Valentine's Day

Yesterday was the best kind of day.  When I woke up I was given this card by My Favourite Boy:

The big heart was coloured with scented ink.  But the best part was the bottom of the card: here, have a closer look:

That's love!

We had heart shaped pancakes for breakfast:

We got a new craft book at the Scholastic Book Fair:

I say "we", but really I mean me, because the kids don't know yet that I bought it:)

I was able to get some sewing time in the afternoon and made a few pretty things for my purse:

It was a great day.

Frozen Fudge Pops

This summer has proven to be a hot one and we are going through frozen treats very quickly.  I usually make my own by whipping up some fruit smoothies and freezing them in popsicle molds.  Sometimes though, you just have to give in and give the kids sugar-y, store like frozen treats and avoid looking at nutrition labels.

This recipe is for frozen fudge pops.  I found it in my grandmother's recipe box scribbled on the corner of an envelope.  It's so quick to do and I think compared to some of the store bought frozen treats out there it may be a fraction healthier.  A big plus though, is that you get voted "Best Mum Ever" when you make them.  Now that's something I can overlook a label for once in a while!

1 package instant chocolate pudding mix powder

3 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

Mix well and freeze in popsicle molds.  This filled all 12 of my molds - each mold is 1/4 cup - and there was probably a mold and a half left over.

I use 3% milk because that's what we drink, but obviously you can use a lower fat milk for a lower fat treat.  I don't think skim milk would work so well though; it tends to freeze in watery sheets.  I have also started to experiment with the amount of sugar used.  I'm sure you could cut it in half at least and still get the thumbs up from the kids.  I am sure instant pudding mix from 30 years ago had less sugar in the mix than they do now anyway.

I have also tried a strawberry version, using a Dr. Oetker instant strawberry mousse mix.  It got a thumbs up as well.

There is half the amount of powder in here compared to the chocolate kind, so I halved the milk and sugar.  It is very sweet, so next time I will cut the sugar out completely as there is enough in the mix already.

Isn't that shade of pink to die for?!

Next up I want to try a vanilla pudding version, and possibly one of those artificially minty green, pistachio varieties.  I have a feeling I would have those all to myself...

Jam and Cross Stitch

I am loving this lax summer schedule we have going on here!  It's giving me time to indulge in lots of simple pleasures, making Felicity's challenge pretty darn easy.
Yesterday I made 6 jars of apricot and vanilla bean jam.

Now until yesterday, I have never eaten an apricot that I liked.  They were always mealey or tasteless and blah.  I do enjoy apricot desserts and jam; both of which we always looked for in France.  The apricots I bought for making my jam actually smelled like peaches and were the most beautiful shade of orange.  I wish I had taken a picture of them before cooking.  Why the vanilla bean? The last time we were in France we were lucky enough to eat someone's homemade apricot jam, and it drove us crazy for three hours trying to figure out what that extra flavour was.  After much looking through and trying to translate French cookbooks, we found a recipe that called for a hit of vanilla.  While I was cooking down the fruit yesterday I added a whole vanilla bean to try and infuse the flavour.  I think it worked; the jam smells like apricots with just a hint of vanilla, but you would really have think about it to identify it if you didn't know it was there.  Of course, the little black dots of vanilla seeds are kind of a giveaway...

I have also been able to do some stitching outside while the kids play in the kiddie pool.  Someone here is having a birthday on Monday, and I have been stitching their card.

Since I started cross stitching almost six years ago I have been making cards for my kids on each of their birthdays.  I am proud to say that My Favorite Boy will now have six of them come Monday.

Yes, life is good in my Crafty World on these lazy summer days.

Simple Pleasures: Homemade Iced Tea

I am definitely an iced tea girl.  I prefer it over all other soft drinks and we drink gallons of it when it's hot outside.  Over the years I have noticed that commercially made iced tea has gotten sweeter and sweeter; more akin to soda pop than tea.  I found a recipe for a Snapple knock-off about 12 years ago and have been using it ever since.  It tastes like cold tea flavored with lemon and sweetened with real sugar; just what I  like my iced tea to be.

