I pretended I didn't hear that part of the recipe and tried the pate anyways. It was tasty but quite rich, I had a difficult time finishing my piece.


The highlight of the evening, for me, was getting an opportunity to meet some local food bloggers. I admit, I had not known about all of them, or that there were quite so many in Ottawa, but it was a pleasure to be included in their company. Some, like Shari of Whisk: A Food Blog, I had been reading for ages and had exchanged emails with. While others, like Don of foodPrints, Rachelle of Rachelle Eats Food, Eva of Eva's Food World and Pearl of Eaten Up, I hope to make part of my regular reading and meet again at future events (which means I better stop neglecting my blog!)

Big thanks to Ryan of Fat Canary Communications for inviting me, to the Chicken Farmers of Canada for hosting this little party, and to the staff at the Urban Element.

Welcome to winter

I don't think I'll be using this clothesline for quite awhile.