Kittens in the Kitchen

My friend, Judy, from North Vancouver sent me this picture!  She also has a cat and her name is Lucy.  I can just imagine Miss Sugar here.  I have a chair for her in the kitchen (not this close to the counters though) and that is her place or she can't come in.  She loves to sit there while I cook.  And she likes to get her t-r-e-a-t-s from the refrigerator.  It is really just her moist cat food!

Peter Reinhart's Italian Bread

Today I made Italian Bread from Peter Reinhart's book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice".  I baked it on my pizza stone and it worked wonderfully.

This bread is made with a biga.  A biga is like a sourdough starter.  You make a yeast dough and let it ferment up to 3 days in the refrigerator or 3 months in the freezer and add this to the dough.  This extra fermentation adds a nice depth of flavour.

Spring officially came a few days ago and the robins are here!  You cannot possibly see them in this tree, but they were singing their little hearts out this morning.  I am sure they were lamenting the snowfall!

And Miss Sugar loves my fur coat.  Can you tell which side is up?  And she has had her hair cut already!

Weekend in Winnipeg

In most provinces in Canada this is a long weekend.  In Saskatchewan, where I live, it is Family Day and in Manitoba, it is Louis Riel Day.  Louis Riel is credited with establishing Manitoba as a province.

At any rate, I decided to take a break and visit my good friends and former neighbours, Jerry & Greg.  The best part is that we all love food!  This is a pictorama (is that a word?) of the weekend.

Rosemary roast leg of lamb.....yummmm

We had a little bread making class.  Looks like they aced it!

Greg & Jerry's recipe for Raincoast Crisps is to die for.

Miss Sugar was the best little kitty...no walking on counter tops, no scratching furniture....she just liked this chair.  So they gave it to her for the weekend.  And she really appreciated  being at 'our level'.

Help Needed for Calendar Girl

Our local SPCA is publishing a calendar and as a fund raiser they are selling 'spots'.  Well, I think my Miss Sugar should be on a calendar but I can't decide which pictures to use.  Now does she have supermodel attitude or what!

I have purchased a day in June for her picture.  It will be a small picture just for that day.

And I have entered a draw for the 'month' picture.  This is Miss Sugar in January with her haircut and the coat I bought her because I felt guilty when it was so cold outside.

Help me choose!  Which two would you pick?

Recapping the Canada Day Weekend

There was a parade...fireworks...fair...rodeo...and a nap for Miss Sugar.

Catching up on Life

Oh, did I tell you that I got a job?  Yes, moi, the ultimate entrepreneur now has a regular nine to five.  I'll be packing my lunch, walking to work and sitting in the sun during my breaks.  Today is my first day.  I am in the office at Re/Max.  I know, I wanted to get away from real estate but it seems to be what I know best.  Some value in knowing that, I guess!  But no more 12 hour days, 7 days a week, no life.  I now have a regular paycheque albeit it is small!

I can feel that life is slowing down.  There is hope that I can fit my life into one bankers box for the year.  But that is yet to be proven.  It is only May after all.  Okay, two boxes.  Even that is amazing.





I have been saving a picture of Miss Sugar for such a long time and thought perhaps I should finally just make a post for her and for my fledgling garden plants.

Miss Sugar is very happy in her new home.  But we did take a trip to the city last week and I could tell, she was excited to get in the car again!  Have I created a monster!  Not really, she is just happy not to be left behind.

These are my shallots.  I planted more so I should be set for the summer.

These are not weeds, honest!  I didn't label anything so they might be carrots, beets, spinach?  But they are everywhere!  Should be fun soon.

Sarah's Homemade Granola

I wanted to do this yesterday but the wind!  We are in the middle of a big wind storm, up to 120 kph (70 mph).  I had to buy groceries because I have none of the basics since moving into my house.  I had to hold the trunk of my car open with one  hand and use the other to haul in bags and bags of groceries.  

Then the fire truck and ambulance and police stopped next door.  The wind blew my neighbour's 40 year old fir tree down on the power line.  So we were without power for about 3 hours.  Even when we regained service my desire to cook passed and I settled down to taco chips and salsa verde.

And then this is all that was left of a 40 year old tree.  Sad.  Just think...it could have been one of my trees!  Welcome to the neighbourhood!  And I was looking for quiet, no excitement, peaceful....lol.

To me spring means granola.  Perhaps an odd association but I don't eat much granola in the winter for some reason.  I love my granola with plain yogurt and fruit.  I have it almost every morning for breakfast.  Now that I am settled in my new home I need a bag of granola.  I don't really even use a recipe.  I just add what I have in the kitchen.