For one jug of iced tea you will need:

3 orange pekoe tea bags*
8 cups of boiling water
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup, plus 2 Tbsp lemon juice

Pour boiling water over the tea bags.  Cover and let steep one hour.  Stir in sugar until dissolved and add lemon juice.  You may need to tweak the recipe a bit to get it just right for you.

Because we drink so much of this, I didn't enjoy having to make it from scratch every time.  That whole hour steeping thing can  be a pain when you're really thirsty!  I have made multiple batches and frozen them in plastic bags, but then again you have to wait to drink it.  I also experimented with making a concentrate, where I quadrupled the amount of tea, sugar and lemon juice, but left the water at 8 cups.  After making sure the sugar was dissolved I divided the mixture up  into 2 cup units and froze those.  This was a lot of work, and again you have to wait until the concentrate thaws before making up a jug.

 This year I finally found a solution that works for me.  I pour eight cups of boiling water over 12 tea bags.  I let it steep for an hour or so, or really just whenever I get back to it.  After taking out the bags I pour the tea into four, 2 cup containers and put them in the fridge.  Whenever I need to make a new jug, I pour one container of tea concentrate into the jug and add 6 cups of water; 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup or so of lemon juice.  Doing it this way means it's faster to make jug refills, and I can tell at a glance how much concentrate I have left in the fridge.
*Because I have been giving this to my kids since they were really little, and I let them drink quite a bit of it, I use decaffeinated orange pekoe teabags.  This summer I am going to introduce a bit of regular tea (probably a 1:4 ratio) and will keep substituting for a year or so until I only use regular tea.

This week promises to be another hot one.  We will be drinking lots of iced tea and I'll be reading these:

Oh there's not much better than a good stitchy magazine!

Have a great day :)

Summer Pleasures

My goodness; time does fly when the little darlings are out of school all day.  I have been enjoying all sorts of simple pleasures, but at this point I couldn't possibly list three week's worth without putting you to sleep.
We kicked off the start of summer holidays by going to the theatre to see Toy Story 3.  What a wonderful movie!  If you haven't seen it yet, make plans to do so.  Oh and bring your tissue box because it's a weeper.
My Favorite Girl and I attended the Canada Day parade and wore our patriotic pinwheel brooches. Our special Canada Day desserts this year were strawberry shortcakes:

...and lavender panna cotta with strawberry puree:

I had some of this at a small patisserie in Toronto and have wanted to make my own ever since.  It was very good!
We've had a bit of a mini-vacation as well.  We made our way here:

Despite the crowds and all the vendors/shows/shops anxious to have you deposit your Loonies with them, the natural attractions at Niagara Falls are simple awesome.  

That's one of the Maid of the Mist boats.  The next morning we donned blue raincoats and had a closer look:

Going on the boat tour was worth every penny.  I would definitely recommend going on the first boat though, because after that they really pack you on like little blue sardines.

The town of Niagara Falls has one very touristy street, called Clifton Hill.  It's lined with cheesy souvenir shops, over-priced restaurants and all sorts of child-appealing things that have nothing to do with the natural wonder around the corner.  So, because we have two kids, we had to make a few stops along the way to a "haunted" house; Rainforest Cafe and Brick City:

Then entire room was filled with Lego creations and one little boy was very happy to be there.  He desperately wants to visit Lego Land someday, so we told him this was the closest we think he will get for a while!
Before returning home we took a drive to scenic Niagara-on-the-Lake.  What a pretty, pretty little town.  It's full of lovely shops and beautiful buildings, like the Prince of Wales hotel:

I wanted to take more pictures of the main street, but it was so crowded and I could never seem to get the photos "just right" in the view finder.

It was so hot that week that it was hard to get motivated to do anything creative. Temperatures were around 35 degrees every day, but with the humidity it ended up being around 45 degrees every day.  We are not big on turning on the air-conditioning, but we did have to give in after several uncomfortable nights.
  So that's a bit of a catch-up on our activities.  This week things should return to a bit of normalcy as Mr. Crafty World went back to work and we are settling back into our routines as well.  I am hoping that some sewing and crafting will be part of it!

