What I am thankful for

I'm cooking our Thanksgiving dinner today because we have a bunch of other things happening tomorrow. But true to my body, I woke up sick. It's not a surprise to me at all since there were many Christmases and Easters where I was in bed sick. Or I would get sick as soon as exams were over - that's how I missed my high school graduation party: I got all dressed up, went to the dinner and by the end of dinner I was sick. A teacher came into the bathroom and looked at me in disgust and said something to the effect of  "that's what you get for drinking so much". I guess she could say that since I was technically no longer a student and I'm sure it was the reason why many other kids were puking that night. But I hadn't had a drink. I had the flu. I spent the next 24 hours answering the phone from my friends calling to tell me about each fabulous party they were at, and wondering if I was better and if I could join them. I was home, sick in bed for at least 3 days.

It's not like being sick was on my mind - please don't tell me that through the law of attraction I brought this on. I haven't been sick in at least two years. Not even a cold. I'm not going to complain about being sick because I've dodged the sick bullets for a while.  I am just not surprised that in the middle of our Thanksgiving weekend that I am sick.

Still I have already walked the dog, made and baked the pumpkin pies. I just don't feeling like doing much else. I am thankful that we do not have a house full of people and I am thankful that I do not have to go to someone else's house. I am thankful we have a ham instead of a turkey and I am thankful that because it's only the three of us, I don't have to spend hours and hours in the kitchen (maybe two for dinner). I am thankful that I have tomorrow off and fully expect to feel better tomorrow. I am thankful it's s sunny day and I am thankful I am indoors and can rest in my comfy bed, which is where I'm going to go for the next couple of hours, with some yarn and knitting needles in my hands (of course).

How about you, what are your Sunday plans? 

Adventures in Asian Cuisine

Jp and I took a little trip to Richmond to visit the Japanese Dollar store called Daiso because I needed to get something from there that I haven't been able to find elsewhere. It's a little over an hour to drive there and so we decided to enjoy the food court in the mall, Aberdeen Center.  This area has a large population of Asian people and there are many 'authentic' restaurants to choose from. Many store signs in this area are written in Chinese or Korean (or other) languages and is almost like a very large "chinatown' that is common is many large cities.

At the food court I decided to try a rice dish with beef  and Jp tried a bowl of congee (it's like a rice porridge). He had heard people refer to congee many times as comfort food.

Unfortunately my dish came with the parts of beef I don't like to eat - tripe, lung, liver etc. And Jp's bowl of  congee tasted like a big bowl of wall paper paste - we have no idea how that can be comfort food for anyone. Usually we are pretty open to new foods and do like a wide range of food but I suppose  this was just too "authentic" for us. I had to throw my bowl  away and bought a bowl of lemongrass chicken soup from the Vietnamese restaurant which was absolutely yummy.  We were both disappointed  that we chose so badly on the Chinese foods.

We did have a successful shopping trip at Daiso and then went home to have some good old fashioned American hot dogs - that's our comfort food.

Photo credit: congee

Food Time

I have to admit that Jp is quite a good cook, he's definitely the King of Breakfast (along with the King of Sandwiches) This is what I had for dinner (well only 1 plate, of course):

and who needs to go to McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin when you can have this?

Exhausting Weekend

This was a very busy weekend for me. It started on Thursday when I made vanilla cupcakes with coffee icing for Jp's birthday on Friday. Friday we went out for breakfast and then ran around for some errands including a trip to the butcher (and hour round trip)  for some delicious tender steaks - a couple New Yorks and a couple Rib Eyes (with the caps on).  Next we went to pick up his son (an hour and a half round trip)  and then it was time to get dinner started - dinner was Rosemary Roasted Nugget Potatoes, Creamed Spinach, Brussels Sprouts and the steaks cooked on the grill. That was a lot of things to figure the timing for but I did it.

Saturday we joked that he was just ordinary and we could treat him crappy because it was just a normal day. But on Sunday it was father's day so he was treated special again - Happy  Father's Day! More cooking - Eggs Benedict with homemade Hollandaise Sauce on crumpets with ham. Then I did laundry and ironing and put on the summer quilt and summer bedding. Then it was time for dinner - parmesan and breaded basa filets with rice and peas. The boys ate very well this weekend.

Including a medium bag of homemade oatmeal and cranberry cookies  - their only crime was that they were too close to a teenager late at night. It's a good thing he's skinny. But I wonder how his tummy could hold that much oatmeal...

