Raspberry sauce with white chocolate liquer

I am nursing a sore head today from lack of sleep and a few too many wine spritzers from last night, after a much needed ladies night to celebrate my friend Lyndsay's birthday.

There really is nothing better than hanging out with friends, chowing down on good food with a side of good conversation and giggles, especially now as the kids are on summer break and consuming every waking moment of my existence.

To celebrate I made a quick angel food cake and served it with a smorgasbord of toppings to choose from. My new Raspberry sauce, fresh raspberries, melted chocolate, whipped cream ( or in this case cool whip), and some passionfruit pulp from my secret stash of imported goodies from Australia.

Recipe:

2 cups of frozen raspberries
6 tablespoons of white chocolate liqueur
4 tablespoons blue agave sweetener ( you can use regular sugar, to taste)

Put everything in a saucepan, stirring over medium heat until bubbly. Thicken with cornstarch or, if you're not in a hurry, just let it slowly reduce until you get it to the consistency you like.

Today, even with a hangover I managed to can some mango passion fruit sauce for eating with ice cream mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

And, after many requests I have also pumped out a few batches of red onion jelly.

If you're in my neck of the woods, I'm thinking of selling at the farmer's market, let me know if anyone wants any home made preserves.

Thinking about the lovely sand in Sicamous and sunbaking all weekend, time to get packing!!

For all the new mom's out there.

You just have to check out this blog for a giggle. This new mom on maternity leave has found a creative way to preserve some precious memories of her sleeping baby.

I love the Internet.......now all I need is a time machine to go back to the year 2000 so I can do this with my munchkins.

Fresh air cinema

Just the other night I got to take my little ones and a friend to a free ( well, by donation to the Boys and Girls club) outdoor movie at Polson Park in Vernon. We took our camping chairs, snacks and blankies. Parked our butts on the grass and watched our movie on the inflatable movie screen.

What a fantastic idea!! It was a little on the late side, I believe the movie started just after 9pm, my 4 year old didn't make it to the end but she had a fabulous time none the less.
The movie screen was rented from a company called Fresh air cinema, they are currently cruising around BC offering free to the public, outdoor movies. If you follow them on facebook you can keep up with which movies are being shown where.
Tomorrow night they are showing Avatar at the Predator Ridge driving range. I highly recommend it for the above 8 crowd, as long as the movie of choice is cleared by the parents.
I love where we live and that there is always something going on for kids and families, check your local paper and you are guaranteed to find something for every age group. There is no excuse for boredom in a place like this!!!!

Summer so far.....

Zoe's summer fun list.......

Surprise birthday parties with the yummiest food ever.....

Water slides with the tribe...

Summer night's with fun activities....

Fantastic friends with adorable children.....

Beautiful, ever changing summer skies...

It's all a little too much for some folks.

Raspberry Sorbet

It's here...the most delicious time of the year....raspberry season. Some people think that growing raspberries is a bad idea, that the suckers will take over and start growing everywhere. They would be right about the latter, but since when is that a bad thing? We love raspberries and from our three humble rows we grow enough to fill our freezer with goodies for the winter, make jam and still be able to share with our friends.
So before I fill my freezer with this years harvest I though I had better use up my last bag from the summer before.

My pal Kerry recently dropped off some magazines and in a Martha magazine I found this little gem. The reason I love is so much is because it uses frozen fruit, which means the sorbet is already partially frozen when you start and is ready in a shorter time. Perfect for an impromptu dinner. The color alone makes this dessert worthwhile.

Raspberry Sorbet with fresh whipped cream. ( I did not do the cream part).

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

# cups frozen raspberries

1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Stir together water and 1/4 cup sugar until sugar dissolves.

2. Pulse berries in food processor until coarsely chopped. With machine running, pour in sugar water; pulse until mixture is smooth. Transfer to an air tight container, and freeze until firm, about 30 minutes.

