Hot Turkey Sandwich #FoodPicFriday

We had Thanksgiving last weekend and the best part of a big turkey dinner is all the leftovers. I reheated some turkey in the leftover gravy (just like Mom used to make) and poured it over a soft white roll. So good!

Birthday Bloom

John's Grandma (and our next door neighbour) turned ninety last week. She is very active and has a better social life than I do, so I haven't been able to make her a cake yet (she's been too busy!). Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks.

I saw her on her birthday and she pointed out to her front yard and was delighted that her rose was blooming for her birthday. A birthday gift from nature.

Mom's (Nanny's) Awesome Fudge

'Mom's Awesome Fudge' is how this fudge recipe appears in my recipe book, although it's come to my attention that the source of this recipe goes a few generations further. I uncovered this fact after making a batch of it and being reminded of my Nanny. I asked Mom if Nanny ever made it and was informed that it was Nanny's recipe and, yes, she made it all the time. We were pretty young when we spent time with Nanny (she was Mom's grandma), so part of me forgot about it. I'm glad the recent batch I made tasted like memories, otherwise I wouldn't have realized I'd shared this treat with my Nanny when I was little.

This fudge tastes very old timey, sweet and yummy with every bite.

Mom's (Nanny's) Awesome Fudge

1/4 cup margarine
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup milk
3/4 tsp vanilla
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
pinch salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Put all ingredients except vanilla and walnuts into a saucepan. Mix together, heating on medium until margarine is melted and mixture starts to boil. Let bubble for 9-10 minutes. To ensure it has boiled enough, test to see if the mixture will form a ball in cold water. Put a spoon into the hot mixture and drop a small amount into a cup with cold water. It should form a ball. Take saucepan off burner and let sit for 10 minutes. Add vanilla and walnuts and start beating fudge with a spoon until it changes colour (turns lighter brown) and becomes thick. Put into a greased pie plate and place in fridge to cool. Cut into squares and store in an air tight container.

Enjoy!

1/2 Dozen Zehrs Doughnuts #FoodPicFriday

My favourite doughnuts are from Zehrs bakery, a place I don't get to very often, but I love love love their doughnuts. Before a recent visit to Mom's, I told her I was craving them, and she offered to get some for me. Isn't she a sweetheart? Best Mom in the world.

My favourite out of this pile of doughnuts is the croissant. Not sure how they make it taste so amazing, but I could easily eat too many in row. So damn good.

Achievement Unlocked: Cutting Up a Whole Chicken

My farmer brother raised chickens again this year, and last week we bought four of them. Each of the chickens weighed between five and five and a half pounds, so perfect for roasting. Even though roast chicken dinner is fantastic, I decided I wanted more meal options from all these birds. I took to Google and set out to learn how to cut up a whole chicken. It seemed easier than I thought, so I was really excited to try it.

I learned how to divide chicken by watching this short YouTube video. I watched it about five times before I took to work on my chickens.

On chicken day, I successfully parted three chickens. The first one took about twenty minutes (maybe longer), as I figured out how the joints worked and the correct angle for the knife. I had the YouTube video called up on my iPod, so I could learn step by step as I worked (while frequently washing my hands). My first attempt wasn't perfect, but it helped me learn for the next one. The second chicken was far easier to part, taking about half the time as I got the hang of it. By the third chicken I was full speed and the breast pieces looked like they were from the grocery store. I was so happy and so proud of myself! Kitchen skills!

From my three chickens I got the following for the freezer:

2-pack of chicken legs x 3

2-pack of chicken breasts x 3

12 (split) chicken wings

3 chicken backs for soup stock

I also kept one of my chickens whole, so we can have a roast chicken one night too. Very excited.

Sales Barn Deals

For the Civic Holiday weekend, Mom and Dad came up and we hit the Sales Barn looking for deals. The Sales Barn was really happening that day, and we had to park in a field, where we sort of made our own parking space. The place was full of vendors, regulars and new ones just for the long weekend. Dad got some DVD deals and I got book and salami deals. Mom got some Ontario veggies, and it was an all around great day.

