It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Our paper decorations are up...

 

 
Boo requested 'hand in hand animals for her room...

 
 
There's snow on the window trees (just waiting for the real snow outside now)...

 
The salt dough ornaments are on the trees...

 
 
The winter nature table is all set up (ok, I know it's not officially winter yet, but these things came out when the christmas box was opened, what can ya do?)...

 
... and yesterday we completed 'the gingerbread house'.  I say 'we' but in reality Boo spent most of the decorating time munching on the sweets.

 

 
We are enjoying our christmas preparation, hope you are too!

Berry Good

 
Summer is most definitely not over here, but the berries have been ripening in the endless sunshine we have been enjoying. 

Amongst the green fruit we discovered enough blackened berries to put together our favourite blackberry and apple crumble. 

With the prospect of all those green-uns ripening in the near future, I'm on the look-out for new blackberry ideas.  Suggestions gratefully received!

In other news, my nausea has now subsided enough for me to tolerate ceiling fans (ah, what a relief) and to get back to knitting.  Having spent the last 6 weeks cursing pregnancy, I just might be able to begin to enjoy it. 

Our gingerbread house

This year, I thought I'd have a stab at making a gingerbread house ... they are a distinctly North American Christmas tradition and I thought Boo would enjoy the creation (she says its a 'bear house').

We used instructions and patterns available here and did it over a few days, dough one day, cutting/cooking the pieces the next, and then construction/decoration.  Now it does say clearly in the instructions that you need to allow 1 hour between sides and attaching the roof, and then at least an hour (preferably 8) before you begin decorating.  Waiting?  Us?  With a 2 year old?  It ain't gonna happen.  So we ploughed through, with the result that the sides are now sinking and I have them propped up with 2 juiceboxes in the hope of avoiding a complete roof slide.  Yup, we should have followed the instructions, but you try telling Boo that you can't finish it now.  Boo helped with sticking on the sweets, which she had helped choose (her choice being the gummi bears of course).

 

 

Next year I will:

• buy a greater variety of sweets, we had a bit of an overload of smarties


• buy a proper icing bag/nozzle, I used a plastic bag and it kept squidging all over my hands


• Follow the instructions and say we have to wait (maybe a 3 year old will be able to run with this)

 

 
 

A Betty for a Boo

First Charlotte, now Betty, who's next Edith or Mavis?  I refer, of course, to apple dishes.  Following my last post on apple creations, a big thanks to Nicola for sending me Nigel Slater's recipe for Apple Betty.  I was slightly shocked by the quantities of butter (and sugar, and syrup, and chocolate, albeit the 'healthier' dark stuff) but why not go out with a flourish (or a coronary) for the last of our apple harvest?!  I substituted maple syrup for golden syrup (well I do live in Canada) in some skewed idea that the 'natural complex sugar' would somehow offset all the other gloop in there.  Ha ha.  There was no disguising the serious gloop factor, but it was absolutely to die for (and perhaps we will!) in the tasting.

 

Betty Boo enjoyed it too of course.

The lady has just recently stopped napping most days and I find myself stretched out as the days go on.  I am of course proud of her advanced language abilities, but the incessant questioning every minute (and her dislike of most of my answers, so repeating the question ad nauseum, or just erupting into tears) is testing my patience when there is no respite throughout the day.  Added to this that the lady has suddenly decided, after months of resistance, that we are doing toilet training (the 'big toilet' has won her favour, no pottying for this one), and the requirement for constant vigilance (and mopping up) and you have one tired mama.  I miss Boo the moment she's not with me, but some days she gives me no breathing space and I feel suffocated.  I find myself becoming snappy and feel like a terrible mother momentarily before moving into a more positive space.  We are transitioning, and will no doubt a new rhythm will soon emerge from these long days soon.    

   

Home Comforts

The rain beats down relentlessly on the skylight above me in the kitchen and I'm grateful to not have to leave the house today.  We have continued to enjoy the fruits of our apple picking fun.  There has been a whole lot of this:

and this...

We are onto our final tray of apples now...

There has been a whole lot of apple compote and multiple apple crumbles.  But I wanted to try something different so I made an Apple Charlotte, with a recipe from BBC cooking available here.  It couldn't be simpler really, an apple sauce in a toasted bread shell.  The apple sauce has juice and zest from a whole lemon which makes it lovely and zingy.

 

We have also been enjoying our homebaked wholemeal bread on a regular basis.

 

Boo, meanwhile, has made an exciting transition, to her own 'big girl bed'.  I was going to hang back a while on this one, but she became a little too eager to fling herself out of her cot, so we made the change and she is thoroughly pleased with it.

 

Apart from climbing on and off her bed and rolling around on it, her other favourite pastime right now seems to be putting on various items of clothes in an 'unusual manner'.

Rainy days ain't so bad are they?



 

Giving Thanks

Today we are 'doing' Canadian Thanksgiving for the first time.  Last year Dadda Boo went to work, but this year he has taken the holiday, and my parents are visiting so it truly is time to give thanks for us all being together.  What a great holiday, time to celebrate the seasonal change, the harvest and family without all the commercial overkill of Christmas.  

