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.

mini vampire day

Two mini vampires in kindergarten class. The kids these days have such dapper costumes. In one school yard I saw a tiny boy in a silk top hat and cape. I saw a delightful girl ghoul with a silvery costume just flying down the street with glee. I saw a woman with what I thought was a horrible pitted skin condition, but then I realize she'd drawn whiskers with an eyeliner in a not-so-successful attempt at a pirate's five o'clock shadow. The leaves are brilliant today and are flinging themselves to the ground with flamboyant style. Tomorrow is All Soul's at the Mountainview Cemetery so we are putting on the final touches to our shrine. It feels like a significant milestone.

Obsessed with Popped Amaranth

Okay it's officially an obsession. What I am trying to do is mix Mexican tradition with Saskatchewan home cooking. I am basically making a form of alegria, which is a candy or cake made with honey, sunflower seeds and popped amaranth. I'm using my mom's recipe for puffed wheat cake to bind the amaranth together in hopes to make tiny skulls for The Day of the Dead.

I tried to pop some of the amaranth seeds from my garden and failed. It's very tricky. I tried an air popper. Big fail and seeds everywhere. So my neighbor told me to look at videos online. I used my Creuset and the stirring method. The trick is to get the heat right to the sweet spot and just know that some of the grains just ain't gonna pop. But hey, I just discovered a cool blog with the microwave method which I must try. I've made one trial run so far, with chia seeds and some puffed millet in the mix as well. Too much butter, so I must try again. The boys were not impressed but I actually love it. Amaranth has a real earthy taste which grounds the sweetness of the chocolate caramel.

Check out these posts: http://theholyenchilada.blogspot.com/2010/05/alegria-past-and-future-of-eternal.html

http://theholyenchilada.blogspot.com/2010/05/abstract-expressionist-amaranth-candy.html

Here is the traditional way of popping amaranth with a recipe for traditional alegria:
http://www.delange.org/Amaranth/Amaranth.htm

When Will it Freeze?

It's so funny how women I know are watching for the first frost. Both said women have greenhouses. I too, watch for it for the bees as we have lost our queen again and they need one to survive the winter, so our window to help them is very narrow right now. We are treating them for mites with Apistan, which is what you use in the colder temps. I counted 3 mites in the trap yesterday. We consolidated the hive boxes and since the larvae were all hatched out, we took out our full-sized box and now we're down to dadants, which is a relief. I scraped out the bits of honey and pollen in two large frames and put it in shallow bowls in a feeder box on top of the hive so today when it warms up they will "rob" it.

After the frost I can harvest my amaranth seed. I checked on how to do this on Dan Jason's web site. I have some wacky nematodal marigolds that are just about to bloom. Will they do so before the frost? Of course they've had frost in Saskatchewan a good month ago. We are so lucky. On Friday the rain is supposed to come again. I suppose I should try to head up to UBC Farm today to save a few seeds.