3. Whisk cream and remaining sugar until soft forms peak.

4. Scoop sorbet into 4 glasses and top with whipped cream.

TAKE 2

 I made a double batch with this recipe and substituted the sugar water mixture for lychee juice. Just enough for the sorbet to blend nicely. It did take a little longer to freeze but boy oh boy was it good.

This recipe is a keeper.

How does my garden grow...........

...with pretty lilies.....

and prickly sea holly....

...and raspberry bushes all in a row!

Accidental vegetarian portabello pizza

After a long day in Kelowna, I wanted a quick and easy dinner for myself and my munchkins. They wanted pasta- done. I am not partaking in carb consumption at the moment so I tried my hand at a recipe idea I had seen online somewhere. Portabello pizza, no, it is not pizza with mushrooms...it is a mushroom masquerading AS pizza.
I forgot to take pics during prep so here's the after.....

.....bubbly, cheesy yumminess. I was quite pleasantly surprised that I didn't feel like I was getting ripped off by not having a yeasty doughy base.

So, if you're feeling brave:

Accidental Vegetarian Portabello pizza.

2 Portabello mushroom tops

1-2 tablespoon of passata DI pomodoro ( strained tomato's)

any veg you like, I used yellow peppers, red onion, jalapeno peppers.

any cheese you like.

Flip your mushroom upside down and remove the stem. Place on baking sheet upside down and spoon on your passata.

Add any topping of choice, followed by cheese.

Bake in 350C over until cheese is bubbly and mushroom is beginning to release some liquid. You want to make sure your mushroom is cooked through otherwise I imagine it could be quite chewy. icky!!

I think I cooked mine for about 15 minutes...not much longer than a cheap frozen pizza!!!!!

You could use this basic recipe and try many other variations, like pesto, a garlicky cream sauce and , of course, MEAT. The possibilities are endless.

Let me know if any of you try it, I would love to hear of some new flavour combinations!

Tootles,

kj

Thedo - Stay just a little bit more

I like this song a lot. The do is from Iceland, you should check them out.

I miss cake.......

Remember when eating cake was fun and it didn't make you worry about how big you ass would get if you had that one little piece?

SCAPE ART!!!!

Good things come in all different shapes and sizes!!!

Aaah scapes....

What to do with scapes.

You can grill'em, fry 'em, boil 'em, steam 'em, saute 'em, freeze 'em and our choice for today you may ask?

Chop 'em up and pickle 'em!!

The hubby had his creative canning juices flowing and we created not one but 5 fantastic new flavours.

First creation on the menu was pickled garlic scapes in a jalapeno and balsamic brine.

Followed by several scape jellies and a red onion and yellow pepper jelly. Yummy with cream cheese and crackers or on you favourite meat.

My final use for garlic scapes, which I thought suited the moment as Hubby and Zoe just went to the movies to see Eclipse.........

...a garlic scape bracelet to ward off the neighbourhood vampires.

You know you want one!!!!

Last nights dinner.

Take one of these..

....remove these.....

....add these....

..to this...

...smear this with olive oil, herbs and lemon zest...

...bake @ 200c for 50 minutes or so...

..mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Food, glorious food.

It's all I think about. It's with me when I wake up and when I go to sleep.....food. What to eat, now that I have decided to take a more carb and sugar free approach to my diet.

It's harder than it looks. I never realised how carb laden my home was until I tried to cook with out THEM.

But it's not all bad, here's what I made for dinner last night. A fennel salad with avocado, Parmesan and chicken drizzled with a yummy concoction of my own invention.

It was surprisingly yummy, I have not used fennel much in my cooking but will most definitely will be from now on. It tastes a little like black licorice with the texture of celery.

Dinner was followed my homemade eggnog, made by Zoe, from Pickle in the middle. My favourite was the part where she realised that there actually was raw egg in eggnog and she was going to be drinking it. I thought she was going to refuse to drink it, as she has an issue with eggs, but she loved it.

