Hot Chocolate

Yesterday morning when I woke up it was a frosty -18°C (0°F) — okay, technically -17.9°C (-0.22°F), but the weather network rounded up. That felt like -27°C (-16.6°F) with the wind chill. Non-natives to the area might just think, “Well, that’s Canada for you, it’s always ridiculously cold there.” Okay, sure, it’s colder here than in many places, but not usually so early in the season. This is February weather. In November it’s generally grey and dreary, and hovers around the freezing point. Yesterday was the coldest November 22nd in the history of the city, beating the 1972 record by three and a half degrees. My friend in Whitehorse pointed out that it was a “balmy” -4°C (24.8°F) where he lives.

So I feel that I am justified in commenting on the fact that winter has come quite early to this neck of the woods. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like winter — for a while. I enjoy the changing of the seasons. It’s when the season doesn’t seem to want to change that I don’t like — either the stifling, humid days of high summer or the dragging, freezing days of the most intense part of winter. Those days when it seems like all there is to do is endure the season, not enjoy it. And it seems like that part of winter has come on pretty darned fast this year. Heck, my husband went on a ten-day business trip, and when he left it was still autumn. When he returned home, it was February.

The kids, though, don’t mind the biting cold all that much, because it means hot chocolate when they get home from school. They walk, you see, so the weather hits harder than if they just hopped on and off a school bus. It won’t be the hearty meals that they remember fondly from this time of year — at least not until they get a bit older. No, it will be that warm mug of hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows while they read at the kitchen table and let the worries of the day fall away. Or perhaps, on slightly warmer days, that same mug after coming in from playing in the snow, red-cheeked and raw-nosed. How do I know that? Because it’s one of my favourite childhood memories as well.

Tandoori Chicken on Basmati Rice with Glazed Carrots

It has come to my attention of late that there are a few companies out there now that make lactose-free Greek yogurt. This means that there are a couple of dishes that used to be in my regular repertoire that I had to drop when I was diagnosed as lactose-intolerant, but I can now add them back to my regular rotation. The first thing I wanted to try was tandoori chicken thighs. I know that for a proper tandoori dish it should be baked in a traditional tandoor oven, but that’s just not something that I have available. Instead, I combined Pataks Tandoori Curry Paste with some of that lactose-free Greek yogurt to create a marinade, and I left the thighs in in it overnight to absorb the flavour. Then I baked the chicken on a broiler pan in my regular oven.

It was very tasty and packed with flavour, if a little bit sweeter than I’m generally used to. That’s because somehow I didn’t read the yogurt label properly and bought vanilla yogurt instead — and I didn’t realize until after I’d already put the chicken in the marinade. I’m actually rather surprised that it still tasted pretty good, but it did!

I served the chicken over steamed basmati rice and alongside glazed carrots. I steamed the carrots in the microwave and then tossed them with a bit of my carrot jam, just enough to coat the veggies. Carrot jam is really great as a glaze on steamed or baked root vegetables, and it’s also surprisingly good used to glaze pork roast.

Felting with Vintage Tupperware

When I’m at the flea market, one of my most consistent sellers is vintage Tupperware pitchers. I hear so may people exclaim that they remember them fondly from their childhoods, generally filled with Kool-Aid and paired with bell tumblers. I have to admit that they were a consistent part of my childhood as well, even though at our house they were filled instead with juice that came out of a can in the freezer.

However, this past weekend I learned that these days they have an alternate use. One lady came to my booth and was absolutely thrilled to learn that I had one vintage pitcher left because she uses the lid for wet felting. For those not into such things, wet felting is a craft that uses layers of wool roving or yarn, agitated together with hot soapy water until it all sticks together as a single piece of fabric. If you’ve ever accidentally thrown a piece of woolen clothing in the washing machine and had it come out shrunken, stuck together, and unwearable, you’re familiar with the process. However, wet-felting is when it’s done on purpose to create pieces of art. The end results can range from absolutely gorgeous to terribly cute.

What makes these pitchers such great finds for wet felters is the ridged undersides of the vintage lids. (The lady I spoke with told me that the lids of new Tupperware pitchers have been redesigned so that they’re smooth on the bottom.) The ridges are perfect for gently agitating the layers of wool so that they stick together. And the handle makes for an easy grip. Apparently the pitchers are considered to be great finds by this crafting community, not only because they don’t make them that way any more, but also because they’re generally snapped up so fast.

Who knew?

