It's about time!

For years ... since I was old enough to 'help' Grandma in the kitchen and lick the beaters when she was done with her Sunbeam ... I've been in awe of the cooks who were good enough to justify having a stand mixer. Those things are expensive!! I resigned myself to using hand mixers for life, all the while wistfully casting an eye over the bright shiny displays in the home supply stores as I wandered past to collect another set of white towels.

My grocery store has a points program where you can save up and eventually, with diligent application, get various goodies. I'd been lazy about it, often using points for reducing prices on foods and not really looking through their little booklet. Once I did that, I had my eye on a wireless speaker system .. and then I saw this beauty in their online catalogue. That's when I started to get serious about collecting points. Two months later, this Kitchen Aid stand mixer has found a home on the counter.   I think I hugged the box it came in .. and did a little dance. I can't be more exited and a little nervous at the thought that I may now have to turn in my feminist lapel pin.

Then I baked a batch of cookies ...

Coconut Confetti Cream Cheese Cookies

This was adapted from a recipe I found online at Food52. If you follow that link, you can see the original, single recipe. I made a triple batch - our cookie jar is always empty, it seems.

Here are the adjustments I made:

1 ½ c unsalted butter
1 250g pkg cream cheese
2 ½ c sugar
2 ½ c flour
1 c shredded coconut
1/3 c candy sprinkles

Use teaspoons to drop them onto a parchment covered cookie sheet. They spread out quite a bit .. even more without the parchment. Bake at 350°F for 12 min .. or until the edges are browned.  They are very soft and chewy, so make sure they are fully cooled before putting them away.  

Enjoy!

May catch up

In way of preparation, I find myself scrambling to put together some posts to cover the events in May.  I honestly was thinking of writing, but you know how it is in the spring ... there's always something interesting to do outside. (In Calgary, its shovelling snow.  ::grin::)  Fortunately, my camera was there to record things and keep them somewhat fresh.

First, I guess we should cover acquisitions.  My office lamp packed it in early this month.  I loved the look of that lamp, but it had a major design flaw that caused the lampshades to drop down and rest on the lightbulb instead of in their housings, with the last event causing a bulb to burst into tiny shards.  I'm often barefoot in this room, so ... I packed the lamp off to the garage and I headed out on what became a three-day quest to replace it.  I think I did okay.   This is my first Tiffany style lamp.

Right around the same time, we were having a disagreement with our kitchen faucet over what the proper rate of flow should be.  Pressure had dropped off  (only in the kitchen tap) to the point where it seemed you could turn on the water to fill the cofee pot, go take a shower and return before the pot was full.

I'm not sure why we put up with it for weeks.  Maybe we hoped that it would miraculously fix itself in the way that gadgetry sometimes does.  You know, when you're trying to describe to a puzzled repair expert what the thing had been doing 100% of the time until they arrived and it mysteriously stopped.  Well, it didn't do that.

A call to Superplumber!  Did you hear that echoey reverb in your head as you read Superplumber? Yes, they have superheroes on their vehicles.  Its kinda cute, kinda funny and a whole lot dorky.  Which may be why we chose them in the first place.  You gotta call someone, right? Fortunately, they've been good to us over the years.  They'd even repaired this particular problem once before.  Unhappily, this time they could not.  But our rep did recommend several extremely pricey options as replacements.  I'm betting she gets a bit of commission on up-sales.  She was good, she almost had me.  Then I remembered Ian, so I turned down her options in favor of a consultation with my brother.

Ian's advice was somewhat along the same lines, although he didn't necessarily agree that Delta wasn't a good tap.  He did suggest I steer away from in-store brand names and use a plumbing supplier rather than a outlet store.  So I found myself at Splashes one afternoon looking at pricey faucets and mentally putting them on my own sink.  I'll bet that, other than Ian, you don't know how much variety there can be in simply getting a sinkful of sudsy water.

With the help of the lady across the desk, we found a discontinued Delta product (discontinued only because they no longer package soap dispensers with taps) with the auto-touch feature in the swankier stainless steel type .. for less than half the cost of the taps quoted by our Superplumber friend.  Who came back to install it.

She also freaked Mr. Tippy out so badly that he wouldn't come eat until he knew she was not in the house. No telling what's going on there, but its happened twice now.  Same person.