Sometimes I add coconut, any nuts, raisins or dried cherries.  Sometimes I don't even toast the nuts in advance.  I just add them to the oatmeal.  I like to buy my walnuts at Lina's Italian market when I am in Calgary.  They are in bulk and always so fresh.

Honey will make better clumps than maple syrup.  One thing I never do is put the dried fruits in the oven.  They are much better added at the end.  Store the granola in a tight container in the cupboard for up to a month.

Sarah's Homemade Granola

• 3/4 cup walnuts
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds
• 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds (optional) 
• 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
• 2 tablespoons wheat bran
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup pure maple syrup or honey, at room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 3/4 cup chopped dates
• 1/2 cup dried blueberries, cranberries or raisins

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray (such as Pam). Spread the walnuts and almonds on the sheet and roast for 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly toasted. Transfer the nuts to a board, let cool and chop the nuts. Set aside.

Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F. Pour the oats and sesame seeds, if using, in a mound on the same baking sheet. Melt the butter in a small bowl in the microwave; stir in the maple syrup and salt and drizzle on top of the oats. Stir well with a rubber spatula and then spread out the oats in an even layer.

Bake the oats for 30 minutes, stirring once with the spatula halfway through, until the oats are lightly colored. Let cool; the mixture will crisp as it cools. Add the dates, blueberries, and reserved nuts and toss.

I remember this rug............................

It's a Dirty Job...

It is a dirty job, but someone has to do it!  I learned this trick from a contractor years ago but I rarely gather up the energy to do it.

When your stainless steel sink is looking dull, a good way to spiff it up is to scrub it with wads of tin foil.  This makes a mess of your hands, unfortunately!  And it a ton of work!  But it works.  Takes off all that tarnish.

And can you believe my Sugar!  She has never been this close, by choice, to another cat since I got her!  She is actually interested in a friend.

Community cookbooks make for interesting reading

 

I spent all day yesterday reading old cookbooks in my friend’s house.  They are all published by community or special groups as fundraisers.  I think the oldest was published around 1952 and the newest about 1976.

They are very amusing.  The older books leave a lot to your own discretion.  I guess they thought everyone knows how to cook and that specific directions were not necessaray.  Also, they never called baking soda by its full name.  It was always called soda.  I had never noticed that before.

One interesting book was published by the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  This is a quote:

How to grow thin –

From an 1860 recipe book:  “Drink as little as you can get along with comfortably, no hot drinks, no soup, no beer and only milk enough to colour the lukewarm tea or coffee you drink.  Eat chiefly stale bread, lean meat with such vegetables as peas, beans, lettuce in moderation.  Avoid watery vegetables such as cabbage, potatoes, turnips, etc.  no pastry whatsovever.  Limit yourself to seven hours sleep out of the 24 and take plenty of exercise in the open air.”

This is hilarious!  Who wouldn’t lose weight on this regime!

It was also interesting to see recipes like ‘Southern Cornbread’ submitted by someone in Montana!  There were lots of chop suey recipes from obviously English people on the prairies! 

I copied several recipes to my laptop and will try them sometime.  There were a few ethnic recipes passed down through generations.  So those will be fun.

The recipe I made today was matrimonial cake.  I think this must be a truly Canadian sweet  and a truly Canadian name (rather than calling them date squares) because my new friends in the South had never heard of it.  And I couldn’t find the proper dates until I returned home to Canada.  I am not sharing the recipe because I didn’t think it was that great, boo hoo!  I could have done better without a recipe.  But I guess that is the fun of using these books.

And my day isn't complete without a Miss Sugar picture.  We just had a bath and next is the blow dry!

On-Line Photography Classes

Heaven knows I can use all the help I can get.  My good friend Marlene at I Teach People (from whom I bought my camera second hand) is offering online lessons!  I signed up immediately.  They are free - so anyone can sign up for a few pointers.

In my first class, the assignment was to take 100 photographs with the specific settings she dictated.  The real challenge was to practice composition.  I won't bore you with a bunch of really bad pictures.  But I will bore you with these three!

As I drove in to town today, I was wishing I had my camera.  Spring is coming and I just love it.  The water is running, the birds are chirping and today, the wind was blowing really hard.   I love weather.

Update on my New-to-Me Home

 

This is a before picture of my new home.  I call it a before picture, because I have big plans for this little house!  To me, it is a blank canvas.  Those three cedars in front have to go.  Due to the dry climate they require a lot of watering, and that has caused problems for the basement.  So I will replace them with some nice landscape grasses that are better suited to the climate.

All of the windows have to be replaced and the eavestroughs.  But that means I can get rid of all the brown.  Thankfully, it has a nice neutral roof colour.

This is my kitchen!  It will do for now but when I can get a contractor in, it will be replaced, too.

And what does Miss Sugar think of all this?   Hmmph....not my problem!