Bailey's Accident

So Bailey was in a bit of a car accident this morning, which of course, had to happen on a Sunday.  Luckily the car was was going rather slowly but he is still at the vet hospital with a concussion.  They also took some x-rays to make sure everything else was okay, but it turns out he has a diaphragmatic hernia which means there is a rip in the diaphragm and his stomach and other organs are pushing up into his lungs so he is having troubles breathing.  So he will be going into surgery in a little while and I am trying to be hopeful that he will be fine.  He will be turning 10 in September and I really need him to make it too his birthday.  

Here he is during our vacation at the cottage.  I was stocking an bald eagle that was perched on some of the rocks far out, since the tide was far out there were many thing to sniff and poke at.    So after Bassett and J were done digging up oysters Bailey and Homer came to join me take pictures of the eagle.

Bailey exploring with Homer.  Bailey has seldom alone or without Homer.

Dog prints and seagull prints.  

 I have been looking at a recipe from how sweet it is for almost a month.  So I decided make them today while my friend Al came over to have some tea.  But of course, I could leave it alone, I hadn't even tried it but since I didn't have any regular chocolate chips so I made some modifications

Here is Al showing off our bars.

I decided to add some candied pecans to the mix, ahh one problem I had to make some candied, off I went to make some lovely cinnamon salty and sweet pecans

Cinnamon Salty and Sweet Candied Pecans
1 cup pecan
1 cup freshly boiled water
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

*Soak pecans for 2 minutes in the boiled water
*Drain and toss pecans with sugar, cinnamon and salt
*Bake in very low oven until dry

I know that walnuts are more traditional for candied nuts but I don't actually like walnuts, I find them too bitter.

Sugar, cinnamon, and salt, just waiting to touch those moist plump nuts :)

I decided to not to bake them all the way through but they were still nice a juicy.  I wish that I had let them harden up a bit more.  But still tasty since we ate all the remaining nuts up.

Cookie Bars

adapted from how sweet it is

1 1/4 Flour

3/4 + 1/8 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 tsp salt (I think I would increase it to 1 tsp next time since I think it needed more salt)

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup candied pecan, chopped

*Preheat oven to 350*

*Line a 9"x13" pan with parchment.

*In a large bowl mix melted butter, and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time.  

*Add all the goodies into the butter and sugar mixture.

*In a small bowl add all remaining ingredients and mix.  Then add to butter mixture

*Plop the batter in to the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean but still seems moist.

Flour mixture, terribly exciting but still a necessary part of baking.  I do wish that baking used fewer dishes, but I think I might be figuring out how to keep those under control.  Although, I still think J thinks I make too much of mess; that from a man who doesn't know how to wipe a counter down.

Mmm, sugar the best way to start a recipe.

And then you add the butter, hard to find fault in butter and sugar

 

Eggs are great at binding everything together, kind of like glue but with glue, I have to think hard before I eat it.

Here I am skipping steps but I was chatting with Al, so I have a great excuse.  Here is the finished pan of cookie bars going into the oven.  (Really I put them in the oven, remembered that I needed to take a picture and pulled them back out, but they still look good)

The finished bars.  I didn't realize that I had forgotten to eat lunch and instead I at a whole row of these beauties.  It took me a while to figure out why I had a headache.  Sometimes I am not the brightest.

The lovely care packages of cookies to deliver to Al (since she forgot to take some) and to Erin (who is always appreciative of my baking especially when I randomly show up at her door bearing food)

It is always nice to see someone appreciate my baking.  

It has been a great day but since it is not 12:45am I think it is time to go to bed and post about the incredible dinner I made tonight, tomorrow.

Mum's Birthday

It was my mum's birthday on last Friday but we were up at the cottage so we decided to have a family party at our house on Wednesday.  The girls wanted to get some balloons for Nana, so we celebrated in style.  Nana, Papa, and Grandma, came over for a dinner.  J made a lovely salmon dinner using the salmon he and Fletcher caught on the week of fishing that J won in a raffle.