Please tell me that your kitchen window sill is also a collect-all for stuff you have no idea where else to put

I've got another post coming up for family stuff, including a shot of Ian's new tattoo, but for now, I'd like to say hello to Bruce's sister Bonnie.   Up to this point, she's likely been unaware of my blog.  Bonnie, the site address is www.neumansofnanaimo.blogspot.ca if you care to catch up on any older material.

Bruce Fest - the First

To celebrate Bruce's birthday yesterday, since I was coaching on Thursday evening, we invited Richard and Cécile over for a tapas sort of evening .. a bit of this, a bit of that .. with wine and food all night long. We had a somewhat eclectic menu, and I thought I'd share ideas.

A quick note .. with the exception of the green potatoes, none of the pictures here are mine.  I just didn't think to take pictures yesterday!  I spent more time cooking than I did for Christmas!

Flatbread with tomatoes and basil

Panini bread, Sliced tomatoes, Fresh chopped basil, texmex cheese. Mmmmm.

Sweet and Sour Ginger Pork Meatballs

Orange juice concentrate, water, vinegar, brown sugar, juice from fresh grated ginger, 

red peppers and green onions - simmered in a crockpot for about four hours.

My sauce was a bit too vinegary, but the meatballs themselves tasted divine.

Pea & Radish Salad

Recipe here from Molly Stevens on Epicurious. I was looking for an alternative to the usual green salads and came up on this one.  For the first time in a decade .. or maybe a generation .. I have peas in my house. Everyone swore this tasted more like fresh peas than cooked.  I'll take them at their word.  No point in taking chances, right?

Dolmades

Céc and Richard brought Dolmades and a selection of green and black olives.  Bruce loves olives in limited quantities and prefers that I don't purchase them, but he's a huge fan of people bringing them over.

Tiger Prawns

Sauteed in butter with garlic and fresh basil

Twice-baked Green Potatoes (no cheese version)

Baked potatoes, sour cream, avocado, green onion.  These are always a huge hit.

Yam Salad

We all know a good potato salad recipe, right?  Just substitute cooked yams (don't overcook) for the potatoes for a much healther version.

Grilled Salmon with fresh dill

Candied Pecans

Pecans.  Sugar.  So simple.

Cheddar Popcorn

This cake was so easy, it felt like cheating.  I can't recall ever eating a better chocolate cake, however, so I'll probably cheat again. This recipe came from Live | Craft  | Eat, a site I stumbled upon when I was looking for ideas for a DIY project.  The icing I chose to use was again, something of a cheater recipe, but was the perfect complement for the cake.  From Tunisianswife on Allrecipes.

Yup, the first time I bought it, it was because of this label.

A perennial favorite

There is no better way to finish a meal

This was such a resounding success, we've determined that we'll be holding Brucefest each year.  

Save a spot at the table, make your reservations now!

On tea and teacups

I have a few rules for hot beverages that I adhere to rather strictly if I am in a position to do so.  Here in my kitchen, with my kettle and cups, I'm in a position to set the code.  Which applies only to me and not to my husband who may or may not have his own guidelines for enjoying coffee.  One of which is .. "put up with hand-me-downs from the "Mo's Favorites" collection, but steal ones you like."  As a result of his theivery, the blue and white Chinese cup now sits on a shelf too high for me to reach. The irony is that, when in use, it generally holds coffee.

If cups are for tea, they must be china or porcelain and the interior must be light or white.  Why white?  I'm not sure, but sipping tea from a dark interior is rather like smoking cigarettes in the dark ... sure you get your fix, but the enjoyment just isn't there.

I know many who like their tea strong, but I can't claim presence in that camp.  I'm of the mind that tea should have a passing familiarity with water, enough to engage the nose and tastebuds and to give a light swirl of color.  So cups shouldn't be clear because tea always looks too light, if so.

 Hot chocolate or coffee can be quaffed from mugs with colored interiors and fat rims.