Joining the masses of other families reaping the bounty of the season, yesterday we visited a pumpkin patch and apple orchard.  Not having done this before, we were quite unprepared for the scale of the pumpkin harvest.  The deliberations over the choosing of the most attractive specimens for the 'jack o lanterns' for the forthcoming Halloween shenanigans seems to be part and parcel of the family outing, and there were a number of different selections made before all were satisfied.  

 

What could be more seasonal than some shiny conkers atop a pumpkin?

Does no-one play 'conkers' in Canada?  Or collect them even?  Whenever we come across a Horse Chestnut tree, the ground around is thick with them, and we go home with pockets bulging.

 

 

Onto the apple orchard, and we select the finest Jonagold apples from the heavily laden boughs. In no time at all our 25lb bag is bulging, and we sample their juicy freshness. Absolutely scrumptious.  

Here's to pumpkin pie and all manner of appley goodness.

Happy Thanksgiving!
 

 

Dough girls

Making bread.  Something I've been meaning to do for a while now, since we did it at the Waldorf parent/tot groups we went to last year.  Think I've always been a little wary of it, what with all the yeast and rising and what have you, always thought it sounded tricky.  Sure, I've used packets but that ain't 'real breadmaking' now is it?  I keep reading articles on how all the kneading is supposed to be meditative and soothing so we just might get some peace around here for a few minutes, and even if you can't pull off the serenity bit then at least you can munch on the results.  There really isn't anything quite like bread fresh from the oven is there?

Getting down to business, we used Jamie Oliver's basic bread recipe from 'Jamie's Dinners'.  He includes a whole host of different variations from the basic recipe, but all I wanted was honest no messing about bread.  We used 100% wholewheat bread flour, dried yeast packets and honey.  Heap your flour on a surface and pour the yeast/water combo into the centre he says.  Okey dokey.  Err, what about all the liquid cascading off the side of the kitchen counter?  Wondering why we didn't use a bowl (which was his alternative suggestion) at this point.  Ok, I get it, mix it from the pool at the centre outwards using your hand in a circular motion.  Just about holding it together at this point, add more water, now we're cooking.  Before you know it we have a lovely sticky mass of dough to knead for 5 mins, which is quite soothing I have to say, and a good wrist workout.  Anything that involves dough, or indeed just flour, is a hit with Boo, so she is entranced at this point.

Much to my surprise (oh me of little faith), the bread turned out wonderfully, after the requisite risings/knocking out.  I didn't quite manage to get a pic of the finished loaf before a little (and a big) mouth were wolfing down its still warm deliciousness.  

My other focus at present is Project Studio.  In its current state:

It can only be up from here!  Watch this space...

 

It's a mash up!

Looks good doesn't it?  Well, looks can be deceiving.  My mission: to create a spongy, light, melt-in-the-mouth bakewell tart for the 'farewell feast' before Dadda Boo leaves us for a business trip.  I followed Jamie's instructions diligently, the pastry base frozen for one hour then baked blind prior to the the addition of the frangipane (what a delicious word) filling mixture.  Bake. Allow to cool.  It looked great, it smelled great.  Upon delving below the golden surface, however, things are different, its sludgy, sloppy, sickly and greasy beyond measure.  It's pleasurable to eat for about as long as its pleasurable to eat uncooked frangipane mixture, which isn't all that long.  

Dadda Boo arrives home from work later with a bag of bananas which are just on the right side of edibility, a result of over-supply at the office.

Now I love bananas, and I hate to see food go to waste, so I go to work.  Perhaps raising a few muffins can heal my broken cuisinery heart?  Boo and I cook muffins all the time, so I'm on safe ground here and I whip up a loaf and a round of muffins quicker than you can say baking soda, only to be foiled by running out of ingredients for a second round.  

They're simple, but it's so satisfying to watch the little dough mounds rise and brown.  Only 5 bananas used though, so the race is on tomorrow to shop and mix up other banana delights, cake, more muffins...  any ideas?  My freezer will be stuffed with enough baked banana products to see us through the winter.  I will try the Bakewell again, but in the meantime find me skulking at the back of Jamie's remedial baking class questioning where it all went wrong.

Blackberrying

Living in London, seasonal changes seemed to relate largely to the calendar, the weather and perhaps there were sometimes leaves to sweep up on the patio.  Since living in North Vancouver, I've become more aware of shifts in the natural world around me, and marking the passage of time through observing key events: the blooming of skunk cabbages in May, wild raspberries in high summer, dragonflies in late summer, giant red maple leaves clothing the sidewalks in Autumn.. and blackberries.  The blackberries are in full succulent fruit and off we trot to gather them with stained and sticky fingers.  The thrill of coming across a glut of undiscovered heavy brambles!   

 

Then home for a spot of cooking with our spoils.  Boo's favourite: Blackberry and Apple Crumble.  She likes to 'help mix', particularly after the sugar is added.

My recipe for a wholesome Blackberry and Apple Crumble:

Filling

3 eating apples, cored, peeled and sliced

10oz fresh blackberries (critters removed)

1tbs brown sugar

Topping

150g/5oz wholewheat flour

100g/4oz soft brown sugar

50g/2oz rolled oats/kamut flakes

pinch of salt

Lay fruit and sugar into dish.  Rub fat into flour, add sugar, flakes and salt and cover fruit. Bake.  We love it.

200C/400F/Gas 6 for 30-35 mins