Sugar Sugar... by Barbara (Ruth)

Ever had a sugar craving?

I don't mean the usual, mild, "gee I feel like a cookie" kind of craving. I don't even mean the more urgent "I have to have a chocolate bar RIGHT NOW" kind of craving.

No, I mean the knock-down, full-out "I need sugar, and lots of it, RIGHT NOW" kind of craving.

I have some kind of genetic abnormality that has resulted in a truly awful sweet tooth. I don't know ANYONE that has this problem to the same degree. I am a bear when my blood sugar gets low, and usually a piece of fruit or a sandwich will suffice, but sometimes, when I'm particularly tired or cranky, the sweet tooth must be satisfied. It's kind of like the vampires on True Blood. Sometimes the fake blood drink will do, but other times... a vamp's got to do, what a vamp's got to do!

For me, my craving can be solved by any of the following:

My niece calls this my "chocolate
syrup soup".

A large amount of ice cream, preferably with chunks of sugary crap in it, smothered in Hershey's chocolate sauce (not a driddle of sauce, but several large glugs of it), and topped with nuts and chocolate chips.

A bag of M&Ms. The big 1/2 pound bag. Plain or peanut.

An unreasonable number of Reese's peanut butter cups. (Like 6 or 8. And not the teeny Hallowe'en sizes.)

Enough sour gummies to make the inside of my mouth raw.

Oh heaven!

Cookie dough. You know, the Pillsbury kind that comes in a tube. I eat it with a spoon and it is truly wonderful. I've actually never made it through an entire tube, but half is definitely doable. (Incidentally, this is also good for late night chats with a BFF, especially when accompanied by tea.)

Don't judge. At least not yet. You haven't heard the worst!

When I'm on a health kick (like I am now), there is nothing unhealthy in my house. I don't have any of those craving-satisfying foods. Anywhere! (Believe me, I've looked, just to be sure.) But you know I've become creative over the years.

Corn syrup. It isn't just for baking anymore.

I have been known to eat homemade jam from the jar, drink maple syrup from the bottle (only the real stuff), make apple crisp topping (oatmeal, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon) and eat it, have a few spoonfuls of corn syrup (don't be shocked - it's basically liquid gummie bears), and root around in the brown sugar jar looking for lumps. I also used to make extra icing when baking, and leave the leftover in the freezer - it is EXCELLENT frozen. 

Thank goodness this doesn't happen too often, or I would weigh 500 pounds. But this week was long, and today was tiring - I succumbed (GW) at work and had 4 sugar cubes (cane sugar... soooo good...), and am trying REALLY hard not to have anything tonight. I was hoping that writing it down would take away my urge, but it didn't work. My mouth is actually watering right now, thinking about ice cream and cookie dough. And there is corn syrup in my cupboard, and a new bag of brown sugar too. But I'm not going to do it. 

I. Can. Be. Strong. (Mostly.)

Suburban Foraging...by (Angela) Jean

We have been taking advantage of the longer days around here and going for family walks after supper.

There is a great park just about 10 minutes away. It has a large pond with geese and ducks, a wooden bridge and smooth paths for walking and bike riding. They have done a lovely job of landscaping with native grasses, wildflowers and indigenous trees. It is filled with gold finches, red-winged blackbirds, cardinals and even the occasional heron. In the winter, the pond freezes over and becomes the local hockey rink.

 The rascals love running across the wooden bridge... 

and along the pathways...

but the best part of park visits in early summer is....JUNEBERRY PICKING !

We often elicit stares as we pick and eat the wild berries in the park. People have even stopped to tell me that they're poisonous, but we just chuckle and say we haven't died yet. I've been eating these berries since I was a kid. They taste similar to blueberries but have a slightly mellower flavour, and in my opinion, they even taste better than blueberries. The kids love picking the berries and can spot a Juneberry bush  from quite a distance.

They will stand there, picking and eating until we drag them away.

On this particular evening the berry fun didn't end there. On our way home we stopped at the house on the corner of our street; the one with the giant mulberry tree. And guess what? It was also heavily laden with fruit.

Last year, the kids and I knocked on the homeowner's door to ask if we could pick his berries. He looked at us like we were nuts and said he didn't think they were edible, but we could go ahead if we wanted to. I came back with some containers and we picked for an hour. He didn't complain when I knocked again and left a bowl of berries for him.

