I'm so glad you could stop by. This is my personal blog of daily life and my journey through life. You will find a strong emphasis on family and friends as well as finding my ancestors through genealogy. Unlike my other blogs this blog is more of a catch-all so any topic is fair game.
The newest issue of What's Cooking arrived a couple of days ago so I wanted to test a few of the recipes. The problem is we live in a small urban community with three grocery stores ranging from the basics to a limited selection of gourmet foods. We also have two specialty food stores and a butcher shop so for the most part I have a decent selection of ingredients. We are about 40 minutes to two cities, close to fisheries/orchards/farm stands/mushroom farms/wineries and to the USA. The mail service is good as is delivery services so can order online with perishables delivered next day service. I have absolutely no reason to complain about the selection of food or ingredients available to me. Yet there are times I get frustrated a the lack of an ingredient in town. For example it is hit or miss whether any of the grocery stores have ground chicken, ground turkey or ground pork but I simply grind my own so it isn't a problem for me but it is a problem for those who don't grind their own. Yesterday I wanted Sriracha sauce and Kraft Extra Virgin Olive OilTuscan Italian Dressing. I finally found the Sriracha sauce but no luck on the Tuscan dressing.
In all honesty though we are very blessed to live in a region of Canada where there is an abundant food supply year round. The selection and quality of locally grown foods is quite amazing! The conditions are ideal for growing your own as well. Yet in this midst of this food cornucopia there are many who go hungry. There is no doubt the cost of food is rising meaning many can no longer afford even the basics. We are very, very blessed to be able to afford what food we want so we make it a point to support the local food banks and food drives.
Although it did not set out to be, the theme of our recent vacation to the sunny south quickly became 'Q' - BBQ that is. We savoured the sweet yet robust flavours of some of the best smoked Q you have ever tasted. Now I've been wanting a smoker for quite sometime. Smoked meats have a characteristic red ring that you just can't get with any other cooking method. The choice of wood, usually hardwood, determines the flavour. The thing about Q is it is long and slow so not only is the meat flavourful it is moist and tender, melt in your mouth. A smoker is on my list of must haves this year!
This year we ended up making two turkey runs for a total of 4 turkeys. The total weight came to 78.97 lb at a total cost of $41.67 which works out to 52.7¢ per lb. Not bad! I'll recoup the cost of the turkeys just in the value of the stock from 2 of the carcasses. To get the turkeys at that price we had to spend an additional $20 per turkey or a total of $80. We were very frugal spending that extra $80, ending up with mainly groceries we would have been buying anyway, a pair of jeans for my husband, a shirt for me and a gift. There were a couple of excellent meat deals like a 5 lb pork loin for $7 that really helped stretch that $80. I'll divide that with half being cured for pea meal bacon and the other half as a roast in the slow cooker. Over all this year's turkey runs were quite frugal!
Have you ever heard that song about the girls all get prettier at closing time? I'm thinking that applies to comment spammers as well! Honest to Betsy I get this comment on a pickled egg post on my cooking blog that did a one-ninety relating eating eggs to increased sexual activity and if my readers couldn't eat eggs they could click on the handy link provided to by Viagra from a reputable online source .
Ok, let's think this one through. I'm female and most of my readers on my cooking blog are likely female. Unless we are aiming for something else I'm pretty dog-gone-sure that we would get a heck of a lot more jollies out of a brand new KitchenAid stand mixer. Now don't get me wrong but I can mix up a great batter that would do a lot more than Viagra using one of those bad boys! What the heck! Are comment spammers so brain dead that they seriously think any blogger worth their salt is going to let that comment through? Definitely not but any blogger worth their salt is likely going to use that bit of nonsense as blog fodder
This past week was all about enjoying tomatoes. I've been picking tomatoes in the garden and cutting vines to root for my indoor continuous garden. I been working on canning hampers of tomatoes into various tomato products. So far I've put up fire roasted tomato sauce, fire roasted tomato basil sauce, fire roasted Italian pasta sauce with mushrooms, and marinara sauce over the last two weeks. This week I canned seafood cocktail sauce, pizza sauce and salsas. And just in case the focus hasn't been on tomatoes we have been eating tomatoes every chance we get. Toasted tomato sandwiches and BLTs make for quick easy meals during the tomato canning season while not adding heat to the kitchen. All those little bits of great sauces that aren't enough to fit into a mason jar are used for meals as well. So this thime of year it is all about the tomato!
