Apple Fritters

I was inspired by the Dinner with Julie blog to try out her apple fritter recipe in honor of Hanukkah. I used coconut milk in the batter. (I think I ended up using about a cup.) I put cardamon in the batter and added cinnamon powder to the icing sugar. They were crispy and delicious. We had the soup I started yesterday with the addition of wild rice and Jean's beans, which we pressure canned last month. The flavors have melded in the beans and they are really tasty.

I felt like Hell warmed over when I woke up, but managed to haul my ass out to go skating with the kids and I really had a lovely time. We may be poor in money at this moment, but we are rich in time. Ules did a good job on his oral report on bees and proudly said he had more visual aids than anyone else! Ha! I almost sent the whole hive with him. He also finally read the absolutely excellent Clan Apis graphic novel I bought for him by Jay Osler. It tells the story of the life of a bee and it is so well done it made me cry. Highly Reccomended.

Betty Lambert Tribute at the Downtown Library

Looking forward to reading at this event! For more info see Mrs. Okana's blog.

A program for adults

Wednesday December 1 7:00 pm Free Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye Rooms, Lower Level Central Library 350 West Georgia Street

Please join Anakana Schofield for a revisiting of Canadian playwright Betty Lambert's only published novel, Crossings (1979).

Tomorrow We Borscht

Yes, I had to have Mac and Cheese and it's the end of the month and money is tight so I bought a box of Annie's for a buck fifty at EastWest. Tonight I reheated it with broccoli and squash. The squash was amazing--so buttery and intense it didn't have anything on it save a tiny bit of sunflower oil and salt. Oooh sometimes simple pleasures are the best. I made pizza for the boys with a whole wheat crust and turkey sausage bought at the winter market. I also made chicken stock from a Polderside carcass and dried vegetables I also bought at the market. It rocks!!!! Tomorrow it's gonna be borscht.

I got into the zone today making collages. Time zipped by.

Did you know the universe is shaped like a doughnut? Cake or yeast, I wonder.

Winter Cravings

Today I made a Thai soup with coconut milk, dried oyster mushrooms from the market and wild rice. It was the best thing I have ever made. Now I am eager to try my hand at more Thai dishes. I am craving clam chowder (Boston style of course), and Rhyzome's mac and cheese with mushrooms and Rooster sauce. I also made one of the worst things I've ever baked today. I was really excited about making cashew nut shortbread, but I should have cut the sugar by half. They are shriekingly sweet and so will end up in a graham crumb crust. My mood's been up and down today too. I had a fun time starting on my annual winter collages, but I'm frustrated that we don't have any color ink right now and it's so bloody expensive. I've been researching paper dolls to add that element into some of the collages. There are some cool vintage ones you can download from the web. I'm going to print some up for my niece and nephew.

I want to try to recreate the apple slaw at Crave. I think I may need a mandolin this year for Christmas.

The neighbors are having band practice again tonight. Arghh. Please stop.

Oh What a Perfect Day

I'd like to spend it with you-oo.

I had such a lovely Saturday. Brunch at Aphrodite's so that I could pick up a whole load of gourds they are donating to our ArtStarts project. Shopping for stocking stuffers at Banyen Books at their 40th birthday sale. I got a free bliss ball, chock full of chocolate and cardamom. Gorgeous! I went to the winter market and bought homemade pasta, sun-dried local fruit and veg, crab apple jelly, dried oyster mushrooms, a sugar pumpkin, a rustic scone from Rise, and a delicious buckwheat brownie covered in walnuts which fed three of us. I had a nice visit at the library and then had a hilarious time at Shaktea playing at imagining what it'd be like if the three of us ended up in an old age home together. This conversation was sparked by an Alton Brown video with a photo of mac and cheese on the cover. Apparently, in the rest home where M's mom lives there's a woman who shouts out "Mac and Cheese, please!" every night at dinner time. M says she'll be shouting "wonton soup"! I'll be shouting for my five o'clock blend and a shot of tequila. (If you want to see me completely lose my mind, serve tequila.)

Chef P made buffalo shortrib stew on spaetzle with cabmerlot. Now I'm going to watch Taggart and Spooks on DVD. Oh and did I mention I bought myself a dazzling ring for 6 bucks? La vie en rose.

Touque in Bed

I'm never sure how to spell that word. Oh well, suffice it to say I am typing in bed fully clothed in a fuzzy wool hat and scarf. Our heating is working downstairs, but up on the second floor, it is cold. Today's ingredient is pomegranate. They are popping up all over the place and I am starting to crave pom juice. I made crab apple juice today and infused it with fresh lime leaves. I feel the cocktail season coming on and must buy vodka!

Muffin Mania

Now that the cold weather has settled in I find myself cooking and baking to keep warm. After school I made some oatmeal muffins and topped them with maple icing and pecan halves. For dinner I brined a pork tenderloin, roasted it and served it with roasted cauliflower and parsnips that were steamed and then pan fried with garlic and fresh thyme. I had to dig out the thyme from under a snow cap.