Books were all $1.00 each, and I found the following books that day:

Cabal, The Damnation Game, Sacrament, The Great and Secret Show, all by Clive Barker.

Hearts in Atlantis, by Stephen King (a character from the Dark Tower is in this book).

The Bounty Hunters, by Elmore Leonard (his first novel).

The Silmarillian, by J.R.R. Tolkien (a nice soft cover to replace our beat up copy).

We also got some all beef salamis that we ate way too fast, and had to go back the following Sunday to get a few more. We love it!

We ended our fun get together with a trip to the fish and chip truck. It never disappoints.

All in all a great day of family, book deals, and great food!

'Ready For Banana Bread' Bananas

I recently picked up a bag of 'ready for banana bread' bananas on the reduced produce shelf at the grocery store. The overripe bananas are roughly half price and they are immediately ready for baking. No waiting or accidentally forgetting the fresh and full priced bananas.

I got all these bananas for $1

These bananas made up two loaves of Mom's famous banana bread. I enjoy it served with a little butter or marganine and a cup of tea. Perfect afternoon treat.

Further Reading

Mom's Banana Bread Recipe

My version of Mom's Banana Bread recipe (as muffins)

Hot Pepperettes #FoodPicFriday

On July 4th weekend, we had a nice time walking around the Sales Barn (aka Elmvale Flea and Farmers Market). The weather was beautiful (if a little hot), there were lots of people out, and lots of stuff to look at. There are some crazy book deals this year, with one vendor offering six books for $5. I got a pretty good haul of books last year, and I'm rather particular about what I own (even if it's less than a $1 per book), so I didn't add any books to my collection this time around.

I did pick up some hot pepperettes, which weren't lying about their name. Sometimes food listed as "hot" is actually more of a "medium" spiciness, but these didn't disappoint. They were Hot Hot Hot and super fun and easy to eat. The pepperettes were 12/$5.

Food Truck Fish and Chips #FoodPicFriday

One of the food-loving perks of living around here in the summer is the food trucks. We are a touristy area, so there are quite a few that are open in the summertime, hoping to entice people on their way to the beach. Or on their way home from the beach. Or just the regular inhabitants who love french fries. It isn't officially summer until I eat something deep fried off a truck, so I'm happy to report that when Mom and Dad visited last weekend we hit up Perky's Fish and Fries in Perkinsfield for some fabulous fish and chips. Just wonderful!

Father's Day Fun #FoodPicFriday

We celebrated an early Father's Day yesterday with Mom and Dad, enjoying some wonderful (as always) Chinese food from our favourite take out place. Mom also picked up doughnuts from Zerhs Bakery (my favourite grocery store doughnut), and a yummy time was had by all.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!!

Minion Toy - Finished Object

I have gotten into knitting toys lately, and one of my favourite things to do is search through the endless amounts of patterns on Ravelry for something cool to knit. I could spend hours on there just looking...so many patterns, so little time. I found a pattern for a Minion toy, which would make a perfect gift for my Mom (her kids are all grown up - she needs Minions!). The pattern included a photo tutorial, so it was a great project to start and complete pretty quickly.

The pattern can be found here.

For this pattern I had to 'pick up stitches' to make the Minion's overalls, something I had never done before. I found a video that showed me how to do it, and marveled at how amazing the internet is. I love that there are so many teachers out there who are happy to share their knowledge. It is the best!

This was a fun toy to make and Mom just loves it. I'm going to make a two-eyed Minion as well, so this one will have a buddy. So much fun!

Extra Stuffing

I started making some knitted toys earlier this year, then got delayed because I didn't have any stuffing to complete them. There was a bag of it around here somewhere, but after much searching I declared it officially lost.

Thanks to my Mom I am no longer stuffing free. She surprised me on a recent visit with a giant bag of it. I'm not kidding when I say giant, it is GIANT. It weighs 4lbs, and stuffing is pretty light, so that is a lot of stuffing. I will have trouble losing this one. haha!

I put the fish toy I made on the bag to showcase just how much stuffing there is and how many toys I could potentially make with it. I better get knitting!