A cup with a rounded bottom on the inside is essential for the proper preparation of hot chocolate .. without interior corners, powdered cocoa does not get a chance to hide between the 90° angle of the cup and curve of the spoon as you mix in cream before adding hot water.  Hidden cocoa becomes floaty lumps, a condition upon which I'm sure we can all agree, is to be avoided at all cost.  My 2010 Vancouver Olympic mug on the top left is perfect for hot chocolate.  When I get a 10 minute break from my twice-weekly raid night,  I head upstairs to make a cup of cocoa.  It's a reward if gaming is going well and if we're bogged down trying to progress, hot chocolate is a cheerful consolation.

The brown mug, top right, is a prize Bruce won in an outrigger race.  Each member of the team got one of the colored cups .. Bruce took the brown.  That's another rule.  If he brings it home and I like it more than he cares that I stole it .. it's mine. And that's not the same as his high-shelf-thievery.  Not at all.

A little lemon in your day

You'd think that I'd have got all that cookie baking out of my system in November and December. But no ... I've put six batches of cookies into the freezer over the last couple of days.

Wanted to try some lemon swirl cookies.  They turned out great, but some of the smaller ones with the white on the outside and yellow on the inside kinda look like sliced eggs. ::snicker::  

And now for something different

One day while listening to someone rather nattering online and not really being the person the monologue was directed at .. I opened a browser window and typed in the word Jello.  I quite often just type in random words and look at images presented by Google, and this time I really got some eye-candy.

Apparently its good for more than just wiggly desserts.  Jell-O Cookies!!

Yup .. just had to try them.  And yes, they do taste somewhat sorta like Jello.  I'm not sure if its good for you, but it sure makes me giggle!

I had to add a bit of royal blue color to the blue cookies and this picture doesn't really do justice to the lime green cookies.  I'd give you the site from whence I googled these, but I didn't use the recipe since it called for a cup and a half of butter for one batch of cookies.  Eff that.  I just used a refrigerator cookie recipe from my regular cookie cookbook and tossed in about 4 tbsp of Jell-O.

On a family note, I'd like to welcome Cousin Pat to my list.  Pat .. the original site is www.neumansofnanaimo.blogspot.ca.

Star of Christmas

My baking sheets have seen a lot of action these past six weeks, very likely as much as in the previous 10 and a half months.  I've reacquainted myself with the location of most of my cooking apparatus, with the exception of the still long-lost coffee grinder.

Like cinnamon, allspice, and cloves, the flavor of licorice is inextricably tied to Christmas for me. This is the time of year my mother indulged her love of licorice allsorts, an affection I believe she shared with her father and passed along to me.  I'm not a fan of bags of licorice, knowing that I'll be the only one consuming it.  Oh, I can do it ... but its better if I don't.

In conversation with Cécile the other day, I mentioned that I'd like to try my hand at making some sort of licorice cookies since cookies had kinda been 'my thing' this year.  She had some fresh star of anise that she dug out of her spice drawer ... and so, here we are.

The recipe for Star of Anise cookies comes from The Messy Witchen and I think I have to agree with her when she says "yummy."  They actually looked so good that I didn't mind making the ground star of anise or caster sugar.  What I did mind was that the recipe was in metric grams that I needed to convert to Canadian cups.  The kitchen scale that normally sees use for diet measures - and otherwise sits forgotten in a dark cupboard recess - came in very handy today.

The end result?  These cookies were worth the extra fuss.  I dyed them blue and added the white sprinkles for a snowball effect.  Blue food may look strange, but it's delicious.  I can't wait to share them with my friends.

It's Christmas Eve .. that means we're about to sit down to the annual showing of Alastair Sim in "A Christmas Carol."

Have a great festive meal everyone!

Christmas napkin craft ...

I just had to go and ask Bruce for Christmas napkins for our dinner.

A snowgnome in a snowstorm

Creative genius strikes again!

Slow down and smell the peppermint

This is how my day started ... Bruce and I made refrigerator cookies yesterday, rolled out the dough (flour everywhere, oh my!) and got these pinwheels ready for morning baking.  The green are peppermint flavor and the red are cherry pinwheels.

These will go into gifts for those people we see all year who do nice things for us .. chiropractor, my stylist, our dental office.  And of course some for friends :)

A little holiday spirit

Today .. I turned this

Into this ...

and then this ...

Its in the garage right now, cooling off.