Crazy Nana playing with the balloons.

So since it was mum's birthday I had to make a cake.  I didn't have time to make a fancy cake, so I pulled out delicious instead.  Mum had chosen a chocolate cake and chocolate icing, so I decided to add a bit of espresso powder to the icing to make a mocha icing.  

German Chocolate Cake

Adapted The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

1-4oz sweet baking chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 cups milk

3/4 cup butter

4 eggs

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

*In a small saucepan, combine milk and chocolate.  Cook over low heat until melted and cool.

*Grease bottom of 2-9" round pans and line with parchment and then grease and flour bottom and sides.

*Preheat oven 350*

*Beat sugar and butter together, until the butter becomes slightly fluffy and lighter in colour.

*Scrape the sides of the bowl and then add eggs one at a time.

*Add chocolate mixture and dry ingredients to butter mixture, spread batter evenly between pans.

*Bake 35-40 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Mocha Fudge Frosting

adapted from Joy of Baking.com

4oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 cup butter, room temp

320g (2 2/3cup) icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp espresso powder

*melt chocolate and bring to room temp.

*In an electric mixer whip the butter and then add the icing and espresso powder.  Once the icing sugar is combined then add the chocolate and the vanilla.  Whip until light and fluffy.

I didn't get any pictures of the process, I was too busy trying to get Rosie to sleep and trying to keep Ladybug busy which took a lot of effort.  I was running out of time, and I had promised to take the kids to the book store after R's nap and R took an extra hour to get to sleep.  Busy day.

Again I almost missed taking picture of the cake.  You might not be able to tell but that is only half a cake :)  the rest was delicious (which seems to a word that I am using a lot of right now)

Isn't it lovely,  chocolatey goodness.  The icing was a bit less fudgey since I added more butter and icing sugar without increasing the chocolate.  I didn't have time to melt more and I had already run out of unsweetened baking chocolate but it was still tasty.

Hankering

 So I have been wanting some bake a lot recently, which isn't a bad thing except for my waistline.  So I am trying to share the wealth of my baking on those around me.  So my friend E has been the recipient of my latest batch of Starbuckie Vanillla Scones. In fact, she was a recipient of part of the last batch too.

Starbuckie Vanilla Scones
Recipe adapted from Peas and Thank you


1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup unbleached organic all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup organic sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste OR the scrapings from 1 vanilla bean


Glaze:
Scraping of 1/2 a vanilla bean
Icing sugar
drop or 2 of milk to thin the glaze

Mix all dry ingredients together.

Add a cold butter and cut it up with a pastry knife.  Try not to use your hand since that melts the butter, cut it up a to cut the butter into small chunks.  You can always put the dry ingredients and butter mixture in the fridge to stiffen up the butter.  

I like to mix the wet ingredients in a measuring up if it is small enough, since it creates less of a mess.  This is the milk, sugar and the scrapings from the vanilla bean.  Then take the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, if it seems too sticky then add a bit more flour.

Put the mixture on a floured counter and push into a rectangle and cut it into 6 squares and then cut each square into four at an angle to make 24 mini triangle.  Place on a baking sheet and bake a 350* for 13-15 minutes until the lightly golden.

Let cool.

Drizzle the top with the glaze.   

Deliciousness.  

I baked only a few scones and froze the rest.  I packed them up in a bag and sent them along to E's house.  I am hoping that she likes them as much as I do.  I am really glad that I figured out that people will take my baking happily since I only had one mini scones out of the whole batch.  And it was delicious.

Favorite Summer Snack and Speedy Lunches

Summer in time for fresh local fruit.  There is nothing better then mixed fruit and berries, fresh and ripe.  So good.

 Pitted cherries, raspberries, and a half of a nectarine.

Fresh fruit topped with a mix of 1% plain yogurt and 0% greek plain yogurt.