Phew, I'm glad that weekend's over with. Now I can go back to my normal Cinderella life...ha, ha  just kidding!!!

BC's First Family Day

Today is a statutory holiday in BC - for many years workers in this province asked for a day off between New Years and Easter, especially when other provinces in Canada had a holiday. This year is our first one. Somewhere along the way there was a vote on when it should be (no one I know knew anything about this vote) and it was decided that since we are unique people we should have it the week before the rest of the country. For many this probably doesn't make much difference, but if you're a national business you have potentially lost two business days in the shortest month of the year   - one for our holiday and one the rest of the country. As well, my family is in another province. Perhaps if we had the holiday on the same weekend one of us would have travelled to see family? Nope, not gonna happen. 

Today is also a special day here at Way Out Wear headquarters because it's the 7th Blogaversary. Yes, I have been writing to you for seven years. Reflecting on that time  one of the biggest things that has changed is my readers - not one person who was with me in the beginning is here with me now - except family. That's just part of being a grown-up isn't it? As the saying goes "people come into your life for reason, a season or a lifetime". I hope you are with me for a long time as I really do enjoy your comments and your company. 

Other things that have changed over the past seven years, just to name a few: 

1) Both my dogs, Maxx and Jazz are no longer with me but now I share my life with my wonderful chocolate lab, Eco. There were lots of stories about Maxx's epilepsy and lots of stories about Jazz's noise phobia, and lots of puppy raising stories

2) I got married

3) I started a business

4) I've changed my page layout and background at least 20 times

5) We replaced our old cars with new ones

6) countless knitting, crochet and embroidery projects

7) multiple thrift store adventures

8) too many stories about the weather

9) lots of cooking/baking stories 

10) and funny things about the family. 

So thank you readers for sharing my journey with me, I'm glad you're part of my family. 

Okay so I hadn't finished shopping as I said in my last post - there were a couple of people I wanted to get things for -one was a little stocking stuffer for all the girls in my dance glass. That was kinda hard because I needed at least 8 items and I'm not exactly rich - it took days of hunting for something that wasn't too cheap but was still a cute little item and I needed to find multiples of them so just when I'd find something I'd realize they didn't have enough of them... I ended up finding a little box on a ribbon that looked like an ornament but had chocolate bells inside. I passed them out at the end of class and they seemed thrilled -Mission Accomplished.

I did get a couple more rows knit on my ripple/wave scarf - here's a quick snapshot of the progress.

It'll look better once it's finished and 

I've blocked it (that gets it wet and stretches it out) 

Continuing on our James Bond movie watching, we're now up to Licence to Kill (1989) with Timothy Dalton. While watching the Living Daylights (1987), the first movie with Timothy Dalton, I could see why many fans didn't like him that much but then I also didn't like that movie very much. Licence to Kill was actually pretty good. Being a bit of a Pierce Brosnan fan I'm kinda looking forward to Golden Eye(1995).

Winter in Vancouver isn't so fun. Oh sure it's mild and all that but we go for days with grey skies. I'd much rather have -19 degrees celsius and bright blue skies with the sun shining than have +8 degrees and the grey skies. And it's not the rain that gets me (lots of people complain about the rain) - for me, it's the darkness. All the lights have to be on in the house all day because it's dark. And some days it's been so dark my Christmas lights on dawn/dusk timers go off at 2:30 in the afternoon! See? It's not just me that thinks it's too dark, the electronic sensors do too!

So.. why am I telling you this, only because if you have the same type of weather, you'll appreciate this pick-me-up:

See that happy dish? That was our dinner last night  - Pina Colada Shrimp and Rice. YUM. It's shrimp and pineapple and coconut and yellow peppers and green onions. Not only is it yummy but it helps put a little summer into winter! Try it, you might like it!

straw - berry!

Have you ever looked at a recipe and thought it sounded really good but didn't seem to come together when you made it?

Well that's what happened to me when I made these roasted strawberry with browned butter pancakes:

Yup, they sounded good and looked good, but they weren't that remarkable. I think one of the biggest problems with fruit these days it how it comes to market and since it's being grown all over the world at all times of the year, sweetness and/or flavour is inconsistent if it's there at all. These strawberries were actually tart. They didn't taste like raw or I would've added sugar. In fact the recipe had me roast them in olive oil and salt but that didn't seem to help them at all.

The recipe also had me brown the butter first to be used instead of oil or plain old melted butter in the pancake batter. But we felt I that the browned butter couldn't be noticed and so my efforts were wasted. It probably would have been better to brown the butter to be poured on top of the finished pancakes just before serving.