Hopefully that toffee sets up properly .. I had the worst time today .. all because I made what I thought was a simple substitution.  Most times you can get away with using brown sugar instead of white.  Not today ... the first batch didn't have any sticky qualities at all.  I freaked out over the second batch and undercooked it and it looked and tasted okay, but was the wrong color.  So I tried to fix it all by jury-rigging another recipe. I may be stuck dropping this into the freezer and breaking it out when there's no one around but Bruce and I. It's been one-of-those-days in my kitchen.  I really should learn to follow recipes.

But where's the fun in that?

Catch up!

Bracing.  That's what we call a day like today.  It reminds me of my Granny and walking the the Scottish Highlands with a wee scruffy dog .. although I've never done that.  I must have seen it somewhere and totally related to it though.  Because today reminds me of that picture in my brain .. although why my Granny Gideon and a small Scottie are in that picture is also a confusing muddle.

It's beyond blustery .. the weather here on the coast has been the usual sort of mixed bag of goods .. sunny one day .. raining sideways the next.   However, the gusty, blowsy breezes have consistently gone past sporty to the point of 'small craft warnings' that tend to keep the less adventurous paddlers off the water.   Certainly not Bruce and his Huligans, who like to embrace the waves and thrive on this sort of weather.  I just make sure that he's got enough ID that they know who to call when the body rolls up to shore.   I've given up trying to make the safety argument.  You know that one that goes "small craft warning" means small craft .. and that means an outrigger canoe.   He's all "Logic bedamned!"  

::sigh:: Men!

It appears I can have a wholly unexplained reason for a mental picture of a "bracing" day and yet .. in the very next paragraph .. totally discount my husband's proclivity to make up his own rules regarding wind and water based on things like .. experience.  ::frown:: That doesn't make him less wrong.

Bruce has actually been trying to behave himself the last couple of weeks ... he's just finished a round of medication to recover from pneumonia and is still working in clearing the last vestiges from his lungs.  The wet-and-cold combination are making him a bit leery on the very windy days when he knows that there's absolutely no hope of not getting soaked to the skin.  I say "trying" .. I mean that the siren of the waves weaves her haunting melody and tugs at him ... he's a bit powerless to resist her full will.  

::sigh:: Men!

I put this post together in October and got distracted by other things.  So as I sit down to write a new post, you get the old draft too.  My distraction then actually allows me to add more news now.

We had a scare on Thanksgiving weekend.  We'd been to Galiano Island with Céc and Richard for their annual Thanksgiving artwalk and were enjoying ourselves thoroughly, chatting with artists, making friends with stray cats, trying on hats and making faces in mirrors as a result, climbing lofts to look over old boat reconstructions and watching a glassblower at her trade.   I'd picked up a couple of pieces of art and Bruce picked up a cup of chai tea or ate something that gave his usually dormant allergies a chance to surface.  As we were leaving the island, Bruce's reaction had gone from mild to surprising and by the time we landed back in Nanaimo, had escalated into alarming.  Although there is no medical clinic open during off hours, we did get into London Drugs and got him sorted out with some allergy relief pills.  However, on the way home, 'alarming' had again escalated to the point where we took him to emergency.  Fortunately, he didn't have a long wait; although we did leave him there while we made dinner.  Bruce and I would both like to thank Cécile and Richard for their caring, help and patience as it was very long day by the time Bruce was back home.  Bruce now carries medication with him and has some in the car ... and I have instructions on how to use the epi-pens  it as well.


Sandy and Melvin dropped by this month .. and when I say dropped by, I mean they were on the island to visit with her parents who have moved to Cowichan Valley.  We made the most of the day and caught up with our two friends.  I swear, its like we've never left them 16 hours away and 8 years behind us.

Yup, they're as much fun as you'd think.

Melvin taught that look to Miley Cyrus.  Go ahead, blame him.

Fence update .. because you were waiting with bated breath .. right?  We finished!  Done for at least one more year.  Bruce says it took six weeks, but really .. it took all damn summer.  Because we like to not stress ourselves over deadlines.  Its the best way, really.

Mr. Tippy and Murray take their Construction Foremen job seriously.

September - Bruce is measuring to keep the headers parallel before he drills that last screw into place.