Yogurt and fruit all mixed up and topped with a bit amber agave and vanilla extract.

So summer is also a time when my kids don't have a regular schedule which makes my days very busy.  One of the busy days we got home at 12:10pm and we had to be at a park at 12:30pm for a play date with Ladybug's friends.  So I had about 10 minutes to make lunches for both kids and myself.  There is what I managed in 10 minutes.

 Rosie is not a big fan of sandwiches since they are on bread, which she is not a big fan of.  That kid will eat the toppings off the pizza slice while leaving the bread alone.  So here is the plan, for Ladybug I made a Peanut Butter and Jelly and sandwich, an apple, some plantain chips and raspberries.  For Rosie I made a ham, cheese, and honey mustard wrap and a cut up kiwi and an apple.  I also brought some left over buckwheat pancakes.  

 Here are the lunch all packed up.  For Rosie's wrap, I wrapped each end of the rollup with aluminum foil and then cut in half so it should be easy for her to eat without unwrapping.  As you can tell I also like Lock n' Lock containers.  Handy containers, my favorite is our tofu container.

For my lunch, I had some of my Quinoa Salad with a drizzle of Sesame Miso Dressing, I am loving have a big batch in the fridge, so I can add it as a side dish if I am still hungry.

I had some leftover Bacon and Lentil Concoction so I heated that up and put it in a ceramic Lock n' Lock

Here is all of my lunch with a bottle of water ready to go.  I did all this in 10 minutes.

Here are the kids enjoying their lunches, although it was a little breezy, Ladybug was a little cold but warmed up shortly after running around for a moment or two.

Space marker

I have been meaning to post for a couple days but thing keep getting in the way.  Today we celebrated my mum's birthday so I had to bake a cake, so I didn't really get a chance to put things together.

Tomorrow I will post some more.

Pancake morning

We are back at home now and we had a productive afternoon yesterday.  We had 2 extra people in the van so we were not able to bring all the stuff when we came but since Fletcher was staying longer and had a huge van, he brought our stuff down.  So during the afternoon without laundry we cleaned the house (which is already messed up, thanks dogs, they walk around and leave a fine coating of fir everywhere.)  Plus, I got another run in.

Any way we are now 3 or 4 loads of laundry in and I have a free day with the kids to do some of the final chores before the end of the month.  Since my gardener cancelled, I decided to make buckwheat pancakes for the kids, so I cracked out the Rebar Cookbook and made some yummy buckwheat pancakes.  Rebar is a local restaurant that does caters to vegetarians but does have some meat on the menu for those who like hanging with vegetarian.

So I decided to clean out my cupboard and what did I find but Buckwheat flour, which is surprisingly handy when making buckwheat flour pancakes.

 Here are the first batch of small ones that I cooked.  I decided half way through cooking the pancakes that I should add some protein powder and some agave, so that is what I did to the rest of the batch and ten I made the pancakes smaller.

Delicious.

I decided to serve them with what the kids like to call the yogurt sauce.  It is so simple that I think I will add the recipe.  

Breakfast Yogurt Sauce

Yogurt (I prefer greek yogurt but in seems to expensive compared to greek yogurt in the states, so it is treat)

Honey

Vanilla extract

*put however much yogurt you want in a bowl and mix in honey to taste, you can add a little vanilla if you like, but the kids seem to prefer it without.

Tasty and there is more good stuff in it compared to pancake syrup.  

Back home

So we are back home from our vacation at the cottage.  So worth it but I do have to say that my eating habits, kind of took a nose dive into the deep end of the bread and butter pudding, delicious yet dangerous.  So, I think I will have to think up a goal for August.  I am not sure what it will be yet, but I will let you know (before Aug) what it will be.

So back to the bread and butter pudding.  We had some friends of a friend of ours use the lower low bank section of the yard for a lovely camp site so they could head up to Hornby Island to go mountain biking.  I own a mountain bike but I have too much of keen sense of my own mortality to really want to try actually doing what they were doing, they be crazy.  Any way back to the real story, I made some bread and butter pudding to share and it was lovely.  So I decided to share my recipe for this lovely pudding.

