What We've Been Eating

Lots, of course.  And it's mostly been interesting and good.  Even if these food posts are only interesting to a couple of people (if that), it makes me serve good food to my family and try new things.

Thursday:  Salmon and rice with veggies in it.  The last time I bought lemons I bought a whole bag of them, juiced and zested them, and froze it in ice cube trays.  That made it easy to put lemon on each salmon chunk.  I guess sprinkling juice from a bottle is still easier.  The rice is almost a rice version of boerenkole with peas as well.  This year I dried a bunch of kale and I use it more than if I'd frozen it.  I'll have to do that again in the fall.

Last night:  Tuna and rice casserole that went over surprising well.  If we could eat Campbell's soup, I would have poured a whole can of Cream of Celery in, just like a classic Jean Pare casserole.  Alas, no Campbell's allowed here because of the soy content.

 Sunday:  Smokies with roasted potatoes and carrots.  Or Alice declared her's to be a potato mountain, with two pumpkin patches and a farmer's field.  I don't get it, but she ate it all. 

Saturday:  Little Caesar's pizza for 8 girls between 7 and 11 years old and one adult.  I ate fried rice with leftover carrots.  Note to self:  Get 4 pizzas next time.  Size is no indicator of ability to eat.  Beth says that's because it's not real food and it doesn't fill you up.  I'm so proud of her!  She understand the concept, but it doesn't stop her from eating vast quantities of the non-real food when offered. 

Last night:  Awesome ribs pasta and beans.

And Beth made us dessert.  A base of rice krispie/puffed corn squares, spread with cream cheese and a jar of saskatoon pie filling dumped on top.  Very yummy and even gluten free!

I'm not enjoying Blogger in Draft.  I can't move images easily or format things the way I want.  I thought the whole idea was to make posting easier. 

Eat Alberta!

This is very exciting and I registered as soon as I found out about it from the Dinner with Julie blog.    Blogs are where I get all my news, it seems. 

Rosa and I will be attending the Eat Alberta: A Celebration of Our Local Food Heroes.  We're going to learn to make sausage and cheese and who knows what else.  It sort of depends on what sessions we sign up for and it looks like we have to sign up fast because they were 40% sold out on their first day of ticket sales. 

Surprisingly, over the last couple of years I've come to recognize a lot of the names in the presenter list.  These are the hippies of the new millenium.  They live off the land, live in straw bale houses, fight the big Monsanto's of the world, and are a constant source of inspiration for me.  They read Michael Pollan, Sally Fallon, Weston Price and Joel Salatin. 

At the moment I read a lot of that, but I don't necessarily "live" it.  My goal is to get closer every year to eating local vegetables, avoiding BPAs in cans, growing heritage seeds, seed saving what I can, and eating less meat and more organic or "happy meat".  I don't live on a farm and I do love the convenience of the grocery store, but I do more and more of it myself and shop in the fresh aisles.  I'm also trying to do my best to not feel guilty when I do buy bananas regularly and grapes.  I do believe we vote for agriculture with our grocery dollars though so I'll continue trying in my small way to support local, non-GMO, happy products. 

Blah, blah, blah.  I haven't thought through this post very clearly.  I know that I live full of contradiction so please don't point fingers!  I'm about to learn more and much of it looks like it's hands-on so maybe I'll take one more thing home with me that gets me closer to that ideal.  

Check it out. 

Daily routines and tidyness

Over the weekend the topic came up of how to keep your home organized, tidy or otherwise not overwhelmingly chaotic.  I don't know how we got on the topic anymore, but I know it wasn't because my friend was amazed at my cleanliness.

There is a blog called Fly Lady that someone had recommended to me in the past.  I looked at it, thought it was mostly common sense and never went there again.  But there are good tips on the site and I think I might try my own version of her system this week.  I'm going to read her blog a bit more.

The first thing she says to do is to "Dress to shoes".  Basically, get your basic hygiene out of the way first thing and be fully dressed. 

