Stress-free food: Menu Monday

Once upon a time, I had a resolution that kindof, sortof stuck.

A few years ago, I was horrified by the smell that was coming from my refrigerator. (Some quick context setting) At the time, I was single.  Food was something I knew I had to consume in order to keep me alive.  I was re-exploring being an omnivore after a decade of near veganism.  I was also a workaholic, in the sense that working near constantly shielded my brain from the disaster that was my personal life.  During a well intentioned shopping trip, I must have purchased the fixings for some sort of quick and easy chicken dish.  And then I was promptly required to go on work travel.  This particular trip, as many of them did, had me leave early on a foggy Vancouver morning, had me arrive back home late on a rainy Vancouver night a few days later, and so on and so forth for a couple of weeks.  When I was finally in my apartment for more than 8 hours of sleeping time, the smell of death was inescapable.  Chicken breasts should not be left unattended for 2 weeks in a locked down apartment.  From then on, I bought only what I could consume that day.  My waste was way down.  The flip side being, when I was not travelling, my food costs skyrocketed.

When I moved to Halifax, my job requirements were far less demanding on my personal time.  I also fell in love, which reignited my love of cooking.  And Jeff got the top of my culinary game, but more cooking meant more ingredients, which meant more waste.  What to do?

I started planning: flavour groupings so that the cilantro didn't become soup in the herb drawer; two different meals that each use half a butternut squash; utilising sale items to maximise savings.  On Sundays, I find one recipe that tickles my fancy, and I build a week's menu around it.  One trip to the grocery store later, our weekly food costs are down considerably.  I thought you might be interested in a peek at this process and out weekly menu board.  

This past week, I was away on business, so the menu the week before was last heavy on the large portions so that Jeff get home cooking even though I was not there.

The inspiration for this week was cleaning out the crisper - we had a number of carrots, celery and parsnips that were near to the end of their days. My first thought for lacklustre veggies is always soup.

Monday - recipe from Pinterest. Edamame is now a staple that were buy in bulk from Costco.

Tuesday- recipe from "Skinny Meals in Heels", an offensively titled cookbook that has an impressive selection of really tasty meals. (Cilantro and ginger required)

Wednesday - soup from Jamie Oliver, salad from Chatelaine. Both soup and salad were gussied up with bacon. (Ginger, sad veggies)

Thursday- recipes from Jamie Oliver. (Cilantro and ginger)

Friday - soup from Pinterest. (Sad veggies)

Both Saturday and Sunday (ginger, cilantro) were also from "Skinny Meals in Heels".

Pupternity leave

Well, a leave from my blog, since furbabies are not recognised as a need for actual leave.  Jeff, Fin, Batty and I welcomed a new member to our clan on January 3.  Well, kind of.  Batty isn't the most welcoming of kitties at the best of times, and yet another canine invading her home has left her a little grumpier than usual.  Still...Fin is now a big brother (and no one has ever called him 'big' before!) to a little wiener we call Ferguson, or Gus for short (really short).

So, all this to say , my lack of posting is more about a lack of spare time, not about a lack of things happening.  This is Gus, in all his puppy adorableness. 

It should be noted that both Fin and Gus are very social media savvy pups.  Jeff has them both on

the Twitter @Finn_and_Gus
the Facebook @ Finnegan MacWiener
the Vine @finn_and_Gus

And I post a disproportionate number of wiener pictures on Instagram @finandbatty

so that you can keep up on all the wiener dog antics.

xo
<3 Fin and Gus (and Batty)

2015 is here

I'm amazed at how fast 2014 passed. It was a year of ups and downs but it was, on balance, generally a pretty okay kind of year. As part of our rambunctious New Year's Eve of eating take out Thai food and watching season 9 of Supernatural on blu ray, Jeff and I started a new tradition. We've decided from here on, we're going to do a yearly journal entry for our year in review, focusing on the highlights of the year past, and jotting down some aspirations (not resolutions) for the year to come. We are then going to write down 5 positive things that happen to us everyday.

I think it will be a fun thing to look back on, even if we become a bit spotty in the reporting. I can be a dweller, the anxiety and OCD makes me mull and dissect negative happenings until I fall into a pit of despair. If I'm going to dwell, it may as well be on the positive things in our lives.

So, before we move forward, here are some of the highlights from 2014.

Seeing the always amazing Kathleen Edwards at the Dead of Winter festival. While she may now be a Quitter, her performance that night was beautiful and personal and she was wearing the most beautiful snugly looking sweater that almost had me jumping on stage just to hug her.

Visiting the Buckle Ark and practising my newly learnt crochet skills under the helpful eye of a bestie that I see far too little of...if only there were secret passages between our craft rooms!

Our Ottawa weekend for Folk Fest. The National were awesome, but The War on Drugs were one of the very best outdoor shows I have ever seen.

Hiking Duncan's Cove on Remembrance Day. It was spectacular, the weather was amazing, and the stillness of mind that it induced was well needed.

Christmas break hike - Kearney Lake

Christmas break hike - Crystal Crescent 

This Christmas break has been a good one too. Though Jeff and I would probably choose a different time of year for our annual vacation, he is required to take the time by his employer. We've been lucky enough to have had some beautiful weather, perfect for spoiling Finnegan with some extended off-leash walks.

Today, Jeff returns to work, and Monday I do the same. 2015 will begin in earnest, and every night we will reflect on the good in our lives.

Happy New Year from Fin and Batty!

Christmas Countdown - food

People have lots of options on the meaning of Christmas. Some put the Christ in it, some are driven by intense consumerism. There's love and peace and joy and friends and family...but the fastest way to most people's hearts is through their stomachs. Food is a uniting force. And I like to cook. Thus, Christmas is food. For me it is entertaining and feeding my family and friends, filling their tummies with food and their hearts with love.