Bread and Butter Pudding

1 loaf of Raisin Bread or what ever bread you have.

butter, enough to butter one or both sides

2 cups 1% Milk

1 cup half and half

3 eggs (1 egg for every cup of milk/cream)

1 tsp vanilla

cinnamon (to taste)

4.5 oz sugar (1.5oz per cup of milk)

powdered sugar to dust the top

*Preheat oven 325*

*Butter the bread and layer it in your baking dish.

*In a sauce pan warm milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon to just boiling.

*In a bowl whisk eggs and sugar together until lighter in colour and well combined

*Temper the eggs, by adding a small quantity of hot milk mixture to eggs mixture and then slowly add the remaining milk mixture.

*Slowly pour the milk/egg mixture over the bread and sprinkle with powdered sugar

*Bake 325* for 40 minutes.  The center will still be giggly.

This recipe is adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe

life at the Cottage

Well I have only managed 2 runs at the cottage since it was either raining and I didn't have my rain running jacket  until a week into the Va-Ca.  But the weather has been nice so I went for a couple runs.  Then J had to head back home for work for 2 1/2 days and I couldn't run since I; a) had sent my clothing down for him to wash and b) I didn't want to leave the kids by themselves while I went for a run since I am almost certain that they would try to kill each other or at least try to annoy each other. 

So J come back from his work trip and managed to leave my exercise clothes drying on the rack at home.  Oh well they will be there when I get back so I will try for a run on Sunday afternoon or evening.

The weather has been lovely, which has been opposite to what the weather reports had called for.  I might even set up the trampoline even if it is only for 1 day, although that seems like a bit of a waste of effort.

Here is the view from the house down the driveway to the lower section of the property and that tree is on the  man made breakwater that has now covered in grass.  It isn't ours since it is man made and below the traditional high tide line but we still mow it.

It has been rather busy here over the last few days since I last posted.  I had a friend come by and spend the day.  Ben, also known as Big Bad Ben, came by for a visit since Wednesday was his Saturday.  The kids were totally enthralled by him and kept wanting to climb all over him, so cute.  Ladybug wanted to do some more felting so I showed BBB what were were doing and set him up with some wool and a needle and this is what he comes up with:

The head of Conan O'Brian.  His artistic skill puts my little sun and piglet to shame.   Isn't it totally awesome.

BBB and I also tried to make mayonnaise to go with our BT's (I was out of lettuce, hence no L) it was a huge fail since the oil was off.  Piece of advice don't use oil that is rancid, it is horrendous.   

But here is BBB whisking it to death, this was great but then we tasted it.  Yuk as Ladybug would say.

My parents came to visit on Thursday since that was the only day they would squeeze a trip to Denman into there schedule.  It was a nice visit.  They arrived on the 10am boat, so mum and I took a walk to the beach while dad took the kids via the public access which is a neat way to get to the beach when you're 4 :)  Mum and I had a good chat while dad entertained the kids and the dogs took themselves for a swim.  I wish I had gotten a pic of that.  Homer just walked into the water and then ended up swimming to a rock, looking around and then swam to another rock, odd little dog.  

After the walk, I made lunch for the kids - PB and J since I knew that at least one of them would eat the whole thing, which she didn't.  Mum brought the makings for a blueberry crumble so we put that together and put it in the oven while I made another batch of the Bacon and Lentil Concoction from a few days ago.  It went over very well.  Rosie and dad went down for a nap around the same time :) so mum and I drove to the village with Ladybug to take her to the park there.  Homer decided he didn't want to be left behind so that silly little dog decided to start chasing us down the road, so we picked him up and brought him with us.  

The rest of the afternoon had dad hanging with the girls while I chatted with mum and showed her how to felt. I may have found a handy craft that she can do since her joints aren't the greatest and she can't do the fine knitting or the needle work that she had done in the past.