That's habit for anyone who has to drive kids to school or go to work, but I don't do either of those things.  So I guess the temptation is to stay in your robe all day.  I don't quite do that, but many times I've been caught just getting out of the bath at 10:00 or answer the door in my robe at 8:30 (because I know who those visitors are and they've seen me at my camping best - nothing scares them now!).   But there are other things that I do every day and eventually getting dressed is one of them.

Basically I get the kids out the door before I take care of myself.  If I try to have hot oatmeal for breakfast, I'm suddenly searching the house for missing field trip forms, money for the trips, lost library books, birthday party invites or washing moldy lunch containers from Friday.  My oatmeal would always be cold.  Yvon starts them off with breakfast, and I make sure they finish it and move on to dressing, washing, and getting their stuff together.  After I close the door behind the last one, I glance around the room for left items (gloves, hats, lunches, forms) and yell out the door for them to come back.  Then I sigh a bit sigh of relief.

Eat breakfast.  Make our bed.  Sweep the living room, hallway and kitchen.  Do the dishes.  I don't dry them ever,  but at least the counter and table are clean and one side of the sink, and I can walk barefoot if I want without risk of cereal or popcorn kernels getting stuck to my toes. 

THEN I get dressed myself. 

After that I don't have any routines because it depends on the day, on my workload, on the needs of the kids, whatever. 

Fly Lady then breaks jobs down into small bits so that you don't clean like a madwoman for 8 hours and then crash for two days.  You sort/clean/organize in 15 minutes chunks, or bigger jobs take one hour.  Over time you've hit on all areas of your house and it should be easier to keep it up. No tasks are meant to freak you out and make you quit. 

As it turns out, Fly Lady is concentrating on the bathroom this week.  Coincidentally, my bathroom still needs work, although not the work she's talking about.  She wants me to clean something every day or sort old medications and shampoos. I've done that.  What I need to do is actually finish constructing the bathroom. 

I promised a friend last night that I will make a list of all the things that still need doing, broken up into bite-sized jobs.  Every day I will cross something off it.  So that's what I'm going to do today. 

The other thing is that I am going to spend 15 minutes cleaning a junk pile every day.   The piles of papers and drawers and recipes I've clipped, the bowl of things-that-don't-belong-anywhere-but-are-very-special-to-someone, the piles of library books and books I've been meaning to give away or return to their owners. 

I got rid of my paper pile this morning, so now I'm on to writing my bathroom list.   How do you keep up with everything?  Do you write massive lists?  Or do you clean in a frenzy just when guests are expected?

10 more days 'til spring!

Are you feeling it? 

Me neither. 



But in the basement things are happening and that will get me through this last part of winter. 

I'm trying onions and shallots from seed this year and maybe I'll do them from bulbs too and see which way works best.  In the picture are basil, parsley, thyme and leeks.  I am trying celery again, but even with the warmer location of my lights I've gotten no germination.  Maybe I should germinate them in the cold room like I did last year.  I just assumed heat would be better.  Live and learn and then try again.

What's for Dinner

It's been a couple of days, but I've been pretty good about using leftovers and doing a version of the plan.

Wednesday night: Chicken nachos.

The only interesting thing about this is the guacamole. I had purchased some cheap avocados on the edge of being bad, ate lots right away and then decided to try my luck with freezing them. It worked great. I didn't dip them or anything - just halved them and froze them on cookie sheets and then into containers with 1 1/2 avocados each. That enough for a good bowl of guacamole on short notice.

Thursday night: Even though it was my birthday, I had to take Alice to the clinic to remove her stitches and had a 3 hour (!) community league meeting at night, so we had nothing special. Spaghetti sauce with pasta. The addition of bacon makes anything more special though!

Yvon and I just got back from a good meal at the Alberta Art Gallery, my birthday meal. Tiny portions, but I'm surprisingly full in spite of not getting the bread to start with, or the bun that belonged with my sirloin burger.