Trina, Dad and Dorothy at Myranda's wedding

Kelly's daughter Trina, oldest of the gaggle of nieces and nephews, travelled to Northern Alberta for Myranda's wedding and a chance to catch up with cousins and extended family, bringing her boyfriend to meet the gang.

I ate a flower .. and I liked it.

Yesterday, Cécile dropped by with a large box of organic veggies she'd got from her new co-worker at Bodhi Bakery.  Inside was a bag of mixed salad greens that were stunning both visually, and as it turns out, in taste.  Included in the greens mixture were baby beet greens and nasturtiums.  They made a great shrimp salad for lunch!

Céc is a pretty fine hand when it comes to baking bread herself, but she's learning fast at Bodhi, an education that includes the making of a fine cappuccino.  Once she learns how to make designs in the foam, I'll grab my camera and go.  In the name of journalism, ya know.  It will have nothing whatsoever to do with those lovely chocolate croissants they make.  None at all.

Working on the Stain Gang

As is Bruce's wont, we sang showtunes ... with slight variations ... as we painted the fence these past couple of weeks. Chiefest among the the soon-to-be broadway versions was his interpretation of "Chain Gang," entitled "Stain Gang."

Here, for your amusement is The Pretenders version.




The fence along the steep drop off has needed painting for a year or two, but you know how it is ... you convince yourself that you'll get to it "one of these days" and that turns into "one of these years."  This was the year.  Now, unfortunately, we can no longer purchase the oil base stains we've been using, so we're trying out an latex version to test its durability against the fence we painted on the other side a couple of years past.

It's not all been singing and dancing though, Bruce has been working on perfecting his high wire act as well .. kinda.

Bruce at the start of the project.  You can see how faded the headers are.  We eventually
removed them for painting as it was a lot easier and faster.  You can also see how clean
Bruce's pants are.  He's as messy painting as I am in the kitchen.  Creativity requires
a bit of chaos, after all.

Through the pergola fence you can see the neighbor's house roof below.

A climbing harness has been part of the daily suit-up for Bruce as we work on the lattice panels, since he's on the neighbor's 20 foot drop side.  When he puts the headers back on, he'll be working on the top of our fence, adding another 10 feet to the drop.  I'll be within listening distance, but I can't watch.  Besides, I often add advice, which he doesn't seem to appreciate at the moment I'm giving it.  :D

Have you been watching Continuum on television?  Season finale was an awesome ending in a true science fiction "wtf" sort of way .. will keep me wondering what's going on until the new season starts.  The website link is full of all sorts of things to keep you poking around and you can influence the storyline too.

I've got more garden pictures, if you're not tired of them .. sorry, but my garden is an absolute delight to me and I insist upon sharing it.  :D

More posts to come in the next few days.

[Edit:  update to fix typos]

Meeting Places

I'm fairly certain that every house has one of those spots that just somehow becomes 'the spot."  There's never a formal meeting where the heads of household discuss 'the spot,' but nonetheless, 'the spot' is born.  In my house, that spot is the kitchen island.

It's the spot we leave things we don't have a clue where to put because it's the domain of Blue and you happen to be Pink.  It's where you linger over morning tea, reading the newspaper comics and advice columns or its the spot to find the Saturday crossword you both work on until you finish it or give up.   It's the spot where you leave items that you want Pink to pick up on the next grocery run if you happen to be Blue.

Two days ago, an empty package of AAA batteries showed up in the spot.  I dutifully added it to my grocery list.  But now, it's been replaced with a full package of AAA batteries.   Pink is plenty confused, let me tell you.

Occasionally, but not too often, the spot finds notes, which are always exciting.  As good as getting 'real' email instead of junk from stores who happen to have you on an email list.

Hi Mo:
Did you have a good snooze?
I'm off for a visit with Wil.
I will be loving you this much
And this much too!
Bruce

Gotta love a spot like that!

I'd been to my weekly trainer session at the gym yesterday and she kicked my butt (figuratively, of course) so hard that, well, my butt muscles are refusing to do anything today but offer reasons for not getting out of the comfy chair in front of the tv where naps are pretty much inevitable.  Stairs are nigh impossible.  I think Simone proved a point about me needing to get into the gym more often.

Hope this note finds you all exceedingly well and enjoying fine weather, getting out and about and enjoying yourself.   My advice today is .. join a gym .. don't piss off your trainer.  And leave funny notes in your 'spot.'