I suggest you take a look around your neighbourhood and see what's growing. You never know, you could save some money on groceries.

Sizzle....by (Angela) Jean

Pancakes are a kind of a big deal at our house. Over the last year or so, Shawn has mastered the art of the flapjack, and although his pancakes were perfect, we all ate in shifts because he could only make 3 at a time. So, this year, for Father's Day, Daddy got a fancy, family-size, electric griddle.

He loved it. And this Sunday, we plugged it in and took it for a spin.

Mimi helped to mix the batter.

Look at that! We tripled our output. How's that for process improvement?

Perfection.

 

 

 

 

Topped off with real maple syrup.

The Pancake King has tested several pancake recipes, but always comes back to Martha's. 

Best Buttermilk Pancakes, from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 cups buttermilk
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus 1/2 teaspoon for griddle

Directions

1. Heat griddle to 375 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, and 4 tablespoons butter; whisk to combine. Batter should have small to medium lumps.
   
2. Heat oven to 175 degrees. Test griddle by sprinkling a few drops of water on it. If water bounces and spatters off griddle, it is hot enough. Using a pastry brush, brush remaining 1/2 teaspoon of butter or reserved bacon fat onto griddle. Wipe off excess.
   
3. Using a 4-ounce ladle, about 1/2 cup, pour pancake batter, in pools 2 inches away from one other. When pancakes have bubbles on top and are slightly dry around edges, about 2 1/2 minutes, flip over. Cook until golden on bottom, about 1 minute.
   
4. Repeat with remaining batter, keeping finished pancakes on a heatproof plate in oven. Serve warm.
   

The only substitutions we've ever made to this recipe are when we have a hankering for pancakes but no buttermilk on hand. I have mixed a few tablespoons of sour cream into regular milk with good success. Shawn has substituted yogurt for the buttermilk, also with good success. The yogurt pancakes turn out a bit spongier than buttermilk pancakes, but still delicious.

Shawn had so much fun with the griddle that he didn't want to put it away. We made it a double-griddle day with tuna melts for lunch. 

No special recipe here, just tuna, green onions, mayo, black pepper and cheddar cheese. We served it with red peppers and fresh baby arugula salad from the garden-our first harvest of the year.

Stay tuned for more griddle recipes. I have a feeling things are about to get sizzle-y around here.

A Campaign for Cromulent Words... by Barbara (Ruth)

A while ago I posted about "Good Words", and I got quite a response! There really is a dearth (GW) of good words in today's general spoken and/or written word, and I was pleased to learn there are a number of fellow "wordies" out there.

But how many of you like Cromulent Words?

Oh, you don't know what a cromulent word is? Ahhh... Now we are separating the wheat from the chaffe.

First uttered on the Simpsons episode "Lisa the Iconoclast" in 1996, cromulent is a made up word that describes made up words as real words. Sound confusing? It is. It's the circular reasoning that makes it so brilliant. Cromulence usually refers to words that sound like they should be words, but aren't.

For example, the state motto of Springfield, the city in which the Simpsons live, is "a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." What a great use of cromulence! So great, that at work my friend Chris and I dared each other to use embiggen in a sentence in a meeting. And we did it. And no one noticed!

Some of you might think that cromulence would apply to words that some people use incorrectly and that just aren't words at all. Words like orientated, anticdotal, dethaw (oh that one really irks me), and even beers (look it up).

No, cromulent words are completely and totally made up. Here are a few examples:

• Chestal. "I have a cold, mostly in the chestal area."
• Wonderance. "The place was imbued with wonderance and youth."
• Interconnectitude. "This project is so complex we need to be sure to consider all the points of interconnectitude."
• Mononeurosymbiosis. "I was just thinking the same thing. Yet another example of our mononeurosymbiosis!"

Have you got any examples of cromulence in your lexicon (GW)? If so, let me know and I'll postify it!

BBQ Chicken-Uttar Pradesh Style...by (Angela) Jean

When you come to our house for dinner you can never really know what to expect.

Shawn and I both love to cook, and since he is currently the at-home parent, he does most of the weekday cooking. In my admittedly biased opinion, he is a most-excellent house-husband, and most nights when I get home, an amazing dinner is waiting for me. Last night was no exception.