Kitchen Has Food

Every once in a while, generally when I’m running out of ideas or enthusiasm for what to cook, I like to take the kids out to the grocery store and let them pick what we’re going to eat. I do set a few rules, of course, or every time we do this we’d be stuffing our faces with chips or candy — or is Kraft Dinner yet again. Despite my attempts, it rarely ends up being a terribly healthy dinner, but it is always eclectic and different than any time before.

Let’s take this week’s kid-directed meal: mildly spicy grocery store chicken wings (bought frozen and thrown in the oven), garlic bread (made out of homemade bread we already had), and sliced red peppers. It’s honestly not something I would have ever thought to combine as a meal unless I was cleaning out my fridge, but it was actually pretty good!

I’m hoping that this will be a good introduction to grocery shopping, rather than just dragging them along with me when we go out to purchase a large load. While that’s also a necessary evil, I think that what each individual ingredient is for can get lost in the shuffle. I also hope that as the kids get older I’ll be able to assign at least one night every week where they’re in charge of planning and cooking the meal. Right now what they know how to cook is definitely limited, but it’s a progress. I don’t want them sent out into the world without a stable cooking foundation under their feet. As the joke goes, “Women belong in the kitchen. Men belong in the kitchen. Kitchen has food.”

Disney Princess/Star Wars Mash-Up Photos

I remain astounded by this, but I managed to finish the costumes for Thing 1 and Thing 2 in time for Ottawa Comiccon: Holiday Edition this past Sunday. The costumes were supposed to coordinate with last year’s Frozen/Star Wars Mash-Up so that my friends and I didn’t have to make new costumes. So may I present to you:

Thing 2 as Jedi Tinkerbell! I made her robe using McCall’s M6184: Children’s/Boys’/Girls’ Karate and Scrubs Costumes, but I used green broadcloth as the fabric. I also added two tabards and an obi/sash, which were basically tubes of fabric turned inside out and sewn closed at the end. The tights were Mondor dance tights that I purchased at a steep discount at the Audrey’s Costume Castle fire sale; the wings were from Value Village Halloween stock. I re-used the boots from Thing 1’s Astrid costume, and stuck pompoms on the toes with hot glue. The sparkly pink belt was from the kids’ wardrobe. Oh, and the knockoff “space swords” were cheapies from Walmart.

Thing 1 as Jedi Ariel! Her robe was made using a larger size of the same pattern as Tinkerbell, but in different colours of broadcloth; the tabards and obi were also made the same way as the first costume. I ordered the mermaid scale leggings off of Amazon since I couldn’t find any the right colour in town, and I was extremely lucky when they arrived this past Friday despite the postal strikes (the very last day they could have been in time). The half boots were from Joe on clearance, and the belt came from the kids’ closets. The wig was an inexpensive one from the Walmart Halloween section, and it was the only part of the costume that I was really disappointed with. It didn’t come out of the package looking anything like the picture on the front. Despite trying to style it to look Jedi-ish, it continued to look extremely cheap. I pinned it in about a million spots and it still wouldn’t stay looking halfway decent. I think Thing 1 only wore it for an hour before she gave up on it, and I honestly don’t blame her. Her real hair looked much better anyway.

So here was our Disney Princess Jedi group for this mini con: Tinkerbell, Anna, Ariel, and Elsa. I’m hoping that we can convince more people to join us next year for a group cosplay! It was a lot of fun and the kids especially enjoyed a very enthusiastic reception.

I also took the opportunity at the con to have one of my fave local artists, Emily Griggs of Sweet Ingenuity, do sketches of my girls in their costumes. I almost invariably buy something at her booth at every con I see her at, since her art is so much fun! I was really glad she was taking commissions at this con and had the time to draw my kids. I gotta say, they couldn’t have been more thrilled to see themselves in cartoon form. This art will take pride of place on my wall.

My only regret about this con is that we forgot to go and get pictures outside in the snow! Oh well, we’ll just have to schedule a photo shoot sometime.

613flea Saturday November 17th

We’re getting down to the Christmas crunch, which means more flea markets for me! This coming Saturday is 613flea at Lansdowne Park. It’s not technically the Christmas market (that’s in two weeks on December 1st), but a lot of vendors will be bringing out their holiday wares because people like to shop early — especially if they’re shipping presents to family, or are planning on traveling themselves. Considering that the local Christmas craft fairs started up the Saturday after Halloween, I don’t really think it’s too early.

Once again, I’ve managed to narrow down my social media pictures to two, and I can’t choose between them. Which do you like best, this one:

Or this one:

I mean, they couldn’t be more different, but I like them both. It’s very hard to be objective when each one holds some pretty happy memories for me.