I've discovered a British mystery show called Jonathon Creek which I am now addicted to. It's up on YouTube and it's kind of a grown-up version of Scooby Doo. The main character is an understated anti-hero which you just have to fall in love with. After all, he doesn't drive a car and lives in the countryside in a windmill. He's got a kind of high functioning autistic personality and his vulnerability is offset by his brilliant gift at staging magic performance spectacles. He is played by a British comedian named Alan Davies who just happens to be one day away from being my birthday twin.

Shifting Soil

On Wednesday I finally got soil for my garden bed. I'm not sure about the quality so I think it's going to need amending. It doesn't seem to have the sand content the company promised. I shifted almost all two yards myself and lived to tell the tale. In the rain. Actually, it was really empowering to do some hard labor and it was just in time because now we've started to get snow. I've got to keep up with the winter gardening and winter sports to build up some strength and drop some weight this winter. I'm going to try to go skating more this winter, starting next week.

I've been doing lots of baking lately. Ullie loves muffins, so I am testing out various muffin recipes. I like this recipe for brown butter pumpkin muffins. This morning I made it with half butter and half sunflower oil to cut back a few calories. One of my downfalls is dairy. I love it way too much and butter is just too tempting for me. I love the mouthfeel of dairy and it's just such good comfort food in the winter. We'll just have to look for the low fat versions of my beloved dairy products.

Mid November Crunch

Most of the maples leaves have fallen and now other deciduous trees are losing their leaves. It's a misty moisty day, the kind of day that really puts the chill in your bones. It's 9 degrees C now and looks like it's going to freeze later this week. I brought in my lemon verbena plant for the winter.

Yesterday I went to Granville Island to see Lois's show. Remind me never to go to the Island on a Sunday. The bus service sucks and having to transfer twice and wait half hour intervals for the bus puts me in a foul mood. In fact, everyone at the market seemed to be experiencing their own personal hell. I was going to buy a drink from a vendor, but the guy behind the counter looked so drugged up and unhealthy I pegged him as a poster child for Hep C. Ummm, I'll take a pass on food from that place. I saw another vendor looking absolutely miserable, living for his smoke breaks, sucking on a ciggie in the rain which made him look even more unhappy. Then there was the woman I saw sitting and gazing at the harbor at dusk. She just had this incredible aura of loss, I was mesmerized.

The fancy dancer at the gallery cheered me up and gave me faith in the human race again. Her costume was beautifully beaded with designs of the Alberta rose. The dancer's fringe fluttered, her beading glittered and she looked absolutely beautiful performing her butterfly dancing. The smoky smell of the tanned leather filled me with nostalgia for the prairies. Thank goodness for the dancers among us.

Sweet Time

Isn't it wonderful to have an extra half hour to sleep in? What a gift. I have had a lost weekend, a migraine weekend, but I did manage to bake zucchini muffins, go to the winter market at Nat Bailey and read three books. (Thank god for drugs.) I got to putter around in the garden, harvesting the last of the amaranth and pulling up the stalks so my winter crops get more sunlight. My rare nematodal marigolds are finally blooming and they have an incredibly pungeant smell, even in the cold. So far we've had an amazing November and even now there is a patch of clear sky out there. The bees are closed in for the winter with their own honey and pollen but no queen. They do still seem to be keeping themselves warm by forming a ball. I noticed this a while ago when I took the feeding box off.

Time to go and make breakfast and lunch. Enjoy that extra few minutes this morning.

Yes Virginia, There is PMS

And it sucks. The thing is you forget what it's like so you fail to realize that one of the reasons you are falling into an emotional sinkhole is because your hormones are pulling you down deep into the abyss. You know you've got it when you will sell your granny to buy chocolate. You know you've got it when even Gordon Campbell's resignation fails to cheer you up and anyway you know he's going to hang on by his toenails to any tiny bit of power he can until the burnt and bitter end. You know you've got it because if someone looks at you funny you think they hate you and everything you've worked for is ashes and dust. Your back aches and you're starving. Welcome to my world.

Halloween Pix

Oooh mate, you're bloody scary. I was too busy on Halloween night to take many photos. Below you can see the chocolate zucchini graveyard cake. I made a white chocolate ganache thickened with icing sugar for the icing. It wasn't good for piping, but oh well, you get the idea. The cake (from the Rebar cookbook) is really chocolatey with one cup of cocoa and a cup of chocolate chips.

The Day After Halloween

I kind of feel like our little friend Elmo here. Stuck in spider slime. Halloween has left me exhausted and hung over. I like walking through the neighborhood the day after and seeing all the creative jack o'lanterns.

Of course I'd left everything to the last minute and we were still carving our pumpkin when our dinner guests arrived. J brought her fabulous mac and cheese and I made salad and baked salmon. I made the chocolate zucchini cake from the Rebar cookbook and we decorated it like a graveyard with shortbread tombstones.

I dressed as the Chef from Hell and handed out pop rocks to the neighborhood kids including the entire band of Kiss. The heavy rain held off and Ules aka The Headless Horseman came back with his bag full of candy. He magnaminously gave me his bag of mini cheese nachos (which he hates) and I pronounced them inedible.

Today I medicated myself with home made ginger beer and added some tuna to some of the leftover mac and cheese to try to cure my headache and bring my body back into the land of the living. I feel a bit like the headless horseman myself right now.