One of Shawn's favourite cookbooks is Mangoes and Curry Leaves, by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid, a husband and wife team of writers, travelers, photographers and cooks. This is not an ordinary cookbook, but rather a tour of the great subcontinent: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The reader is taken along on a journey and introduced to "the kaleidoscopic experience of life in these countries: hundreds of millions of people, myriad languages, mountain kingdoms and searing tropics, and a breathtaking array of cooking styles and foods". It is filled with over 200 stunning photographs of the people, places and food of these lands and contains more than 200 traditional recipes-everything from Nepali grilled chicken to Pakistani lamb pulao to simmered Kashmiri paneer. Alongside the mouthwatering photographs are over 40 essays documenting the lifestyles, history and people of this diverse region.  Even if you don't cook, this book is a treasure for the photographs alone.

So, back to dinner. Our dear, dear friend Julie was coming for a visit, so Shawn busted out his trusty book and decided to try the Yoghurt Marinated Chicken Kebabs, a recipe from Uttar Pradesh. The authors tell us that Uttar Pradesh is "a heartland state of northern India, just south of Nepal...it is famous for the holy city of Varanasi, and the Taj Mahal, in Agra.

It was extremely tasty, and not a morsel was left at the end of dinner. The kids loved it too. Along with the chicken, Shawn also threw some asparagus on the grill. They were tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. Simple and fresh.

Here's the chicken recipe. If you're looking for something different to add to your BBQ repertoire, I suggest you give it a try.

Yogurt Marinated Chicken Kebabs

• 1lb boneless skinless chicken breasts (we used thighs, but I think you could use legs if you wanted to)
• 1tbsp minced garlic
• 1/4 cup finely chopped garlic chives, regular chives or scallions
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper, or 1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil (we used extra virgin olive oil)
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 or 2 limes or lemons cut into wedges

 Rinse off chicken, cut into chunks (we just left the thighs as is for easier grilling) and place in a wide shallow bowl.
Mix marinade in a small bowl, whisking the garlic, greens, salt, pepper and oil into the yogurt. Pour over chicken and stir. Cover and set aside to marinate for 1-2 hours.
The recipe goes on with instructions for putting the chicken on skewers, but I'm pretty sure you can figure that out. We just grilled the thighs as is.

Give it a try and let me know how it turns out.

P.S. Here's Julie playing with the rascals. They adore her as much as we do.

Flora Abunda....by (Angela) Jean

I wrote a post a few weeks ago lamenting about the fact that this spring was significantly delayed. I am happy to report that eventually the flora did return to my little garden and I have the photos to prove it.

At long last the tulips and lilacs bloomed.

 

 

May 22

May 29

The buckthorn bush bloomed.

 My Clematis, that looked like this on May 7th,

now looks like this. Although it has climbed halfway up the lattice, it still has only one bloom.

June 18

I tried something new this year and attempted to grow Morning Glory from seed. This is what they looked like on May 7th.

This is what they look like now.

June 17

I haven't spotted any signs of blooms yet, and since I threw away the seed packet I have no idea what colour they will be. These are growing so quickly that I can see a noticeable difference each morning when I check on the garden before I leave for work.

I planted geraniums in my hanging baskets again this year. I just love them. Some years I have stuck with a uniform colour scheme for all the baskets (I have 7) but this year I decided to mix it up. Amelia and I went to the nursery together and she and I picked all the prettiest colours.

I added some white to each basket and I am pleased with the result. It gives a highlight effect which draws the eye from across the yard.
My Dad always tells me that I need to add Ivy Geraniums to my baskets so I decided to do just that this year.

I'm still not completely convinced I love them, but they are growing on me.
I bought this perennial purple salvia at the end of the season last year. It had finished blooming and was 80% off at the nursery so I couldn't pass it up. I have a soft spot for things on clearance at the nursery, especially if they look sad and unloved. I usually end up taking them home and finding a spot somewhere.

June 14

And I know I swore up and down last year that I would NOT have petunias in my garden this year, but this basket was a Mother's Day gift so what's a girl to do?

 And last but not least, my pretty, pretty peonies.

June 17

June 17

I am surrounded by flowers. All is right with the world.

My Go-to Meal... by Barbara (Ruth)

The idea for this Twofer-Monday post came to me the other night when I was wondering what meal I could put together really quickly if some friends came by for dinner. Everyone has one of these meals, I imagine - you know, you've made it so many times that you don't have to think or plan, and you pretty much have everything you need on hand.