So, the Christmas Menu (all gluten and dairy free)

Breakfast- coffee and cranberry-cardamom bread.

Brunch- avocados on toast with lobster bathed in a lemon-wine cream sauce with poached eggs and bacon.

Snacks- mocha-hazelnut naniamo bars, butter tart squares, rum balls, shortbread etcetera.

 

Dinner- coconut and butternut squash soup, herb and honey roasted turkey with sherry gravey, herbed mashed potatoes, bacony kale, maple sausage and chestnut stuffing, sweet and sour carrots.

Dessert- really? You're still hungry? Good thing there are plenty more sweets.

Oye. Couch. Blanket. Finnegan. Zzzzzzzzzzz

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, best of the season. (Ps, drop me a line if you want a recipe!)

Xoxo

S.

Christmas Countdown: Decorating

My day job has been creeping into my evenings and weekends as I traipse across our fair country and back (and forth and back) again.  This type of thing tends to limit the extra time I want to spend in front of a computer.  It also tends to put a bit of a damper on my energy levels...hence the somewhat spotty blog posting of late.  But, our household enthusiasm for Christmas is starting to give me a jolt, and between trips, I've been busily preparing for the jolliest of times.

Jeff and I are both pretty nuts for the holidays.  Jeff's holiday muse is Clark Griswold.  He's about half-way through putting them up.  The weather has been pretty wicked here, so lights are not as far along this year as usual.  And me, well, I take the indoors to a whole new level of granny chic-bohemian-crazy gypsy-kitschiness. 

The towels are exchanged for Christmas towels, the photos are exchanged for holiday themed 'art', garlands are hung in each doorway and decorations are stuffed in every nook and cranny.

I love my reindeer.  They're the first ones up and the last ones down every year.

This year I decorated our upstairs tree with the ornaments I've been creating for my Etsy shop.  It's a fun little tree.

Downstairs, our tree is stuffed with ornament that have taken many years to collect.  Like the rest of the decor in the house, the only 'theme' is, OH! PRETTY!.

Finnegan and Bastet tend to roll with these changes.  Bastet likes to curl up under the Christmas tree and pretend she's out doors.  Finnegan just tends to ignore it, unless he is being decorated as well.  Poor little wiener.   

Ummm, yeah, so could you just stick to the trees?  Thanks.

4:20 - the not fun one.

Finnegan- also not a morning person

There is nothing pleasant about a 4:20am alarm. It doesn't matter how soft the music is, or how gentle the kisses - 4:20am is rude.

I've never been a morning person. I was probably one of the few kids who actually celebrated Christmas that had to be roused in order to allow the festivities to start. Equally, no matter how exciting the reason for the 4:20 wake-up, I can never find one that makes me excited. Yesterday's reason for 4:20am was not overly exciting. I travelled somewhere new, but any curiosity or interest was being tempered by the temperature. It was and continues to be -32c, before any measurable windchill. I also find that rude. 4:20am and -32c. My capacity for accepting or tolerating any other rudeness this week will be significantly compromised.

I only remember one real instance of anticipatory excitement around 4:20am. It was once upon a time, when my sister and I used to visit our grandparents during the summer in Deep Bay. And it was before my pre-teen brain made the morning an impossibility to face. My grandpa used to get up before dawn to go fishing. He had a comfortable though basic Bayliner. I would hear him in the kitchen, and I would creep down the stairs. We would eat cornflakes and he would let me put sugar on mine (a great luxury I was not normally afforded at home). I would pull on my jacket and Grandpa would buckle my life jacket over top. We would then trudge towards the wharf just as the sun was coming up. Grandpa said that the sun hitting the water woke the fish up and made them hungry. It made sense to me. I usually fell back asleep, curled up on a bench until the sun woke me up and made me hungry. Quite often there were other types of forbidden treats in the boat, like powdered doughnuts or cookies, which I snacked on while the lines were set.



This is still my morning face.  Jeff sees this pout fairly regularly.
And remember, I wanted to be there.  Imagined how I looked yesterday.

A couple of spring salmon later, and lots of quiet bobbing around Denman and Hornby Islands, Grandpa and I would head back to the house, where folks would just be waking. Grandpa would clean the fish with a couple of eagles watching carefully from nearby, and then he'd make us pancakes on the griddle. The whole day was still laid out before us.

Life on the edge

I am a water baby. Born under the sign of the crab on the west coast of Vancouver Island, salt water courses through my blood. Rain, salt air and fog are essential life forces. Isolation and standing on the edge of the known bring me comfort.

I am here, next human is here-ish. Perfect. I like my personal space.
View Larger Map

For university, I chose to bust out on my own by moving to Montreal. Rain became snow, salt air was only constructed through the over zealous snow removal and fog was either really steam or self induced through hangover. Isolation was cultural and anonymity, and the were no edges. Montreal is the middle. But I still found the sea. Most people studied at home or the library (or didn't study), but I found my haven at the Biodome. Sure, my intertidal zone was a little too sterile, but it was one of the few places I could ground myself.

During the summers I went back to Ucluelet, back to the edge, to stare off the side of the continent. The summers recharged me, and the lack of anonymity often left me eager to escape to my cultural isolation.

Halifax is a nice balance. There's enough of a population base that you can remain somewhat anonymous, but it is situated on the edge. This past weekend, I craved that edge. Jeff, Finnegan and I went for a walk to stare off the side of the continent. I feel recharged.

We are here, next human is here-ish.  Perfect. We need out personal space.
View Larger Map

And over there is Muxia.  It's a long swim.

The sea at our feet and the sun on our faces.  Batteries are recharging.