Rattling pots and pans

I'm not a great cook; I can admit it and be comfortable with that assessment. When I was much younger, I was passionate about food in the way that you can be when you first discover you're good at something and you're encouraged.  It's too bad that at fifteen, I hadn't been exposed to a more eclectic variety of foods and had a family that didn't insist on beef and potatoes for almost every meal.

My passion really involved the pastry and dessert portion of the menu.  I made good pies, I made tasty treats, but I didn't have a 'feel' for cooking .. I didn't really experiment  beyond the recipes in the treasured volumes of Three Hills ladies tea and coffee circles.  I'm sure they were IODE efforts or some such group, but I don't recall more about them, other than my grandmother's name was attached to more than one recipe. And those were the ones I used. Now SHE was a great cook.   I also don't really remember cookbooks in our home, other than those or the yearly ones from the Blue Flame Kitchen which were supplied for free by the rural gas company. I think Mom also had a tattered old Mennonite or Hutterite cookbook that she treasured and I wasn't allowed to touch for fear of it falling totally apart.

I have tons of cookbooks today .. and sometimes I wonder why.  I peruse them looking for recipes that are somewhat reminiscent of what I want to do, or have ingredients I want to use, but I rarely follow a recipe.  I make substitutions all the time.  I use recipes as 'somewhat of a general guideline.' This has led to spectacular failures and inspired genius.

I know I've mentioned my friend Cécile who is a very interesting cook as well as an interesting person.  She has three things that make her an interesting cook, in my opinion.  Hailing from Holland and being vegetarian by preference but not insistence; she's turned me onto preparations and vegetables that I would not have otherwise come across my table.  Also, she owns (and uses) a Gordon Ramsay cookbook.

Lately, we've been using quinoa in our meals as a substitution for starches of other sorts.  One of the reasons is because I'm trying to watch how much wheat I consume, a second is because quinoa works fantastically in salads and a third is this, a gift from Cécile ...

There's one I want to try with lavender and cherry quinoa.  I'll let you know how it goes once we have cherries on sale again.

In the meantime, here's a recipe I made last night ... I pretty much just made it up as I went along.

Warm Pork Quinoa Salad (serves 3)

• 3/4 C quinoa cooked in 1½ cups of water and set aside to cool.
• 3 center cut pork chops, sliced thin and sauteed
• Handful (generous) of pecans, toasted in a fry pan with a tsp of plantation sugar
• 3 cups fresh Romaine lettuce (could use spinach) chopped
• Alfalfa sprouts to taste.  They're good for you. Shush.
• 2 Spring onions, bias-sliced
• 3 small peaches, peeled and a sliced

Dressing

• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp merlot vinegar
• 1 tsp plantation sugar (or to taste)
• ½ tsp fresh lime juice

Whisk dressing and drizzle over the rest of the ingredients; toss and serve.  

And here's a wee picture of  Green Potatoes ...

Scoop the innards out of a cooled baked potato. While you're making the filling, put the skins under the broiler, brushed on the inside with a bit of butter. Take out when they're brown. Salt and pepper to taste.

I mashed the potato with a bit of butter and cream, but then added half an avocado  ¼ cup cream cheese, bacon bits and 2 spring onions.  Before putting them back into the oven, I heated the potatoes for 2 minutes in the microwave, then sprinkled cheddar cheese over the top before putting them back into a 400° F oven to finish re-heating.

Poor Bruce, I've bastardized his mashed potatoes more often than he'd like, I'm sure .. but then again, sometimes we get results this good. He approved heartily.  Green potatoes .. who'd have thought??

Candy apple red

In the corner of my kitchen, amongst the clutter of canisters, coffee mugs holding handy teaspoons, and condiments, is a new(ish) queen of the counter ... Bruce's new coffee maker.  He loves this coffee maker .. and in true guy style .. he refers to it a Cadillac. 

 Most times, when he needs something new, I wander off to various stores looking for what I consider to be the best balance between functionality, price and since I'm a woman ... aesthetics.  When the last coffee pot broke, Bruce stepped up to the plate and insisted on purchasing this one himself since he's the sole coffee drinker in the Neuman house and has a substantially larger stake in its operation than I.  I think he actually hit a number stores over the course of two weeks before settling on this ... all the while haphazardly crafting his coffee with a filter over his mug.  So he took his time and when he brought this baby home .. he was very, very pleased with himself. If he could have revved it up like the candy red cadillac he named it .. he would have.  

