kittycafe

Living It

Rather than blogging it, I'm afraid.

June that is.

June kicked my butt.

There are a lot of weddings in June, and if you work for a food shop that caters these things, that's what you will be doing.

So we will do a random catch up, okay?

There was food to make. Yes, I make food at work all day and then I make it at home.

Some of these foods were unplanned. Like jam.

One Saturday at work, we picked through flats of fresh strawberries (for another wedding) and there were a lot of bruised ones.

"Would I like to take them home to make jam?"

"Sure" I said, without really thinking.

Now if you've been following this blog at all, it seems like I make a lot of jam, which is kind of funny for someone who doesn't eat a lot of it at all. Strawberry jam is perhaps my least favourite but I knew it would get eaten and gifted. Still, I wasn't entirely jazzed about cranking out a regular batch. (If you follow this blog at all, you also know I will search out something a little unusual, mostly for my own amusement) Admittedly, after dinner on that Saturday night, I wasn't jazzed about making jam AT ALL but the berries were not going to wait.

I found this recipe at Canadian Living for Strawberry Balsamic Black Pepper Jam and I knew that was the one.

The balsamic vinegar smoothes out the harsh sugariness and the black peeper adds just a subtle hit of zing. Very nice. Oh, and forget about that "boil hard for 1 minute" in the recipe. You need to boil the you-know out of it for about 15-20 minutes if you want jam rather than dessert sauce.

You ever see a recipe and have to make it right away? First there was iced coffee. Again, funny 'cause I  drink coffee maybe twice a year but I like it iced. And okay, confession, it's the sweetened condensed milk that does it for me.

I also had to try these snack bars right away.

It just so happened that I was on my way out of rural back-roads to civilization or rather, to the pottery supply store and at the very last corner was Whole Foods. So I stopped in for some Kamut puffs for the recipe - and they were on sale. Karma, right?

I also picked up some yoghurt. It was less than two-for-one because it was close to it's sell-by date and one of my favourite brands (Olympia) of vanilla yoghurt. Not all vanilla is created equally. 

The snack bars were everything I thought they would be, healthy, delicious, devoured.

As for the yoghurt, one litre was eaten and the other one sat in the fridge until I woke up one morning with the idea to do this:

Frozen yoghurt pops, swirled with that strawberry jam. I didn't even have any popsicle molds any more, since my kids are no longer wee, so I had to run into town and buy the only ones available.

I have all my best ideas upon first waking up, it seems. This one was a keeper, especially since it is turning out to be a hot long weekend. Finally!

Notice, by coincidence, that the yoghurt treats are also colour-appropriate for Canada Day today :)

(By the way, am I the only one who has ever got out of Whole Foods for under $10? hee) 

Lest you think I'm all about food, I have also been making soap. A lot of soap.

Here we have carrot tangerine, coffee, lavender, cedarwood, the bug deterrent one, (which needs a better name), cinnamon coconut milk and peppermint. I tried to make a soap on my days off to sell them next month at market.

And while I was doing what I was doing, the garden was busy too. These leeks over-wintered and so were ready early. Thankfully something looked tall and green out there. It has been a cool and wet season so far and things have been slow to get growing. 

I have harvested and dried some nettle for tea (use those weeds!) and have a large supply of sprouting seeds from the fellow who supplies the shop with organic sprouts. I have pea and sunflower here in large un-photogenic jars. I was given a little more than I expected (small exaggeration) I think this will last us through the winter. I am in no hurry to sprout them as the greens are flourishing in the garden. 

I'm still waiting patiently for walnuts and raspberries, though.

Oh and for wedding season to be over.

If you need me today, I'll be in the barn throwing pots.

Canadians, have a great long Canada Day weekend.

The Longest Night

It's beginning to look like Christmas here. 

I am writing this the day between two storms, so it's looking pretty Christmasy outside too.

(Is this a good enough reason to use a clothes dryer?:)

So maybe I was a little hasty in the last post when I mentioned that nothing had been done in my blog absence.

I made a slip cover for a slipper chair that didn't match anything else in the living room. It's mate is in another room uncovered.

