Garden

Last post I shared how I am starting from seed this year for my garden, it's turning out pretty good, check out the progress

It's pretty exciting to see how well they are growing. I can't put them outside yet, even though it's so nice outside this past week, but from past experience, we end up with cold or even snow this month, so I always tend to wait until May long weekend to get my garden outside. 

I am very much enjoying the weather this weekend, it's been so nice out!

I finally got to enjoy my hammock, for the first time this year, and have enjoyed every minute of it! I went out yesterday for a while, to take a break between doing some spring cleaning in my kitchen, to then making a very delicious apple pie! When I last got together with my friend and we had a cooking day, we had made pie dough, which is a new recipe that played on Zoe Bakes, on the magnolia channel, which she found the recipe on pinterest, so I'm glad we made that recipe cause it really is easy to handle, and the crust is so delicious!

The pie plate is an amazing birthday gift she got for me, it's from the Pioneer Woman line. It's so pretty, and love how deep it is. My birthday is this coming Wednesday, so it was a nice early birthday present. The other gift she got me is a utensil holder, so in doing my kitchen clean up, I also made room for that, and added large spoons, spatulas and stuff in it. I also got another early gift, from another friend of mine, who I don't see as often as I would like, but thanks to us being in Sudbury at the same time the weekend before for Easter, she gave me

She got me the mug with lid, which helps keep my drink warmer for longer, and the pink drink in the cup is also what she got me, it's from Blume, and it's the beetroot latte, which is very delicious! I tried as is, so a splash of hot water to dilute the powder, with warm almond milk using my frother, it was good but the package does say you can add a splash of maple syrup, so I did that, and it was even better. The toast I have there is a sourdough bread topped with peanut butter and a blueberry jam.

About a week ago or so, I tried a new recipe, that I found on pinterest, and it's pork tenderloin, sliced up, in this mushroom gravy. We both loved it!

We put it on top of mashed potatoes, and a side of roasted carrots. This is a recipe I would for sure make again. Lately I'm more into the vegetarian and seafood meals, so Friday we had skewers, since it was so nice outside, it was the perfect day to have a BBQ. I roasted potatoes in foil on the BBQ, and potatoes I added sliced onions, some of the 3 onion spice from Epicure, some salt and pepper and some butter. Then I cooked up some chicken on a skewer for him, and I had salmon and we both had some shrimp with the aioli dip, with a small salad. It was really good! I didn't take a photo of this meal though. Yesterday we had burgers, which mine was the beyond meat patty. I want to make my own soon though, so it's a healthier vegetarian patty. I made it last year, it's a recipe from Joyous Health and it's really good. Yesterday I also made a soup, which we enjoyed again today for lunch.

This week I'm excited, I only work tomorrow and Tuesday, then I took the rest of the week off to enjoy my birthday. The day of my birthday, Wednesday, my dad and his girlfriend will be coming here for supper, which I plan to make my favorite meal, lasagna. I'll get the tomato sauce cooking first thing in the morning and then in the afternoon I'll build the lasagna. My dad will be bringing cake, and we will celebrate his birthday as well, his is in a week. During my 5 day weekend, I plan to do more spring cleaning/de cluttering/organizing, and hoping for more nice weather so I can get outside on my hammock and read some more. The book I am reading, is the first book of a 5 book series. A friend lent it to me, along with the second book, and loving it so far.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Amazing food

The past two weeks, has been all about amazing foods! The weekend before I went to a friend's place and we had our cooking day. We tried her new pasta maker, and made rigatoni, which turned out delicious. The first batch of dough was too sticky so had to make a dryer one, and it turned out great

I really want to get this pasta maker, which attaches to a Kitchenaid mixer. It makes different small pastas

We split this in half, so we each had some to have at home, and we had to have bread with it, so we tried this braided bread recipe, which turned out really great, and the bread is so good!