At The Sales Barn

We hit the Elmvale Sales Barn on Thursday and there wasn't much going on. Some of our favourtie vendors weren't there (the $5 salami and pepperettes booth was sadly empty). Our favourite book/DVD vendor was there, but most of his items were in boxes and he was just in the process of setting things out. So not much to look at, but it was a beautiful sunny day and I got in some nice family time. On the way, I dropped off a book at the library and Mom ran into a cousin of hers. Then at the Sales Barn we ran into an old neighbour from when we lived out on the farm. So it was a rather social day, even if there weren't many deals.

One vendor we were happy to see was the cheese guy. Mom picked up some 'garlic brick' which I remember us getting when we were kids. We also got some cheese curds, which was my main reason for going to the Sales Barn in the '90s. So good.

Mmmmmmm...Cheese curds...

The Elmvale Flea and Farmers Market is open Thursdays and Sundays until Thanksgiving. I'm hoping that the reason it was quiet this week was because it's only May. Hopefully July and August are rockin'.

Flea Market is Open

Mom and Dad are coming up today and we are heading over to the Elmvale Sales Barn (aka Elmvale Flea and Farmers Market). They are open Thursdays and Sundays throughout the summer and this will be our first time heading over there this season. The weather is good so hopefully there are lots of vendors out. Dad is on the lookout for cheap DVDs, and I'm always looking for book deals. They have some excellent meat deals too. Hope it is a nice day of deal hunting.

Previous Meat Deals!

Getting Outside Early...

I'm getting my outside time in early today, as I'm heading to Barrie for a late Mother's Day get together of lunch and the new Avengers movie. I'm happy to say I haven't gotten any spoilers of the new Avengers movie and Mom and I are both super excited to see it. Can't wait!

Happy 5 Year Bloggerversary!!!

Holy crap I have been Blogging for five years! My official anniversary was yesterday, having made my first post on April 12, 2010. WOW!

For my Bloggerversary I thought I would re-post my first post, as I still like it very much and I think it sets a nice tone for what I think my blog is about. Enjoy!

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A Lesson in Perseverance.  Originally posted on April 12, 2010.

About a year ago my parents moved from the family home they had lived in for over 32 years.  It was a two month process of organizing, sorting, and getting rid of all the junk that had accumulated over all those years of living in one spot. The easiest day during the whole process was moving day, though it was not without its hiccups.  My mother's Christmas Cactus, which had hung in the living room my entire life and had previously belonged to my Great Grandmother Reid, got jostled during the move and fell out of its pot, damaging it and exposing the roots. 

Stressed to the max by the move, my mother said: "Before I change my mind, I'm just letting you know that I am going to throw this out."  That wasn't what she wanted but in the heat of the moment she didn't see another option.  The Christmas Cactus was over sixty years old, and throwing it out would be a tremendous loss.  "John's good with plants" I told her.  "John will fix it."

So I brought the Christmas Cactus home with me and John re-potted it, gave it fresh soil and water, and nursed it back to health.  Over the past year it has shed some dead leaves, had ample new growth, and has made it's will to live quite clear to all of us.  At Christmas time, when it is supposed to bloom, it didn't, but we weren't too surprised.  "It had a pretty traumatic year" Mom agreed.  "Maybe next year."

This morning when I woke up, the Christmas Cactus was blooming!  It is almost mid April, so not quite on schedule, but it has been roughly a year since we started taking care of it.  I patted the Cactus and told it "Good for you!" and I called Mom to let her know the good news.

A Flower of our Christmas Cactus

I can't help but think about the life of this amazing plant.  Over its sixty years it has had at least three different care givers, lived in three separate residences, and as recently as a year ago, almost died.  Not even a year after it's near death experience and it is blooming again.  This plant is teaching me that despite the set backs and traumas we experience in life, we can always bloom again.  Even if it takes a little longer than we thought. 

Banana Bread Muffins

There were two overripe bananas on the table the other day, and my normal practice is to put them in the freezer and save them until there's enough to make a couple loaves of my Mom's banana bread. I hadn't had banana bread in a while and decided I didn't want to wait and converted the recipe amounts in order to make a half dozen muffins.

