New Orleans

As you are reading this I am strolling the streets of New Orleans, hopefully with a few beignets in hand!
I will be back on Friday with lots of new pictures, a full belly, and some funny stories I'm sure!
Last weekend I cooked a dinner party at my Ant's house and surprise, I picked a southern theme! For dessert I made chocolate chess pie, a dessert I picked mostly because of it's name and also because it's delicious. No one knows for sure why it's called 'chess pie' but my favorite theory is that because it's such a simple pie (eggs, butter, sugar and in this case chocolate) it was called 'just pie'. If you say 'just pie' with a southern accent it starts to sound like 'chess pie'. Cool, eh?
So, unearth your rolling pins and grab you favorite pie crust recipe and bake!

Chocolate Chess Pie

1 single pie crust
1/2 cup butter
1 oz square unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt.

Preheat oven to 325F.
Heat the chocolate and butter in a saucepan until melted and smooth. Remove from the burner and stir in the sugar. Stir in the eggs, vanilla and salt. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake until the filling is puffed and the center is just a little bit jiggly. 40-50 minutes.
Let the pie cool for at least 20 minutes.
Serve with whipping cream or ice cream.

Christmas Pictures??

Despite the cooler temperatures this week I'm sure no one else's mind is on Christmas, except for mine! But for good reason...Nathalie (one of the resident black and white film takers) in the family got her photos developed from Christmas holidays and they are beautiful. So I thought I'd share a few. These days very few people are taking non-digital photos and there is such a permanence in film photos and a surprise because who knows what it will turn out like!

Wow, Nat! Good job!

A recipe.

Now that it is Spring I am having full on cravings for fresh green foods, alas here in Manitoba we still have a while to wait. Hopefully we don't have that much longer to wait for some rhubarb at least!
Until then here is a kind of winter-y recipe but with some fresher flavors!
I served this over pasta but it would also taste great over a baked sweet potato.



Coconut Spinach with Chickpeas and Lemon
serves 4

2 teaspoons oil
1 small onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1 large lemon, zested and juiced
15 oz can chickpeas, drained
1 lb baby spinach, fresh or frozen
1 can coconut milk
salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and saute for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, sun-dried tomatoes, lemon zest. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add the chickpeas and cook over high heat for a few minutes.
Add in handfuls of spinach, one at a time. Adding another handful as it wilts down. When all the spinach has been added stir in the coconut milk and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook 10 minutes.
Serve over a multitude of things...pasta, baked sweet potatoes, rice, quinoa. Or just eat it with a fork!

Happy Spring!

For those of you who live in Winnipeg...how about that thunderstorm last night?!? Wasn't that amazing? What a way to welcome Spring! Zoe and I were out when the torrential down pour started, but as soon as we got home we opened the windows and watched. There is nothing like a good storm. 

Pioneer Night: Rug Making

Last night we experimented with a new project at Pioneer Night...rug making! My mom had given me a few flat sheets and Zoe and I rustled up a few more, and with a bit of wire and duct tape we were ready to make rugs. This technique originally used an old toothbrush with the brush part broken off and then end filed to a point. I was not in possession of an old style toothbrush or a file, so I improvised with the wire and duct tape.

It is very easy and in no time you could start to see the rug shape!

Stacey made hers in to a bum cushion for a chair. Handy!

My rug started out okay...

I thought it was going great, until I tugged at the middle...

That is supposed to be a rug. Clearly I had to start again. But it was all a good learning experience and my second rug is turning out to be a lot better!

Have a great Friday everyone!

House-swarming Party!

Yesterday we invited a few of our family members over for a little house warming or house-swarming as my Ant calls it. The apartment it pretty much all set up...we hung the last pictures up in the main room yesterday morning before everyone arrived. It definitely feels like home!

We got some fantastic housewarming pressies, including pickerel, bison steaks and a farm chicken!! Obviously they know us well!

 It's great having a new place to gather especially since we have pretty great people to gather with!
The cutest moment of the whole day was probably when I walked into my room looking for Annie Rose and found this...

Awww! She might kill me for putting the picture up, but a sleeping Annie Rose is too good not to share!

Have a great Monday!

If you love something let it go?!?!

As some of you know I am really into quilting...obsessively so. It is something, along with cooking, that is the perfect de-stresser for me. Over the past year I have made over 10 quilts! My latest project was a quilt for my Mom's office. She has a massage table and has different blankets for each season. Her Christmas gift this year was a winter quilt for her table, and not long after she requested a spring quilt. Little did I know that this would become my most favorite quilt. I started with a simply 9 patch block and made it wonky...an ode to Spring's riot of colors.
Here she is...

It was a little bit of an experiment and I wasn't sure if the fabrics were going to work out together, but as soon as the first rows were sewn together I knew...and then I fell in love.
I can't quite figure this love out...this quilt is not intricate or pieced artfully, it's a jumble with crooked lines. Hmm, what does that say about love?
The whole time I was making this quilt I kept thinking of a certain E.E. Cummings poem (little does everyone know, I went through a big E.E. Cummings period). Here is the little excerpt my mind most wandered to...

in time of daffodils(who know

the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim 

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so(forgetting seem)

This poem spoke to me so much so that it made it onto the quilts label!

And now, I will wash, dry and iron her. I will fold her neatly, wrap her up and take her to her new home. And I'll be a little (read very) sad to let her go but if this quilt has to be anywhere other than my own room its with my Mom. This quilt is the epitome of the saying "stitched with love".

Favorite foods in beautiful dishes...

When people ask what my favorite foods are I usually have a difficult time answering them. I have many favorite foods I love and when and how much I love them constantly changes. Except for a select few. One of them being white beans. I adore white beans. My love for them grew even more when I went to Italy were they had whole festivals just for beans. Amazing.
I think I most appreciate their simplicity. Beans, water, olive oil, garlic, and bay leaves. Can it get any easier?
Well, it is almost Spring and so my mind turns to Italy. It will be 3 years this Spring that I arrived there, just in time to celebrate Easter. Last night I soaked some beans, and this morning before I had even eaten breakfast I put them on to simmer. I sat at the kitchen table working on my latest project as they cooked, and smiled.

A note on the dish in the above picture...I was just handed down an almost complete set of Johnson Bros. Blue Danube plates. These plates were my Great Great Great Grandma's. Zoe and I use them frequently now...imagine all the food they've held in more than 100 years. Amazing.

Pioneer Night

Last winter when I was in Norway House, 2 of my friends and I would get together every Thursday night and have Pioneer Night, I attribute this night for keeping me sane through a long Northern Winter. We called it Pioneer Night because 2 of us were into knitting and sewing, but it slowly morphed into "TGIT" or Thank God its Thursday. We would still see each other during the week and weekend, but Pioneer Night was just a little more special than all the other days. 

Well, the other day I was at the library and came across this little book...

and I showed it to Zoe and Stacey and just like that Pioneer Night began again, in a new place and with new people but with the same feeling.
Last night we started our first project...some subversive cross stitch!
Here is where we were at by the end of the night.

Isn't that fun!?!?! Stay tuned for next week, I'll post the finished pieces!