You might have noticed that our kitchen has somewhat of a red theme going on ... some appliances, assorted knick knacks and trivets, even dinnerware upon occasion.  I've been on the lookout to replace our somewhat undersized fruit bowl for a number of years, but I'm cheap.  I refuse to pay $45 or $35 for a bowl to toss my bananas and pears into and watch them age past their preferred edible states. (Don't be judgin', I know it happens in your house too)  And to say I've been on the lookout is a bit of an understatement ... its been years I've been shopping.  I'll occasionally check over at Homesense while I'm there looking for something else ... and upon this latest visit, I came across two perfect solutions. One was a rather elegant oblong bowl with a sparkling white interior.  The other was this homage to Italian living ... and since I don't mind occasionally diving headlong into over-the-top ... here's the result.  It makes me smile whenever I look at it.  And it was only $12.99 ... so was the other bowl.  I may have to go back.

Old Man 2012 limped out of the year, dropping off boxes of Kleenex and Neocitran, bottles of Benelyn and cups of tea.  I curled up on the sofa and indulged myself in mass amounts of sleeping .. I don't think I got out of of pajamas for a week. Yes, yes, I changed them daily, but still .. pjs!   The thing I recall mostly is that I couldn't breathe through my nose, but damn those jammies were comfy.

January is up and has been kicking ass for a couple of weeks, and I am still throwing off the aftereffects of what turned out to be the longest cold I've had in my memory.  A reminder that Bruce is right when he gets up to wash his hands after touching a menu.  I think that's where I picked it up .. and I hope our visitors from the US didn't take it home with them.

I suppose its just as well that I didn't have a chance to finish off that bottle of liqueur in the fridge or cook up and eat all those delectables I had envisioned before beginning the traditional January diet.  Instead,  Bruce was a real trooper, taking on all the meals.  Its amazing how much guilt I felt over that, but I'm over that too.

I've talked to a few members of my family and have some news to share or gossip to spread.  Ian and Nikki have parted, but Ian is in good spirits and is seeing a woman from southern Saskatchewan.  His daughter Angelina may stay with Ian when Nikki moves either down east or to BC with a new fellow she met online.  At any rate, Ian reports that he is happier now than he has ever been, so I guess the new year is one full of promise.

Ralph and Debbie called to say hello and impart News from the North Pole.  Seems my Dad was down with a cold on the day he came to visit, so I imagine Debbie kicked into nurturing mode, which is so very like her.   I caught Dad on Christmas Day as he was about to do something, so we're overdue for a chat now.

Aunts Sandy and Brenda have been in touch and I got the Christmas letters, which I do appreciate.  I had thought to do one myself and even bought the cards, but ... December got away from me like a slippery trout in streams of spring glacial melt.

During the ecoli outbreak in the Fall with the  Brooks packing plant debacle, Bruce and I stopped eating beef and switched to a rotation of pork, chicken and fish.   Funny, but even now, we just haven't redeveloped a tolerance for what beef does to our bodies, so we're eating it sparingly.  Still, slap a nice rib steak on the grill .. we'll be there!

Each year, I try to embrace a new food.  2012 was the year of honeydew melons and pomegranate   I won't say 'never,' but I don't think cantaloupe will ever be a choice for my plate.  This year, I'm trying to eliminate dairy and wheat .. so who knows where that will take me.  I'll keep you posted, but for now .. quinoa looks interesting.  If you have recipes to share, I'd love to have them.

I'm back to my workouts and my trainer Simone delighted in testing my limits yesterday ... I found them some much sooner than I had hoped, but there was an increase in weights in a couple of exercises, so I"m hopeful that I'll be in fighting form soon.

I know this post isn't so very newsy and I don't even have interesting photos to share, but I did create an amazing breakfast one day in December for Bruce's outrigger team.   I'm sharing the recipe for Cinnamon Roll pancakes below.  This came from a member of the guild in one of the online games I play, and they were truly something to write home about.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes!