I've altered Mom's recipe a tiny bit over the years (I use applesauce instead of melted butter), and the following is my version of the recipe.

Banana Bread Muffins (makes approx. 7)

Ingredients:

{Wet}

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbs applesauce

1 egg

{Dry}

3/4 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

Mix all wet ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir until mixed. Fill muffin cups to about 2/3 full. Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

My Mother-in-law had a birthday recently and we celebrated with a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It is her favourite cake and I am always up for making desserts with cream cheese, as I absolutely love how it tastes in sweets. I don't bake with it very often (it can be expensive when not on sale) but other treats I've enjoyed are: pumpkin cream cheese frosting, cream cheese cinnamon buns, Oreo truffles, and peanut butter truffles.

I used a cake mix for the carrot cake, but I put it in three pans instead of two, as multi-layer cakes are so much fun.

There are loads of cream cheese frosting recipes online, all with varying ratios of cream cheese to icing sugar. One recipe suggested 1 package of cream cheese to 4 cups of icing sugar. Another suggested 2 packages of cream cheese to 2 cups of icing sugar. It was really all over the place. I didn't follow any one recipe, I just keep adding icing sugar until I thought it reached peak taste.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 package cream cheese (250g), at room temperature for 1 hour
1/2 cup butter (113g), at room temperature
2 1/4 cups icing sugar

Some recipes add vanilla or lemon juice, but I didn't bother adding either, as it tasted so damn good as is. The thing I find deceptive about cream cheese treats, is they don't really taste sweet to me, which makes them incredibly easy to eat. I frequently had to get a new spoon, as I kept licking the one I was working with. With normal buttecream or marshmallow buttercream, I freeze any leftovers and make it into candies. The leftovers for this cream cheese frosting all went into my mouth. I was not shy about eating it at all.

I made some simple carrot decorations for the top of the cake, using ziploc bags to pipe on the frosting.

This cake was very yummy, and I love the three layers. I think it looks lovely.

Family Day/Valentine's Weekend

Holiday weekends always seem to have a huge quantity of food in them and I'm okay with that.

Before the weekend started, I roasted an eleven pound bird and we had the gift that keeps on giving: turkey, turkey, and more turkey. We had two nights of beautiful roast turkey dinner (with all the fixin's) followed by super filling, triple decker club sandwiches (with bacon, cheese, and mayo). Plus homemade french fries.

Roast turkey dinner

Turkey club with fries

I also made and decorated some heart shaped gingerbread cookies for Love Day, which we ate the last of last night.

Also last night, I finished devouring the sixth book in The Dark Tower Series: Song of Susannah.

It was a pleasant surprise to breeze through this book so quickly, as I found book five (Wolves of the Calla) and all it's 925 pages slow going. But the pace definitely picked up with book six, and now I'm nervous and excited to start book seven: The Dark Tower. I am looking forward to seeing what happens but also sad to see it end. I'm so glad I found this series after all the books were published - I don't think I could have waited years for the books to come out.

It's Family Day here in Ontario (and a variety of other provinces) and I'm headed to Barrie to spend it with my folks, first stop being someplace fun for lunch (TBD) with Mom. The holiday eating continues, and she is my favourite person to lunch with. If only we could teleport to the restaurant so we don't have to be outside in the -20°C (-4°F) weather. Brrrrrrr....

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Trudy's House

In the summer we adopted a ten year old cat named Trudy from an elderly relative who had to go into a home and then later passed away. Trudy had a bit of shock moving here (a new environment, other cats, new people), but it's been over six months now and she is really thriving here. Trudy is an adorably grumpy cat who'd prefer it if she were the only cat who lived here. Funnily enough, our other two cats feel the same way about themselves!

Some family were clearing out her old house in the fall and brought over her "cat house." I have never known a cat who had a house before, and this is proof of how spoiled she was (and, to be fair, how spoiled she continues to be...). She doesn't sleep in this very often, but it is a great hiding spot for her when she wants it.