Unfortunately they had to leave on the 5:40 boat but the great thing was that J was on the 6pm boat so got to see my lovely hubby :)

Today has started to be sunny as yesterday, so J has decided to mow some more of the lawn which is a total hardship especially with the False Creek Raspberry Ale from Granville Island Brewing co and his lovely hat from Shine Cafe, they have a great logo to go with their fabulous breakfasts.  The ride on is a necessity since it still takes almost 2 hours on the ride on to mow all the lawn.  The kids love to ride with him, Rosie has fallen asleep on the mower twice now.  J came and stopped by the house to drop Rosie off for a nap since she was already asleep, silly child.  I guess it is true the kids to resemble the dogs in they traits.

Ladybug found some treasures on the beach. She found a sand dollar and the rock on the left looks like a rock that will have crystals in it, which is called a Geode.  We still have to find a way to open it up to see if actually has crystals in it but I think that is a really neat thing to find.  J and Ladybug also found a bug they had never seen before, J looked it and it seems to be a Sea Roach although we aren't in the normal areas where you find them.

Oh well it is not 2:20pm and I have already finished my first mojito.  On the plus side, Fletcher will be bringing me my running clothes, so I will be able to go for a run tomorrow.  Yippee.  I think it is now time to head out doors.

Dragons

I have been learning a lot about dragons in the last little while and I thought I would pass along the some of the tidbits that I have gleamed from Ladybug and Rosie in the last 2 weeks.  I think point form would be best for this.

*Dragons like to live in dark woods.
*In Canada we only have girl dragons.
*The best ways to keep a dragon away from you is to roar really loudly (the kids love to do this in the car even though we have told them that the dragons can't hear it in the car)
*They like to eat people (this is unfortunate since Rosie has now been too scared to stay at the play structure by herself and daddy had to go save her since she didn't want to come out but was too scared to stay in)
*Another good way to keep dragons away is to have a monster with you. (The only draw back to this plan is that monsters like to eat people too.)
*Now according to Rosie, dragons and monsters make for good eating, although, Ladybug thinks that they are yukky.
*They do believe that there can be good and bad dragons, but since they are unsure how to tell which is which, they still want to have swords to fight off the dragons.
*Ladybug wants a mini light saber from McD's to fight the dragon because her sword is only foam. (I am guessing that she doesn't know that the light sabor is only plastic and would probably be less help then the foam sword)


That is about all I can recall at this time.  There will probably be a few installments of fun kid stuff regarding dragons.  I am so amazed at how their minds work.  I don't want to squash their imagination but I don't always want to feed their imaginings.  It is a fine line, but since there aren't any dragons (except the kamodo dragon) that I know of, I think we are fine to let them keep on imagining and discovering the world around them.

Bacon and Lentils Concoction.

J has headed back to town for a few days for work, so that leaves me ALONE with the kids.  Things went well for the most part.  One of the draw backs of our cottage currently is that there isn't a washing machine, which is usually okay since we are usually only here for 3 days at a time but since I have been here for a week and a half, the kids are running through their clothing.  Rosie is in the process of potty training and Ladybug is still having accidents especially when she is feeling stress in her life (like when daddy is leaving for a few days)  So I spent a lot of time at the bathroom sink today but I ran out of places to hang the laundry so I improvised.

I used the ropes used to tie on the kayaks onto the roof rack and since we aren't taking the kayak home any time soon, I didn't think that would get in the way of things.  I strung up the line between two of the porch pillars and using the clothes pegs that we brought years ago (Yippee, I finally get to use them :) I made a fine clothes line with a fabulous view.

We had had a late brunch at Kaffee Klatsch Bistro, so I didn't have anything to eat until after Rosie's nap around 4pm. Ladybug wanted to have a picnic so we made some sandwiches and headed out.