A little bit involved, as there are three parts, but I'll be as detailed as I can. First time giving this a whirl, so it was a little iffy on parts, but end result was great.  

Things to note:
This recipe yields about 8 4-inch diameter pancakes. If making for a group, I'd suggest doubling.
Also beware: They're tasty.

I'll do this in sections - The Filling, The Glaze, The Cakes

The Filling

Ingredients: 
1/4 c butter (it called for unsalted, I used salted because that's all I had) 
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Prep:
First off, melt the butter down. In a medium/small bowl, mix the melted butter with the b. sugar and cinnamon. Put it in a ziplock baggy and set it aside. (Yes, there'll be a bit of melted butter that separates from it, but that's ok. Let it cool to room temperature while you move onto the next part - The Glaze) [Mo's note:  I put about 2 Tbsp more brown sugar in and it solved the extra butter issue]

The Glaze

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
2 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Prep:
In a small pan, heat the butter on low until it's all the way melted. Once it's nice and melty, turn off the heat and whisk in the cream cheese until it's pretty smooth. (Takes a bit; also I left my heat on low while I whisked just maintain heat to help the cream cheese get its groove on.) Now when you've got the mixture nice and smooth, sift in the powdered sugar and whisk that in. Also add the vanilla. Whisk away until smooth. (Probably best to add the p.sugar in batches as to maintain a consistency.) Set that aside for the time being and move onto The Cakes!

The Cakes

Use your favorite recipe or batter mix.

While the first side is cooking, take your filling bag and snip one corner just a little. Squeeze the filling into the open corner and apply it from the center outward in a swirl. Don't get too close to the edge or it'll seep out the side... which really wasn't a bad thing, but I would recommend a quick wipe with a paper towel, as suggested, in between pancakes to control the excess mess and prevent sticky overload. Cooking time on each side was about 2 or 3 minutes give or take. 
If you need, rewarm the glaze just a bit. (I kept stirring occasionally while I made the pancakes) Drizzle it over the top and devour!

It's a bit of putzing around, but overall not too bad. Below are some of the pictures of the procedure and final product. Good luck! 

Swirl example:


Finished:

White Christmas

Historically, there is a one in three chance that Nanaimo will have a white Christmas.  This is according to Bruce who is quoting a weather source somewhere.  He's much more weather dependant (and weather interested) than I, so I'll just call him an "expert source."  I can count on him, any time of day, to know what's going to happen with the weather today, in two hours, tomorrow or for the next 10 days.  Yup, he's that kind of interested.  I realize that weather is almost a uniquely Canadian chat topic since I chat with a lot of people from all over the world.  We love the stuff; be it rain, snow or sunshine.  Any chit chat starts with talk about it, as well as the quality and quantity.

That being said, December has seen the rain come down steadily, sometimes sideways.  We've had a few days of rare "Alberta sunshine" so bright that you forget Albertans travel with sunglasses even in winter.  The really unusual weather for us here has been the snow .. so I took pictures.  After all, its only fair that if I laugh at you poor folks cocooned in your homes at -30° (like Grande Prairie is today) .. you get to see what its like when the shoe is on the other foot.  Not that its -30° or even the -20° of Calgary.  It's a darned chilly 1°.  Yea, I know .. poor princess.  ::snicker::

Here's my photo lineup for the day.

I love wreaths.  My pal Bev and I enchanced one with a garland of sparkly
bits and a cheery red bow.

I'm surprised the birds don't like these berries.

Looking out my front room window onto Georgia Strait

Someday, you might see this on a Christmas card.  I love how it turned out.

These two are the same photograph, with different post-production treatments. The first reads as very cold and wintry, albeit pretty; while the second, more saturated photo almost looks like a magical fairyland..  That poor greenery on the left is my normally upright bamboo.

A 1960s color treatment created a surreal feel to this photo.

I hope today finds you in a cheery Christmas sweater, with enough rum n eggnog to not care about the pictures they'll circulate of you .. I hope you're surrounded by friends or family (maybe both) and have enough board games or puzzles or genial atmosphere to keep you entertained all day.   And I hope your Christmas dinner has at least one spectacular dish.  

Also .. get in a Christmas nap if you can; they're good for your soul.  That's where I'm going now.  ::big hug::