Homemade Lollipops

I had such a great weekend: we didn't have to be anywhere and spent the time on playdates, at the library and home.  The weather was just gorgeous so the kids played outside most of the time, and I just read.  I read two novels, which is something I have not done with such immersion (?) since my first baby was, well, a baby.  I'm paying for it today with extremely sore eyes, but I would do it again if I could in a heartbeat.  

So I'm sure you realize that by reading two novels over two days my kids did not get much attention from me.  They are very, very good children - a fact that I am grateful for every single day - and such behavior (though common around here) does not go un-rewarded.  I was looking for something in the basement when I came across a recipe I tried a few years ago for hard lollipops made with Jello powder and.  I knew they would be tickled to eat them, and a little surprised that they would really just appear out of nowhere.  It's a fun kind of thing to do, but you must be quick in order to get all the candy out of the pan in time.  The little bit of stress in the end is worth every bit, because the lollys are ready to eat about ten minutes after that.  Then you can get back to your book....

For this recipe you will need:

Two cookie sheets covered with parchment paper

20 or so 4 inch lollipop sticks

candy thermometer

metal spoon

heavy bottomed saucepan

3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
1 small box flavored gelatin powder ( I used peach)

Arrange lollipop sticks on parchment covered baking sheets.  I used ten per sheet, but in the end I did not end up with 20 lollipops.  I just wanted to make sure  I had enough at the beginning so I wouldn't be scrambling when I had hot candy on the go.

Stir the sugar, corn syrup and butter in the saucepan over low heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Slowly bring it to a boil, stirring frequently.  Attach your candy thermometer to the side of the pan.

Continue cooking and stirring until the temperature reads 275 degrees F.

When your mixture has come to the correct temperature, stir in the gelatin powder. 

You have to stir it for a couple of minutes to completely dissolve the gelatin.  The first time I made these I didn't stir long enough, and you could feel the little gelatin granules on your tongue.  They tasted just fine, but I  wanted to see if I could do better this time.

Now, here's the part where you need to work quickly.  Take your pot to where your baking trays are and start spooning out the hot candy over the tops of the lollipop sticks.  It's going to be a little messy and you will not have perfect circles.  The other important thing to remember is not to get any candy on you.  It's hot!!  And if you do happen to get a bit on your finger, for heaven's sake don't put that finger in your mouth.  I'm speaking from experience here.

I didn't end up with 20 lollipops before the mixture got too hard to spoon out, but I got most of it, and certainly enough to keep the kids in sweets for the next few days.  

You have to let them cool for a bit, but probably only about ten minutes or so.  The kids are really keen to try a home made lollipop - it's not something you see everyday.  They won't taste like any lollipop you can buy either.  If you have ever tasted/made something called butter crunch, this is what these taste like.  You notice the butter first, then the gelatin flavor.   The texture is somewhere between hard and slightly crumbly if that makes any sense.  Actually the inside of a Skor bar would be the best comparison.   They are good: I have enjoyed a few myself since I made them:)

Oh, and the best way to get any hardened candy off of your pan is to fill it with water and bring it to a boil; or put it in a dishwasher with really hot water.  The candy just melts and then you can pour the liquid down the drain.  This will save you lots of scrubbing!

Food: A Find; Some Fun

I love to cook for my family, but in the summer it gets to be a bit of drag.  I want to enjoy life outside, not menu plan.  The rotation of hot dogs/hamburgers/pizza/salad gets a bit monotonous.  So, I devised a plan.  Starting last week, I have implemented French Suppers.  Every day for supper we eat salad, grilled something (veggies, meat, fish) and a demi baguette.  You probably think that sounds monotonous!  However, salad is never the same.  I have been putting everything on our salad, including left-over wild rice and cold roasted chicken.  Mr. Crafty World comes home, puts something on the grill; I put the baguette in the oven and chop the lettuce.  The kids eat the lettuce  (minus the dressing), eat  the meat/ veggies/ fish, and the bread.  Everybody's happy.  I had to take a picture of last night's salad because it looked (and tasted) sooo good:

Grilled veggies, Israeli couscous, goat cheese and fiddlehead ferns.  I shamefully told the kids the fiddleheads were forest worms just to gross them out so I wouldn't have to share :o

A big bonus to eating salad is that you can't just scarf it down.  You have to eat it slowly, thereby enjoying it and giving your body a chance to realize it's full before it's over full.