I'm working on the fourth hamper of tomatoes for the season today. On today's processing plans are seafood cocktail sauce, pizza sauce and salsa. Any tomatoes left after making those three products will canned whole. By day's end I will have several jars of wonderful tomato products to add to the pantry. As with most canning sessions this year the day has got off to a late start with canning going into the late night, early morning hours.
As a foodie I am always taking pictures of the great food we are so lucky to enjoy. I think the only food I have not taken pictures of is funeral food which is a shame sometimes because it can be quite impressive but somehow it just doesn't seem appropriate to whip out the camera. The buffet style wedding dinner was roast beef, garlic butter chicken, potatoes, corn, and green beans. There were two kinds of leaf salads, a vegetable tray, and dinner rolls. Gravy, horseradish sauce and a variety of salad dressings accompanied the meal.
This was a lovely, home cooked style of meal that very much reflected the bride and groom as well as their guests. Pictured is my plate filled with delicious food. I can certainly attest that the meal tasted as good as it looks!
August is always one of the busiest months of the year for us. It is a time when the garden and local produce becomes readily available so the canners are going full tilt. I put up maple blueberry conserves, peach lavender jam, peach chutney and peaches with peach snapps. I love watching my pantry fill us with home canned goodness. It was a peachy week of blessings!
I'm a serious foodie and my husband well gosh he is right up there when it comes to being a foodie. We eat good on a daily basis. Actually we eat a lot better than most on a daily basis - good, old fashioned, home cooke, and preservative free foods. I can a copious amount of food each year so we don't have to rely on commercially canned, preservative laden foods. Given our food choices and diet the whole concept of dieting to lose weight is rather foreign.
I seriously have never watched my weight and definitely do not fit into the calorie counting crowd! I eat what I want, when I want. The thing is by nature I am not a big eater and actually border on under eating side even though I am a foodie. Making sure I get enough eat enough in a day is more of a concern. At any rate I figure as long as I am eating healthy foods free of pesticides, preservatives and other nasties I'm doing a good thing. I'm doing a bit of a change of pace adding in a few extra anti-oxidants and eating a bit more plain yogurt with active bacteria to help with my internal flora. Oh and I'm experimenting with apple cider vinegar (ACV) that seems to be going well.
What the heck! At my age I have to try a few anti-aging tactics don't I and from my perspective it all starts with what I put in my body to begin with. So I'm being a bit more conscious to make sure I get my 8 c of water daily and for the most part I've given up on on the three vices of AAC (alcohol, aspirin, caffeine) and never was a fan of candy or carbonated drinks. Well, I'm still battling with the caffeine but have it restricted for most days to 1 cup of coffee/cappuccino or green tea in the morning. I'm not a fan of chocolate especially milk chocolate but I'm finding dark chocolate in very small amounts to be tolerable while giving me a health benefit. So I'm having a bit of change in pace, hopefully for the good :)
My apologies for a late post today. I was up until after 3 AM canning a beautiful batch of organic green beans. Much of the morning was spent finding my kitchen again. It was a bit more tedious canning session than normal because I am testing Tattler reusable canning lids so I was quite concerned over seal failures. At any rate I ended up with 7 L jars and 24 - 500 ml jars of gorgeous canned green beans. The canner made three runs in order to process all the beans and if you know anything about canning is the processing times and cooling times can't be rushed. It was a productive evening and early morning that has left me doing a bit of catch-up but during the busier canning season that is to be expected. Oh and while waiting on the canner I did check for the Northern Lights several times but did not see them :( It would have been a nice sight!
This past week was one of discovery! We found an amazing organic farm within an acceptable driving distance of our house. The owners also have free range laying hens so we have secured another source for farm fresh, organic eggs. We aim to use local produce and foods produced within a 100 km radius of our home. We are very fortunate to live in an area with this is quite possible! Smaller farms especially organic ones are getting few and far between. Finding one especially of this size is quite the blessing! The owners are very friendly, down to earth people with many similar values to us. We've already emailed back and forth a few times. I can see us becoming friends as well!
