Puttering

We're having a lovely puttering kind of day today...must be the rain.  I've been using the time at home and inside to catch up on some things and also to make a treat.  I'm still working on using up items in our freezers and pantry and (yes, amazingly) I still have chocolate left to use up.  I like to melt it and mix it with an assortment of dried fruit, seeds and nuts and this time I decided to use currants (leftover from Christmas pudding making), raisins, hazelnuts (left from our old trees) and hemp seeds.

I usually drop them on the cookie sheet by the spoonful to make a chocolate blob but this time I thought I would try using these moulds instead.  We received some cookies in them as a gift and I thought they would be handy for something.

They worked out rather nicely.

I also found where I came across the idea for the scented vinegar.  It was at this gorgeous blog here.  I've started a jar of orange peel vinegar today with more peel to vinegar to see if I can't come up with a vinegar that E doesn't find offensive.

Grapefruit Vinegar

I have used vinegar and baking soda for cleaning for at least 14 years (I started all this great stuff around the time my first son was born) but when my second son was very young he let me know, in no uncertain terms, that he could not abide the smell of vinegar.  Even now, at age ten, every time I spray vinegar somewhere E calls out "Eeeew, vinegar!" from wherever he is in the house (He used to call it "Vinekar" and the bottle of vinegar we use as a hair rinse still is labeled that way thanks to his older brother).  When I came across the idea for putting orange peels in vinegar and letting it sit until the scent was transferred I knew right away I had to give it a try (I saw this on a blog somewhere but I cannot remember the name of the blog or how I came to it, so if it was your idea I thank you very much).

We only had a grapefruit on  hand so I tried that instead.  E ate the grapefruit, I popped the peel in a jar, covered it with vinegar and left it for about 2 weeks.  It definitely is grapefruit scented and...E still doesn't like the smell. ;-)  Ah well, it pleases me that I have found another use for something and I'm all for grapefruit-scented bathroom mirrors and tubs.

Homemade Perogies

I've always enjoyed homemade perogies, they were one of my favourite dinners when I was a child.  My own family loves them too and so E and I made a batch last night.  While these may not exactly be considered "health" food, they are very much a comfort food and to my way of thinking, a little comfort once in a while goes a loooong way towards maintaining good health.

A good dough recipe helps to make perogy making easier, this is the one I use.  It makes a nice stretchy dough that is very easy to work with.  I have also used the filling recipe in that link and it is a very good basic recipe.

You can also choose to make up your own filling depending on your preferences.  I like to make our filling quite flavourful so I always add a few extras.

I usually add regular onions (raw and finely chopped to the boiled potatoes but I've used up our big bag of white ones and am now using the red ones).  We like grated cheddar and cottage cheese (and have sometimes  used asiago).  The thing that really gives our perogies flavour is the raw garlic - two large cloves.

Then just put a large spoonful of filling on the circle of dough, fold the dough in half around the filling and pinch the edges.  We used to make regular size perogies - the size you see in stores - but now we make handsized perogies to save some time and work.

Make lots.  They'll probably be eaten up but if not they make great leftovers or you can freeze them uncooked for another meal.

My family likes them boiled, then fried with some spices and served with sourcream.  When I was little we used to just boil them and then serve them with melted butter, sour cream and chives.

I think they are delicious any way you serve them.

First Asparagus

I never used to go to the farmers market very much before we sold our old home - with all my gardens, fruit trees and planting there wasn't much need.  Yesterday we made a special trip in to get our yearly supply of honey (last year we got one 30lb bucket on Seedy Saturday and it has lasted us until now) and I also wanted to get a special treat - our first asparagus of the season.  I'm still feeling a little sad about leaving my new asparagus bed behind in my old gardens and buying 3 bundles of fresh, local asparagus goes a long ways towards helping me feel better.

We ate some raw as soon as we bought it (if you've not tried it raw you really ought to - it's delicious). We had some last night with butter, salt (nettle seed salt for me) and pepper.  Tonight, alongside homemade perogies, we will have more topped with hollandaise sauce and then if there is a bit left over I think we will have it in some springtime soup with nettle and garlic as well.

Easy Tomato Soup

Here is another good reason for having lots of preserved tomatoes on hand:  one jar gives you the basis for a really good, easy-to-make tomato soup.

Put some olive oil in a pot (I was fortunate enough to receive a large cast iron pot for Christmas so I no longer have to make soup in my big fry pan).  Add some crushed garlic and saute until soft.  Add a grated carrot and saute for just long enough to soften the carrot.

Add the jar of tomatoes and 2 -4 cups of broth.  Simmer.  Then add seasonings.  I like to add a cube of frozen basil (I whir it through the food processor in summer, freeze it in icecube trays and then pop the cubes into a bag).

After it has simmered for 15 minutes or so I use an immersion blender to blend it until it is smooth.  If you use dairy it is also nice with a spoonful of sour cream whirled through it.

And there you go, a simple and delicious lunch.

Oh, and I realized that I never posted a picture of the finished French Press slippers, so here they are with their buttons attached.  Now, just six more pairs to go...

Well Worth Watching Wednesday

Well worth watching Wednesday...that has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?  We enjoyed The Story of Stuff of when it came out and the boys and I found this new short film well worth watching this morning.  I hope you'll watch it too, you can just by clicking the link below.

The Story of Bottled Water

Stinging Nettle, Elderberry and Other Signs of Spring

When you're living at 1200 m you wait a long time for Spring to arrive.  We had snow 3 or 4 times again last week but the last of it has melted and we've had  a couple days of warm, sunny weather.  Warm and sunny enough that the air up here held the promise of Spring!!  The other day I headed down the bank to see if the nettle might possibly have decided to show itself here.  This is what I found. 

A few little stems poking their way of out the recently snow-covered soil.  I can't tell you how pleased I was to see it.

The nettle patch here grows right under the Elderberry bushes.  A glance at those showed more signs up Spring.

Then yesterday after a very warm day in town (especially warm when you're "mountain" people (like us just now) and come to town in jeans and long-sleeved shirts only to discover all the "town" people wearing shorts, sandals and short-sleeve t-shirts) I decided to spend some time on the garden beds here.

Aside from only 4 worms (such poor soil) guess what else I found...

tiny spinach plants growing where I had planted it last year.  Some of it was left to go to seed and it was such a treat to see this sprouting up here. 

Even though we're missing our gardens at our old home we can find pleasure in whatever we can manage to grow here.  Seeing that spinach helped me decide to go ahead and prepare more spaces to plant here even though we don't know if we'll be living here come harvest time or not.  If not, then we've decided to just hope that whoever is living here will be so excited by harvesting the food that they will become as enchanted by gardening as we are.