Now to totally negate any benefits of salad, I have been baking.  Actually it's for the school bake sale, so we're OK!  I made vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and lemon bars. 

I have been thrifting a little lately, and found a small bag of silk thread on wooden spools.

The colors are very pretty, and combined with a few other wooden spools I have make a neat decoration displayed in one of my vintage canning jars:

And lastly I did a bit of card making last night.  I love how this one turned out:

It's actually more green than the grey that you see here.  Although, grey would have been nice....

I love making cards but it usually takes an hour per card, just because I have to go through every possible combination of paper/stickers/embellishments.  By the end of it I'm out of creative ideas for the verse, so it's usually just "To... From Me"  Hardly inspired!  So if you get a card from me, just know all the love is in the outside!

Fathers Day

I made two good recipes yesterday I want to share with you. We had a French inspired dinner for Mr. Crafty World, consisting of a smoked Gouda and asparagus soup; bistro salad with dijon vinaigrette and breaded goat cheese; chicken breasts with rosemary/dijon cream sauce and cherry chocolate clafoutis (cla-foo-tee). It was all really good; a bit too much work for such a sunny day, but it was worth it. The recipes I want to pass on are for the soup and dessert.

I only made half a batch of this soup, but this is the full recipe. Due to the high cost of the cheese, I didn't want to make a full batch and not like it. Next time I would make a full batch though: it's really good.

Asparagus and Smoked Gouda Soup

2 Tbsp butter

1 leek, white and tender green parts only, sliced*

6 large shallots, chopped*

2 Tbsp all purpose flour

1 cup dry white wine

1 cup milk

2 cups chicken broth (I used homemade)

2 lbs asparagus; trimmed of woody ends and chopped

1 cup grated smoked gouda

salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup whipping cream

*I didn't have a leek or shallots, so I substituted a bundle of green onions (white and tender green parts) and half a of a mild onion

Heat butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add leek and shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until softened.

Add flour adn cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Gradually stir in wine, milk and broth. Bring to a simmer and add the aspargus and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook, uncovered, for about 15 minutes or until aspargus is softened. Add cheese and cream.

Put mixture in a blender in batches and blend until smooth and frothy. Return mixture to same pan over medium heat until hot. Serve hot.

This recipe came from here. There are some really yummy looking salads over there I want to try this week too.

Now for the clafoutis. I have never made one before, nor have I ever had a fresh one. My only experience with clafoutis is with the kind that comes in a tin I have eaten in France. It's my go-to when I'm up in the middle of the night and don't want to wake everyone up getting something to eat. Mmmmmm....canned clafoutis and chocolate pudding in the middle of the night. That's a good memory for me.

Anyway, I found this recipe in one of those glossy, supermarket foodie-type magazines they put out. I usually don't try those recipes out because they just seem too complicated and/or expensive to execute. I do like this one, and plan on making it again.

Cherry-chocolate Clafoutis

1 pound sweet fresh cherries

3 Tbsp butter, divided

1 cup all purpose flour

1 package (100 grams) ground almonds. Or grind your own like I did.

1 cup milk

1/2 cup half and half cream

4 large eggs

1/3 cup, plus 2Tbsp sugar, divided

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup chopped, dark chocolate. I used milk chocolate because that's all I had. Next time I'll try the dark.

2 Tbsp icing sugar.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash cherries and remove stems and stones.

Melt 2Tbsp butter.

In a food processor, combine flour, almonds, milk, cream, eggs, 1/3 cup sugar, melted butter, vanilla and salt. Mix until batter is completely smooth, about 1 minute. Let batter rest.

Butter a 10 inch quiche/pie pan with remaining 1 Tbsp butter. Pour 1/3 of the batter into the dish and bake until very lightly set, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven and scatter cherries, remaining 2Tbsp sugar and chocolate over batter. Pour remaining batter evenly over all.