I realized there's another interpretation of the title - your "Go-to" meal could be what you eat when you just don't feel like cooking. In that case, I would be writing about either a bowl of cereal (Raisin Bran and Cheerios being my favourites) or the perfect PB&J (cheap grocery store white bread, Kraft extra creamy peanut butter, and Welch's grape jelly, accompanied by a tall glass of cold milk).

But that would be a short post, so I'll stick with my original intention.

Those of you old enough may remember that one of the fads of the 70s was cooking with a wok. At least it was in our house, along with making your own yogurt (can you even get yogurt makers any more?). Using a wok was actually an unusual thing for us, being a very old-school, "Waspy", meat-and-potatoes family. But somehow my Mum discovered the wok, and our meals were never the same.

Over the years I became the de facto stir fry cook in our family, experimenting with different flavour combinations, sauce variations, and using different rices and noodles. At this ripe old age, I've decided it's all a matter of taste, and there really is no wrong combination. In fact, you don't even have to use a wok - a deep frying pan will do.

Although there are hundreds of recipe books with stir fry recipes from all over Asia, my own stir fry depends on what I have in the fridge. I cook with either chicken or beef (never cared for tofu, although you could certainly use that), and use whatever veggies I have available. If I'm particularly lucky, I have "exotic" things like cremini mushrooms, fresh ginger, or maybe some shrimp.

I try really hard to make it colourful and flavourful, but have certainly failed on both accounts from time to time (those are the nights when I should have had Raisin Bran).

If my stir fry is chicken based, I tend to make a sauce with a gingery citrusy mustardy flavour, often using combinations of these types of sauce ingredients:

If it's beef based, I will go with more of a dark, tangy sauce with a teriyaki or spicy bent to it, using some of these things:

Regardless of what the meat is, I always use these:

Spices can be anything that tempts your tastebuds - you might like a coriander-cumin type combination, or perhaps ginger-dill. Maybe cayenne with Chinese five-spice powder would be what you crave one night.

The same goes for what you use as your starch - rice isn't just rice anymore. You can use brown, basmati, jasmine, or sticky. You can use cous cous or quinoa. You can use egg noodles, rice noodles or even plain elbow macaroni - it all depends what is in your cupboard and what suits your mood.

As for a recipe? Well, I'll give it a shot below, but after 30 years I don't really measure anything! I just pour, stir, taste, and adjust. Eventually, I get something like this:

Let me know what your favourite combinations are - I would love to give it a try!

Ruth's Simple Stir Fry (Chicken & Shrimp base with Jasmine Rice)

1. Start by cooking the rice, as it will take longer than cooking the entire stir fry
2. Wash and prep veggies and meat so they are ready to add (I chop everything in big chunks, vs. the fancy shmancy styles in restaurants - it's faster, and more satisfying to eat)
3. Heat a couple of Tb of sesame oil in a wok or frying pan.
4. Add onions and garlic, sauté
5. Add chicken and partially (mostly) cook, remove from pan (it will continue cooking after removed from the pan, so don't over-cook at this point)
6. Add more oil if required
7. Add hardest veggies (carrots, usually)
8. After a few mins, add next hardest veggies, and so on
9. Mushrooms and tomatoes last
10. While cooking veggies, add cilantro, coriander, ginger
11. Remove veggies from pan
12. Create sauce - add about a cup of Orange Juice, a couple of Tbs each, of oyster sauce, honey, and Dijon mustard. Also add Worcester or soy sauce to taste.
13. Add a little cornstarch (optional - depends if you want the sauce really thick)
14. Taste sauce and adjust seasoning
15. Add back chicken and veggies
16. Add shrimp
17. Heath through and stir gently til sauce thickens and meat and shrimp are cooked through
18. Serve over rice
19. Sprinkle with sesame seeds

My Go-To Meal...by (Angela) Jean

Friday night at our house is pizza night.

It's not that I don't love to cook. I do. I really do. But sometimes, it's just better to order out.  And it's not that I can't make my own pizza either. I have tried many ways of making my own pizza, some more successful than others. I've made my own fresh dough. I've used frozen raw dough. I've made pizza on naan bread. I've made pizza on tortillas. I've used foccacia and cibatta bread. Once I even made pizza on rosemary and sea salt turkish bread.