I would consider remaking this with many variations - such as sweet strawberries and the change of use for the brown butter. Have you ever had a recipe go like this? Have you made something similar ? How did you make it better? 

roll out the ice cream!

Tonight I finally had the chance to use our 'play and freeze' ice cream ball

I'm sure there are thousands of happy customers out there but I was not one of them. Maybe I was spoiled by the electric ice cream maker at my brother's house last week  that constantly moved and stirred and scraped the milk mixture off the sides.

Rolling the ball in the yard is not an easy task with a labrador retriever in the area. It looks too similar to her own balls and she kept bugging me to kick it for her. Second, initially I didn't have the lid on tight enough so sugary cream was leaking out making it even MORE enticing to a labrador retriever.

Next it needs an awful lot of ice cubs and I emptied the bag of ice in our freezer, so I now  have to run to the store in the morning for more ice. I think I might buy two or three bags of ice tomorrow and keep them in our deep freeze. Then, the ice cream froze to the size of the container making it very hard to remove. Although I felt this was a problem, someone else in the house just ate it out of the ball and didn't seem slowed down by it at all. I put the remaining ice cream in the freezer and I'll see how that goes, sometimes the ice crystals are downright dangerous!

Since it wasn't a good idea to try and roll it around the yard, I ended up wrapping it in a towel and shook it around. I figured it was a good arm work out. I was surprised how quickly 1/2 hour actually went.

Bottom line, the ice cream was good. I would have liked to return the ice cream ball to the store for a refund but Jp said we couldn't do that, so we might be passing it on to some nephews or other kids we know.

Currently my brother's homemade ice cream that is boiled on the stove is tied with the Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler's Nitro Ice  Cream which is flash frozen at your table. mmm mmm mmm. I would love to try that at home!

I'm not done with the ice cream experiment yet. I'm not much of a sweet tooth, but I do loves me some ice cream!

Parchment Paper

Years ago, parchment paper used to be hard to come by, in fact I remember paying around $15 for a box of it, so early in our relationship when Jp discovered it, I stopped him one day for using it for EVERYTHING because it was expensive. However, thanks to Martha Stewart and a Food Network and hundreds of bakers out there, parchment paper is quite reasonable, and I no longer covet it for extra special projects.

Jp on the other hand, loves to remind me of the fact that I once protected it and limited it's usage. I have double checked with other cooks and bakers and they confirmed that yes indeed, it was once an expensive kitchen staple.

Do you remember when it was really expensive? 

Rainy rainy weekend

My goodness it rained so hard yesterday I thought I should start building an ARK!!! Almost all of the snow is gone from the ground in my area and it's warmed up a bit which is nice. We had The Kid here for the last couple of days as he was off school for a semester break - the new one starts today. School years always go by so fast. Heck, everything goes by so fast! I can't believe that on Wednesday I'll have been employed at this company for 12 years! 12 YEARS!!!!!  Every year I'm sure I say the same thing (with a different number of course! LOL)

This weekend also went by so fast, I wish I could have 3-day weekends. On Saturday I made a loaf of French Bread which started out in my mini machine but then I took the loaf out and put it in a baguette pan. Everything was good except that I should have shaped it better and probably should have cooked it about 5 minutes more. But I was pretty happy with it since I had winged it and had never baked bread outside of the machine before. The Kid has never had homemade bread - or bread that was no more than 15 minutes old - he was pretty impressed with how good it tasted.

The "submarine"

On Saturday I had a dull headache and pain in my shoulder muscles but I felt I had been taking way too many Advil and Tylenol lately and so I decided to go without drugs and just take it easy on myself (listen to my body and all that) - I don't recommend this for others or for all headaches, but for this situation it seemed to work. My headache did go away by late afternoon and I think because I could feel my shoulder pain, I was more gentle on my upper back and arms and I feel better today.

Other than that I did the domestic-y stuff like laundry and vacuuming, cooking and tidying etc. I did do some knitting and some embroidery but  haven't finished anything yet - see why I'd like another day off?

How was your weekend?  

Raisin Pie to Adulthood

Jp was talking to a friend the other day and they got reminiscing about food from the past - in particular Raisin Pie- both fondly remembering how it was a favorite and how they haven't had it for years. He told me that years ago coffee places like Tim Horton's served pie (now it's donuts and cookies and sandwiches and soup - and coffee of course) and told me how much he loved it and how frequently he ordered it. My mom told me that in many restaurants  - up until somewhere in the 1970's -it was one of the three flavours of pie offered along with apple or cherry or possibly lemon meringue.