Dinner was followed by a quick visit from our neighbour with a delivery of beautiful BC Salmon, caught the day before and delivered to my door. I got 2 whole salmon for $20 a piece, head chopped off ( that was part of the deal) and filleted. Look at the color of this fish.............

......anyone have a good low carb salmon recipe to share?

And, one more food related pic here. Our garlic scapes are amazing this year. I made a quick pesto with the scapes, added some olive oil, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Yummy, fresh and very garlicky. I've been adding this to mayo, chicken, soups etc.

This will be the last week for the scapes so I think I might go pick the last of them and get pickling.

I am going to be a busy lady!!!!

Tootles!

This summer WILL be fun darn it

Too many times in my children's limited experience on this earth I have felt, as a mother, a little let down at my efforts to make their summer vacations memorable. So this is the year of SUMMER FUN.
I have been quietly researching the net and library for fun and inexpensive ideas to keep my kids from getting the summer blues. And also for myself to keep motivated to do fun things and not get too side tracked by serious mummy stuff.
Today I pulled an old book from the Simpson library that up until now Zoe had completely forgotten about. It's a kids cookbook from the 70's called "Pickle in the middle and other easy snacks".

She used beg me to make some of the recipes with her but now that she is almost 10 years old ( aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh....just breath) she is more than capable of tackling every recipe in the book on her own.

Now the big challenge is making sure that I, ( not that I am a control freak or anything) can keep my sticky fingers out of things and LET her do it on her own.
Dessert tonight was compliments of Zoe, Chocolate lumps, she even added her own little touch to it. Wise choice, a banana, considering the ingredients.

I do not recommend this book for any kind of nutritional award...there seems to be a lot of recipes with an awful lot of sugar, there is even one that uses deviled ham or SPAM eeeeew. Appropriately named Apple Devil.
But with recipes like candy blips, sticky stuff and Pickle in the middle, how can you not love this cookbook?
We would love to have you along for the ride as my little one's discover their inner Nigella......lets hope they don't turn out to be like little Gordon Ramsay's!

Happy birthday little one

So it's a beautiful day outside and I for some unkown reason have been inside for most of the afternoon sewing and making a jolly old mess in my dining room. I made a little something special for my dear friends daughter Sadie. She turns one this week...wow...it felt like just yesterday I was visiting her and mum in the hospital when she was born.

Don't you just want to eat her up??

Anywho....must stop plotting how to kidnap Sadie and get back to business here.

So I had this dress for Zoe and the elastic had lost its spring. A little snip, snip and a few stitches later......

...and tada!!!

A wee little pillowcase dress. Huh? Pillowcase dress, yeah yeah I know, I didn't use a pillowcase but the patterns I had found online are for repurposing old pillowcases. I didn't have one that screamed Sadie so I used a dress instead.

You can find a great tutorial here @ one of my favourite sites Prudent Baby. They are super easy to make and I love the fact that you can turn something old into something pretty in such a short amount of time.

I did change the construction a little bit by replacing the ribbon with elastic for wee little ones and then simlpy tying a small band of fabric around the elastic to look like a bow.

Lets hope it fits!!!!

Ding Dong.....

After all the hard work that the hubby has put into our home, all the decision making, the blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, splinters, head injuries ( I'll tell you about that another day ), not to mention the stress a large renovation can put on a normally easy going couple. We are getting close to picking out some small finishing touches for the exterior of our nest.
I have been given the task of selecting....wait for it............a .............doorbell. All on my own, yeah.

I am not impressed with any of the door bells I have found in big box stores so decided to waste my afternoon......I mean.....research my way through endless online resources to find just the right touch for our front entrance.

This one is kinda cute it's $44 from decorative hardware store.com

and this one I like the peacock detail for $45

                                       Is that expensive for a door bell?

I was originally thinking of a dragonfly, I like this little guy, and he's cheaper than the others @ $ 32.13.

Too cowboyish????? $35.44

See, now I though I could make this decision all on my own. I think I may need to put this one to a vote!!!