I participated in a pottery show with a guild I joined this year. After I delivered my pieces to be set up for the show I realised I hadn't photographed them. This is what was left, mostly small pieces, which I thought would be the ones to sell in this iffy economic climate. You never know. The large cupcake jar sold. The smaller one is shown here down at the end. Sorry for the bad flash shot of these.

I made some candied orange peel with some oranges no one wanted to eat. (They were bitter) Remember the last time I made candied orange peel?

These came in handy for baking later.

For my Mom, the most difficult person on my list to buy for, I made a down blanket. 

She is always cold and when she visits she loves the lap blanket that we have from Eddie Bourgeois, I mean Eddie Bauer.

It is sleeping bag fabric on one side, fleece on the other and down filled. Last year they were sold out when I tried to buy her one so this year I bought some satin fabric and fleece and used part of an old duvet and made her one. I was saving the duvets to make pillows at some point but I'm glad I had them for this. The satin made it a little heavier and I'm sure the old duvet has more down in it than our blanket. It's a lap blanket to fall asleep under. 

The "Magic Beans"

This is what the family calls the wheat/grain/ rice bags , named after the Magic Bag brand. We have a few and I made a few more as gifts. One goes to Littlest's riding instructor, along with the horse mug( shown above), to keep her neck warm when she spends hours teaching in a cold horse barn.

So yes, the theme is leaning heavily towards warmth here. It is -20'C outside and inside well, my fingers are cold on the keyboard. The computer is not in the warmest part of the house.

Randomly inserted cat photo. I just found this on the camera and had to include it. Diggery ran way up the apple tree with a recovering broken leg and nearly gave me heart failure.

Don't you just love his lion-like winter frill?

I had another visiter, a stray ginger tabby came by these last two weeks. He was very sweet, very young I think and  he followed me into the woods to collect kindling like a puppy and wormed his way determinedly into the house a few times. But an un-neutered male cat and three males already in the household did not get along. In the end I took him to the animal shelter. I wasn't going to leave him outside with a raging storm looming and as the Husband stated, "We have to put a CAP on this cat collecting sometime." I felt bad about dropping him off to live in a cage so I hope he gets adopted soon.

So back to our regularly scheduled show and tell.

The theme for baking this holiday was spices.

It was not entirely successful, mind you. In addition to some of our old favourites ,(please click on the photo for the full picture. I love you Typepad for re-sizing these, really I do) I tried a Jamie Oliver gingerbread bar recipe that was nothing like I expected, and it looked nothing like the photograph. Sometime in the new year I will tinker with it until I get it the way I want it. For now it is a pan of glorified ginger shortbread with a dusty top.

I also made the aztec cookies found in the Toronto Star newspaper . They have an advent cookie calendar here until Christmas. Every day they are posting a new cookie recipe and I had high hopes for this one.: chocolatey biscuits spiced with cinnamon, ancho chili pepper and cayenne. They are nice, but not spicy. I expected a little more kick.

Here is a recipe that does give a nice kick and is tried and true.

AND I got to use some of the candied orange peel I made earlier. It's a good thing I hid it far back in the cupboard early on. You can use store-bought instead, of course. 

Peppered Spelt Biscotti

3 1/4 C  Spelt Flour

1 tsp     baking Soda

1 tsp     Baking Powder

pinch salt

2 tsps   Black pepper

2/3 C   Butter

1 1/2 C Sugar

3         Eggs

2 TBsps Candied Orange Peel

2 tsps   Vanilla

2 1/4C Pecans

Combine first 4 ingredients in a small bowl.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs.

Mix in pepper, orange peel and vanilla.

Sift in the flour mixture and stir to incorporate.

Add the pecans.

Chill if the dough is too sticky to handle.

Divide dough into 4 logs on two parchment lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350'F for 20 - 30 minutes until firm to the the touch.

Slice when still warm and bake again 15 minutes.

I have a little confession to make. I rarely double bake my biscotti.

I don't enjoy a tooth-breakingly hard crunch when a medium crunch will do fine, thank you.

And so there you have it.

Now my fingers are truly numb and I'd better go warm them up around a mug of tea.

Would you like to join me?