I found lots of stories about how it was served at funerals, often giving it the name Funeral Pie  and stories of the pies being made for loggers and how it was once a large part of the American Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner - often in the South although we did have it here in Canada as well. I'm sure part of the reason it was so popular in the past was because it doesn't need refrigeration and keeps well for a couple of days.  I found several comments about how it was "dad's favorite pie that Grandma made"or "I liked it was kid but haven't had it for years" etc.  But what I couldn't find out is why it fell from popularity  - was it because it was so common everyone got tired of it and gravitated to new flavours or perhaps because in general we just don't make as many pies as we used to? It seems that every now and then it shows up somewhere, now being called "Old Fashioned", "Heritage" or "Vintage".  None of my current cookbooks had recipes for it - I could only find it  in my cookbooks that my mom gave me, dating back to the 50's and 60's - apparently the recipe itself dates back to the 1800's. It seemed that many of the poorer cooks would squirrel away the ingredients throughout the fall so she (typically  mom or grandma) could make it for the holiday dinners. And of course, a recipe that has been around that long doesn't escape ingredient variations - some include sour cream or maple syrup or molasses, some add cranberries or apples or walnuts.

I thought I would start with a simple straightforward recipe and Jp said the one I made was exactly how he remembered it.

So here it is:

*yes I see my top crust was a little too thick, and I should've had more raisin filling

 -  but that didn't stop anyone from eating it!

Do you remember this pie? What key flavours were in it? 

It's Sunday Night Already?

Yesterday was a nice sunny day, so I spent most of the day in the garden putting away plants and ornaments and getting things ready for winter.

Then we were off to Jp's sister's house because we were  lucky enough to have a second Thanksgiving dinner, it's good to get the family together and enjoy yummy food. And one of the best parts was that his sister gave us the turkey carcass and leftover meat so we could make some turkey noodle soup! Yummy, guess what I'll be doing tomorrow.

I also worked on two little projects this weekend. The first is a little cuff to go around my thermal coffee container which sometimes dribbles if I don't dry the threads or the lid well enough, so I whipped up this little cozy using some leftover yarn and a crochet hook: 

I know I am solving the wrong problem - maybe I just wanted an excuse to crochet. 

And, I also did some embroidery as hand stitching is one of my favourite things.  I really liked these cute little Halloween bunnies plus I wanted to use my glow-in-the-dark thread: 

If you'd like to stitch one up too, the pattern can be found here. Be sure to tell me where I can see your photos in my comments as it's so much fun seeing how other people stitch things up! (In case you're wondering what's wrong with the Dracula bunny, my disappearning ink from my transfer pen didn't disappear fast enough and/or I didn't want to wait any longer for it to disappear! )

Now to watch TV - Boardwalk Empire and Dexter tonight.

Turkey Aftermath

Well the turkey came out great and we had a really good Thanksgiving dinner last night. The only thing that wasn't so great was the gravy - only because the recipe called for wine. I knew Jp doesn't like foods cooked in wine but I really thought it would cook out of the gravy and I wanted to follow the recipe - unfortunately he could taste it and didn't like it. Dang, I knew I should have left it out! All was not lost however because after dinner we put in back on the stove added some more broth and continued to cook it until the detectable wine flavour was gone, and now the gravy is even better. So much better that we had it for our "Thanksgiving brunch" which was fried mashed potatoes with bits of the turkey meat in the gravy. With cranberry sauce. Yum.

I learned something else while cooking yesterday - there are two things that I need a lot of on hand when I cook a turkey  - paper towels and dish soap. Since there was some handling of raw poultry surfaces had to be cleaned frequently, and the turkey needed to be dried off and such, I had to use several paper towels. Then after the meal there were a few items that needed hand washing and extra soap to remove the turkey fat residue. Wow, I sure went through a lot of both item - and I'm one who likes to conserve and avoid waste as much as I can. I guess it's all part of the cooking process.

Today is a rainy day, and I've been keeping my eye on the sky to see if the rain slows down so Eco and I can go out for our daily walk. Otherwise I plan to take it easy and do some sewing and reading and enjoy the day off. The fridge is pretty full and Jp knows how to cook so we'll share the cooking task today.

Did you have your Thanksgiving yesterday or will you have it today? Did you have turkey or ham or something else?