I’m also really excited this week because I have found some absolutely fabulous new pieces that I’ll be including at my booth. Once again I have warm colours:

Versus cool:

I honestly love them all and would be happy to keep them in my kitchen, but if I kept every piece that I like I wouldn’t have anything for my booth.

Hope to see you there!

Ottawa Comiccon: Holiday Edition Costumes

I was planning on going to Ottawa Comiccon: Holiday Edition this weekend, and of course since I’ll take any excuse to wear a costume, I’ll be dressing up. This year I’ll be bringing the kids along, and they have asked to dress up too! I was really hoping to get us all into coordinating costumes, but as of right now theirs kind of look like this:

Really, I only have 1.25 robes left to make and some accessories, but it still feels like so much! I was pretty lucky that I was able to find most of the elements of the costumes around Halloween — some of the parts were even highly discounted on the after sales. The plan is to work with the Anna Jedi costume that I wore last year. I think I can, I think I can…

Knitting Vero

It seems like all of my spare time recently, what little of it I have, has been spent with yarn and needles in my hands. My current project takes ten balls of Vero 100% wool in colourway Rose Bower, and even though I’m five balls into a ten-ball project, the pile of yarn doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller.

I don’t know how I manage to knit all year round, but I never seem to have what I want done in time for the holidays unless there’s a crush at the end. On top of this project, I’d like to make Christmas stockings for my family (we’ve had store-bought until now), and I want to try my hand at knitting at least one fleece-lined Mimikyu hat from Pokémon Go — although heaven knows if I give one to one of the kids, I’ll have to make a second. There’s 43 days until Christmas, I can do that, right?

Hope springs eternal.

Food Mills and Apple Butter

I spent most of a day over the weekend processing the apples we’d picked. It took me that long not because it is a difficult process, but because I had almost forty pounds of fruit to go through. Apples can be kept over the winter in a cool, dry place, so a couple of months in my basement meant that they were still perfectly fine. However, I wanted to turn them into preserves, both for my own pantry and as Christmas gifts.

Back in May I picked up an immaculate second-hand food mill for $7.99, and this was my first chance to try it out. Well, it worked like a charm! No more spending hours and hours peeling and coring my apples before cooking. I just had to cut them in quarters, and then run the lot through the food mill once it was all cooked soft. It saved me so much time. I really wish I’d found a food mill years ago!

Then I cooked the resulting applesauce down with some cinnamon and honey in a slow cooker for about 24 hours, until it had halved in volume. This was just under half of the applesauce that I made; the rest will go in another batch. As you can see, it starts really light-coloured before the cinnamon is stirred in and it starts to oxidize.

This was the end result: just over two litres of apple butter. I’d estimate that about 17lbs of apples was rendered down into these nine tasty little jars. I still have another batch to go, with one medium-sized container of applesauce in the freezer to be used in baked goods over the winter. There are some lovely recipes for applesauce quick breads, yeast breads, and cakes out there that I’d like to try (or re-try)!

Golden Berries

A while back, just in time for my annual Halloween party, I was shopping for fruits and veggies from Costco to include on some platters. On a whim, I picked up a box of golden berries, which I honestly thought I’d never seen before. After a little bit of research at home, I discovered that they’re also called “ground cherries” or “husk cherries”, which I’d actually seen at the farmers’ market, and I’d seen the plants at the garden center. Despite the names, they’re not cherries at all; they’re part of the nightshade family, and are more closely related to tomatoes. The berries grow inside of paper husks that strongly resemble Chinese lantern plants. Apparently they’re pretty common to grow (varieties are native throughout the US and Mexico), but aren’t sold commercially here very often, which is why I wasn’t familiar with them.

I discovered that golden berries are a strongly sweet/tart flavour that is really hard to describe, except to say that they are delicious! They have a texture similar to a very meaty tomato, something like a less-juicy Roma. I served them as-is, but later I went back to the store for more and included them sliced in half in salads, and blended into smoothies. When garden planning season rolls around next year, I think I will try to add a few golden berry plants to see how they like my soil. I’ve had good luck with tomatoes and satisfactory harvests of potatoes, but my peppers haven’t fared nearly as well, so who knows how this new nightshade-family plant will fare. I’ve read that they can even be perennials, but sadly that’s for Zone 8 and above; it gets much too cold here in the winter.

What I’d really like to do is make golden berry jam next fall, since I found the fruit’s flavour to be a refreshing change to the usual fare around here. I mean, I could do it with store-bought fruit this year, but at $5.99 for 340g (which might maybe make a single jar), making a batch is a tad out of my budget.