Their menu was totally different than the last time I was there, but with only four main dishes on it I guess they can change it up really regularly. Do only a few things, but do them well. My motto is more like "Try everything and do lots of them at a passable level". Ah, mediocrity! I'm glad they don't share that philosophy because I expect more from others. A lovely double-standard, but if they're getting my money it should be good.

It's my day!

It's our tradition to start birthday's on our bed opening presents. That way, no matter what the rest of the day throws at us, we started the day acknowledging the special day. As far as I know, my parents started that. I don't have many memories of the master bedroom because there was rarely reason to be in there. It was a toy-free zone and not generally much fun. But birthdays always started there.

I lucked out in the gift department this year.

I love Stuart McLean's stories. These appear to be in his own voice, as opposed to years of Dave and Morley. I read a few chapters while eating breakfast in bed this morning. I'd like to read them all at once, but it's not really that sort of book. It's nice to stop and think about what he's written. His observations on the common, everyday things of life.

I also love Bryce Courtney. He can't seem to write a thin novel, but I'm always happy that they go on and on and on and sad when they finally end.

Two local meads from the Calgary area. I'm looking forward to cracking open the Saskatoon Rhubarb one most.

And the bag itself. I've eyed these for a while but haven't had the need so I kept stopping myself. Birthdays and gifts don't have to be about "need" though. Yay! I wonder if I can bungee cord it to the rack on my bike? The rumour is that our neighbourhood is going to open a farmer's market this year.

A child after my own heart, Laura gave me a gift in a reusable little beaded bag. Complete with little beaded jewelry. The way the sun shines through the glass says spring to me. Outside still does not say spring at all, but I believe it's in the air and will one day warm up.

Beth wants you to know that she didn't forget about me. She made me a gift a long time ago, put it on her bedside shelf (she sleeps on the top bunk) and knocked it off while reaching for her glasses. She can't find it now. It's somewhere behind Laura's desk or bed. And she is the child that I think is most like me. I hope not!

Last night I was gifted with this lovely gift: GF crackers. I've been sneaking to the kitchen counter repeatedly to eat one or two. They will not last long. 

Can you see the little letters? Originally they had spelled out "Evelyn 43" but they are very fragile and didn't quite survive the car ride. So cute and so yummy!

The giver of this plum chutney didn't/doesn't know it's my birthday, but I'm treating it as a birthday gift. I don't know what we'll eat it with yet, but it will be enjoyed. I'm thinking pork.

It's only 10:00 and I'm having a lovely birthday already. Happy birthday, me!

Dinners

I saw an eipisode of some spice lady on the Food Network who made some awesome refried bean burgers last week.  However, I can't remember when I saw it, what the show was called or many of the ingredients.  I remember thinking, "I'd never have thought to put those spices together in one meal".  So, of course I couldn't recreate the meal the way she did.  However, I did remember the refried beans and the eggs, so this actually turned out really well.  And it's a good meatless dish that didn't feel meatless. 

Although the meal looks really colorless, my condiments didn't and it struck me how many were made from scratch.  Following a blog post on Dinner with Julie about ketchup and how easy it was to make, I made a few jars in tomato season and have enough to last the year without Heintz.  This is the same  Ranch Dressing that I made a few weeks ago, but I mixed up a smaller batch this time.  The crumbly cheese turned out really well and melts nicely.  It's an accidental creation from a failed batch of yoghurt that heated too high.  I can't take credit for the relish.  That comes from my mother-in-law.  They looked nice in the middle of the table.

I think I might try growing fennel again this summer.  It was very good in the salad, but I wonder how you preserve fennel if I have the happy problem of growing a successful excess. 

Last night was Crockpot Tuesday, so we had chicken, potatoes and veggies.  This meal bores me but the rest of the family likes it and it provides me with leftovers for other meals and lunches.