I've topped my own pizza with goat cheese and fresh buffalo mozzarella. I've grated romano, and parmigiano (and even that rock-hard, super-amazing-super-strong cheese my Zia smuggles back from Montefalcone) to sprinkle on top.

I've used my own homemade tomato sauce and sometimes I've gone sauceless and made olive oil and garlic pizza.

But sometimes, like on Friday night, after a long week, it's just better to order out.

When I order out I prefer thin crust pizza. The floppy kind. The kind that you can't really hold in one hand. The kind that if you're not careful all the toppings will slide right off. For the last 50 years, my Uncles have owned the best pizza restaurant in my home town. For me, it's the gold standard for pizza. I've never been able to find pizza quite as good, and believe me, I've tried. I lived in Toronto for 12 years and searched high and low. The closest I came was a family owned pizzeria on Oakwood Ave near our old apartment. Whenever I go home, I try my best to find a way to squeeze in one of my Uncles' pizzas. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I can't get Capri pizza here, but we are on the hunt for the perfect pizza in Oakville. I'll keep you posted.

Note: The photos in this post are not my own, but are courtesy of a Google image search and better photographers and chefs than I.

Dad Forgets. I Remember. An Update from Barbara Ruth

Regular readers of Barbara Jean will recall my posting a couple of weeks ago that was a tribute to my Dad, currently suffering from advanced multi-infarct dementia. If you didn't read it, take a minute and go check it out by clicking on May in the sidebar to the right, and then clicking on "Dad Forgets. I Remember." (click here to go directly to it), then come back. I'll wait....

Done?

Well, I just wanted to let you know that I had one of those sparkling moments yesterday. I went to visit my parents because the time has come to move Dad to a secure floor within their residence, and I needed to be there to make arrangements. His wandering has become a problem, and he needs more care than Mum could possibly provide. Thankfully, the facilities they are in are prepped for such situations, and he will have a lovely room with amazing staff starting Monday. It is of course, very sad to separate my folks after 55 years, but I am thankful for the care we were able to secure, and confident that this is the right step to take.

But I digress.

At lunch Dad was unable to speak much other than nonsensical phrases, but he was smiling, and enjoying the chatter between my sister, Mum, and me. I looked at him and I don't know why, but I started to sing one of his old Barbershop Quartet pieces to him. I picked "Goodbye my Coney Island Baby", and was shocked when he joined in! He didn't remember every single word (nor do I, quite frankly), but he sang a few lines with me and made the silly motions he used to make as part of the act. Then of course, we both laughed.

That, my friends, is a sparkling moment.

The video below is a group in Disney World performing the song if you want to know what Barbershop sounds like - Dad would have been the big goof on the left in his quartet. Enjoy, and look for some sparkling moments in your life this weekend!

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play ... by Barbara (Ruth)

I am just back from a whirlwind trip to the West and back, the goal of which was attendance at my nephew David's graduation from the University of Calgary. Rather than fly out to Calgary directly, I decided to shake things up again, by flying first to Saskatoon for a couple of days, and then hitching a ride with my sister and brother-in-law as they drove across the prairies.

Aside from the graduation ceremony, I was really looking forward to seeing the prairies. Now stop rolling your eyes - it's a beautiful part of our country's landscape, and I wanted to see it! The drive is less than 7 hours, and on a beautiful day, it is truly BIG SKY country. 

Of course it rained.

Saskatchewan's Highway 7 is an undivided highway that travels across to Alberta (becoming Highway 9 at that point), and passes through towns with fantastic names like Crystal Beach (there's a beach in the middle of the prairies?), Flaxcombe, Cereal, and my favourite, Zealandia. 

There are gorgeous fields, historic grain elevators, tree "islands" (trees planted around farm houses to give variety to the landscape), buffalo and deer (but we didn't see any antelope, actually). The road is dead straight, ending as a pinpoint on the horizon.

Now the Jean in Barbara Jean is ticked at me for not getting out of the car in the rain to take proper pictures. It was just miserable, and I didn't have the heart to ask my bro-in-law to stop while I tried to get a great shot on the side of the road. I did however, take a few through the window. When you look at them, imagine the sky being a gorgeous pure blue. I managed to pretend for a while, but I think I'll have to go back to see it for real.