 I made a peanut butter and banana sandwich for myself and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Rosie, both on my homemade Whole Wheat Honey Bread.  I haven't quite convinced the kids that PB and Banana is as good a combo as I think it is.  They will learn eventually...I hope.

So here is what I brought out for the picnic.  I had my sandwich, an apple, a few slices of cheese that I had cut for Rosie after I found her gnawing down on a huge block of marble cheese and then she didn't want it, of course.  I also had a Sanpellegrino and a bowl of cherries.  I didn't have any of the cherries since Kid 1 and Kid 2 ate them all.  

After the picnic we had some fun with the play structure and throwing the ball of the dogs but then that all degenerated into a bunch of hitting, pinching and pulling that filled most off the rest of the afternoon.  Oh Well, there is always tomorrow.

So since J is away for a few days and I am left to fend for myself I had to actually make dinner for myself and the kids.  I tend to cook when the mood strikes me, since J does most of the cooking in our household.  I bake, which J avoids with a 10 foot poll,  it is too much like a balancing act that you have not know where you can fudge the recipe and where you have to stick with the guidelines provided.  Any who, so I had to make dinner for myself.

I started by roasting up a whole butternut squash, with some butter, salt and pepper.  It is not a hard thing to do, but I usually reserve it for company or baby food (I did make the majority of the kids baby food until they were eating with us, usually around 12 - 18 months old).  But we had a squash and I was going to make something with lentils, I didn't know what but that was the plan.  I love it when the squash gets dark along the edges and has that supper sweet flavour.  Well, I was a bit impatient and I stirred it too much for that but oh well, it is still tasty.  

So here is what I came up with for dinner.  I made it up as I went along so here goes:

Bacon and Lentil Concoction

2 handfuls of Lentils, picked through and rinced.  (These were a browny red colour)

2 slices of Bacon, cut into slivers

1/4 of an Onion, diced

1 glove Garlic, minced

1/2 a small Zucchini

2 small field Carrots (like the organic ones with the leaves still on) diced

6 Green Beans, cut into 1" pieces

4 stalks of Asparagus, cut into 1" pieces

1 tomato, diced

3 large stalks of Swiss Chard

1/2 a roasted Butternut Squash

small nob of Butter

wedge of Lime

*In a medium sauce pan add rinced, drained lentils and cover them with more water then you think you need. simmer for 20 minutes or until they are tender.

*In a saute pan add onions, garlic and bacon.  Cook until bacon is cooked but still limp.

*Add zucchini, carrots, g. beans, asparagus, tomato and chard.  Cook until the veggies are at the desired consistency.  I let the chard get a bit limp, and then the butter.

*Add the squash and the lentils to reheat. Then serve with a wedge of lime.

 The bacon, onions and garlic have been sauted and now here are all the veggies that I added to the mix.

The tomatoes add a bit of moister since there isn't a lot in the pan.

Adding the butternut squash.  I didn't add all that I baked but I added about a 1/2 a whole squash (although it was not an overly large squash to begin with.)

So I just dumped the lentils right on top

And stirred them in to make this lovely concoction.

Doesn't it look so delicious.  Totally filling as well.  I ate half of what I made and I am stuffed.  It is mostly veggies.  I am looking forward to having that for lunch tomorrow or maybe dinner.  Lovely, I ate this while listening to some Lilly Allen.

And now I sit here typing this while the kids are asleep, they fell asleep rather well this evening.  Although, there was a bit of a meltdown when daddy didn't call before bed time and they didn't tell me that until after they went to bed and I was just leaving the room.  Called daddy and the crisis was averted.  

I have a clean kitchen, living room and mostly eating area.  I think keeping the cottage tidy is so much easier then keeping the house clean but then it is less the half the space at just shy of 900 sqft.  

Project for tomorrow might be a cozy for the tea pot.  I picked up some more wool and some new needles for Ladybug.  Hopefully these will last long then the last batch.  I think I have convinced her to not leave them in the foam and to put everything back in the box so it doesn't get broken by Rosie.