Some things I find online are just too good not to share! If you follow any of my blogs you will know that I am not a huge fan of fast food restaurants. While I won't go as far as saying I never eat fast food from a fast food restaurant I will say that we will go out of our way to find a sit down restaurant. I honestly think that eating fast food fare on a regular basis is detrimental to your health. It tends to be high in sodium, sugar and fat. As if that isn't bad enough fast food is loaded with calories. Just in case my view on fast food doesn't convince you that fast food should not be a regular part of a healthy diet I found this great video. It's good food for thought! A warning that this video is not for the squeamish.
The past week was interesting to say the least! My husband was away for half of the week so I had the house to myself. I picked up a bit of produce to keep me busy. The produce included strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries with mangos, lemons and a pineapple thrown in for good measure. I use a low methoxy pectin which doesn't rely on sugar for gelling so I have free reign on the jams I can create. I really am limited only by my imagination when it comes to making jams and this is where it gets fun.
For the most part the focus for the week was berries and more berries. I had a nice time experimenting in the kitchen. There were several jars of jams added to the pantry, berries froze and berries popped into my mouth. I really wanted to dry some berries but the humidity shot up so I didn't. Hopefully I will be able to get some dried next week. All in all it was a berry nice week :)
[from my email files, I added the clip art which wasn't in the original email.]
----- The Restaurant
A group of 40 year old girlfriends discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed upon that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the waiters there had tight pants and nice buns.
10 years later at 50 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the food there was very good and the wine selection was good also.
10 years later at 60 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they could eat there in peace and quiet and the restaurant had a beautiful view of the ocean.
10 years later, at 70 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the restaurant was wheel chair accessible and they even had an elevator.
10 years later, at 80 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they had never been there before. -----
This is a very busy time of year for me in the garden and kitchen. The canner runs almost daily often several times a day. When the canner isn't running I'm dehydrating or freezing foods. During this time there are several trips to local farmers for produce I don't grow enough of or don't grow at all. At the same time the garden needs tending, fresh caught fish needs to be put up and hunting season is quickly approaching. If you haven't read my cooking and gardening blogs you will have missed out on a lot of this activity. So if it seems this blog has been a bit quiet lately you will know why.
I seldom write about either gardening or cooking here and when I do it tends to be rather about something interesting I discovered. So I thought I would share a picture of the canning my husband and I put up a couple of Sunday's ago (more here). There were 55 jars total for one long day's worth of worth and while that may seem like a lot to some it isn't. We've been in this high gear mode for awhile now with dozens of jars of home canned foods being preserved daily. What happens is a lot of produce becomes ready for processing at the same time which is both a good and bad thing. There's no break during harvest season as we move from corn to tomatoes to peaches and apples with everything in between. It makes for some very long, tiring days but looking at a well stocked pantry and full freezers is well worth it :)
Last Friday I took a foodie road trip (read more here) along the historic Talbot Trail in southern Ontario. Despite the day starting off overcast and quite foggy it ended up being warm and partially sunny. This is such a beautiful drive with many gorgeous photo opportunities. Along with several stops to buy locally grown fresh produce, I made many more stops to take pictures. Pictured is Lake Erie that is easily seen from many points on the Talbot Trail.
I watched an episode of the 100 Mile Food Challenge. This series shows the ups and downs of a group of families trying to eat foods grown within a 100 mile radius of their home. Several times I just found myself thinking this is about the easiest challenge so why were the families finding it so difficult especially when locally grown foods constitute about 85% or more of the foods we eat. Then it dawned on me that your home location plays a huge role as to what you can get within a 100 mile radius. Within a 100 mile radius we can easily buy locally grown/produced: most produce (fruits/vegetables), mushrooms, table salt, curing salt, white sugar, honey, maple syrup, wheats (whole grain/ground), dairy products, eggs, beef, pork and poultry. In addition to that we grow as much as possible and we can fish right in our own backyard. Unlike the families who couldn't use yeast because it wasn't produced locally, I'd simply use my sourdough starter that is easily made by capturing wild yeast in your kitchen. We are also surrounded by an abundance of wild edible plants. What we can't get locally pales in comparison to what we can get! We are so very blessed to live in such an amazing area!
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
"I have called this principle, by which
each slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term Natural Selection." —Charles Darwin from "The Origin of Species"