Bake until puffed, set and golden brown around the edges, 45-50 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes; dust with icing sugar and serve.

It says this is best eaten warm on the day it's made. I'll leave that up to you. I actually prefer it cold....

We did a lot of planting this weekend. Mr. Crafty World and I put some new shrubs out front and the kids planted their own little flower gardens:

Notice the cute gardening gloves?

This week is the last for the kids to go to school, so I'm trying to cram lots of stuff in. I have painted the garage door and all the exterior doors, and have gotten most of my flowers planted. I just want to go back and get one more David Austen rose I saw the other day. Talk about gorgeous! I'm also making up little pots for the kids to give to their teachers and bus driver. Then I'm done - I think.

Have a great week!

I can't believe

it's been a week since Easter already. In hindsight I've had a busy week so it's no wonder it seems so far away.

This week I had time to do a bit of playing with some of my new fabrics:

I managed to do a bit of thrifting:

From the top; tablecloth, apron and sheet for fabric. I was so pleased how they all looked good together.

And I finally found some primroses. I have been looking everywhere for these!

Mr. Crafty World and I got back into our ballroom dancing yesterday and it was a great time. I highly recommend it to anyone. Who new the merengue was such a great work-out?

Completely un-fun bits of the week involved getting probed in areas I won't mention as part of an extremely uncomfortable ultra-sound. Funny how as an adult you no longer get a lollipop or stickers after seeing the doctor/specialist/technician. Having certain kind of procedures warrants something to take home, other than the memory, don't you agree?

Our new carpet is finally broken in: you know, someone has to make the first spill or mess on it and then you can relax a little. It happened in our house around 1:30 in the morning on Saturday as the tummy bug got purged from Our Favorite Girl's stomach. Not once, but five times, two on the carpet - in different rooms. Mr. Crafty World and I spent two hours dabbing at vomit in the middle of the night, and it took another two hours the next morning to get rid of the rest of the stains. Just another episode of Adventures in Parenting.

I really like to cook, and often we have "experimental night", or even "experimental week" when I get a new cookbook or want to try a bunch of new recipes. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but thankfully Mr. Crafty World and the Houseguest never complain. In fact the Houseguest will consume all the leftovers of the flops as well as the successes, so that's a huge bonus.

Anyway, this week we're having three experimental nights, but with a twist: Retro Experimental Night. I collect older cookbooks (pre-1965 if I can swing it), but I don't usually cook anything out of them since I really just like to browse. However, last week I decided I should start cooking from them, so for the next little while our experimental nights will be retro ones. I'm not going to go all gung-ho and only cook from vintage cookbooks for a year; I'll leave that to some more adventuresome bloggers. I do, after all, have two little critics to feed that aren't as understanding or palate-adventurous as Mr. Crafty World and the Houseguest.

This week my recipes will come from this book, Helen Gougeon's Good Food.

Mrs. Gougeon used to have a column called "Tested Recipes" in Weekend Magazine and these recipes are a compilation of the "best". The best from pre-1958 anyway. I spent the morning making up three dishes, which we will enjoy (I hope!) this week: Ginger Beef Pie, Pureed Turnips and Left-Over Ham Casserole. What I enjoyed about preparing the dishes was that there was nothing I had to buy extra ingredients for, except the bread for the casserole. I pretty much had everything else and it was nice and simple. What I found a little different was that everything took longer to put together, because everything is from scratch. I cheated a bit by using a ready-made crust for the beef pie, but that's it. No thirty minute meals here!

I have prepared the dishes but haven't eaten them yet. Monday night will be the first go. I'll let you know how it all turns out, and post the recipes if I think it's worth it.

Today is another gorgeous, spring day, and I'm going to the quilt show in Newmarket. I'm even being accompanied by Mr. Crafty World. I did warn him, there will be fabric there, and no doubt some shopping booths where I will be looking and shopping. I don't know if he is coming just for company or to keep an eye on me. It should be fun though.

Have a great day!