We also shared half of this bread so we can enjoy. We also made dough, she wanted to show me this recipe that turns out amazing and I haven't used up my dough yet, but I will, cause I want to make an apple pie. With Easter coming, I want to make the pie to enjoy for dessert when we have family over.

She gave me my birthday present early, which is a large Utensil holder, to hold whisks, and large spoons. I am not using it yet, but I have to do a bit of re-organizing to get that set up, which I plan to do sometime this coming week. She also got me this beautiful pie plate from the Pioneer Woman, which I will bake my apple pie in there, it's deep so I'm excited to use it. she also got me measuring spoons which have more sized, which I love.

The day before our cooking day, I did make this pasta salad, which uses a spice blend and a dill mustard I got from Sunset Gourmet. It's similar to Epicure, which is dry spices, and mixes, etc.. but they have a different variety, so I wanted to try a few. The recipe was very basic, pasta, cubed cheddar cheese, dill pickles, the dry spice blend, but I elevated this recipe, cause I love veggies

That box has 2 packets of the dry mix, so I only needed one, and I added in red onion, green onions, celery, and a cauliflower and cabbage slaw mix, and I also added in a tablespoon of the dill mustard. Oh and a small clove of garlic minced. Of course along with the dill pickle, and cheddar cheese. This was delicious! Best pasta salad I have every made. I also tried another new recipe, which I also got from Sunset Gourmet, which used this tomato/bacon seasoning.

So cooked up some spaghetti noodles, there's a bit of bacon, shrimp, the seasoning pack, some cream, and parm cheese. This was delicious as well! Not something we can have often cause of all that dairy. That Sunday I also made a new batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, and got those frozen in the freezer so when we want a bit of dessert, I can easily take the amount of cookies we want, bake it and we can enjoy it fresh out of the oven.

Another amazing recipe we got to have this past Friday for supper

Coconut Shrimp Salad, thanks to the Pioneer Woman. I was watching her show, and when I saw this recipe I really wanted to try it, so I looked it up online and saved it. I have been eating too much meat lately so this was a nice option for me to avoid endo pain, and hubby loves seafood as well and loved this salad also. I made some changes, I just put romaine, some of the cauliflower/cabbage slaw, some cucumbers, green onions, and instead of the ranch dressing, I did a garlic aioli dressing instead. We love aioli with our shrimp so figured why not, since he doesn't like ranch dressing, and it turned out delicious! So the dressing is about 2 tbsp of fresh lemon juice, some mayo, the garlic aioli dry mix (I get mine from Epicure) and then added in some olive oil until desired consistency. I followed her recipe for the shrimp batter, and instead of frying in vegetable oil, I used some coconut oil in my cast iron pan. 

Yesterday I spent most of the day with a friend of mine and we did some shopping around and then went to our favorite restaurant downtown called Mamma Grazzie's, and we had our usual, which is so delicious every time!

It's called Pomodoro, it's a sauce with lots of little bits of garlic, and the pasta is homemade. Normally it's on the green side, so a spinach pasta, but this time it was more white, and we had a little spinach in the sauce, but not much. Still absolutely delicious and something I'll always get when I go. I love that it's vegetarian, and the flavors are amazing! Their bread that they give us at the start is also very yummy! It's got this salty, rosemary flavor, and it has a bit of oil, it's amazing bread! For dessert, we walked over to Oh so Good, which isn't far away, and we enjoyed their delicious chai tea latte, with a slice of cake, they have a nice variety. Last night we went for this Oreo cookie type cake and it was really good!

Today I kept myself a bit busy

Normally I go out and buy already grown veggies and herbs, but this year I thought lets try seeds, it's less expensive and I as my hubby mentioned to me, I can grow in the house, to give them time to start sprouting, and then when it's warm enough outside, I can transplant them to my veg pod so they can keep growing nice and big. I hope these turn out, since this is the first for me. I have two of each, so I have carrots, radishes, green onions, a mix of green lettuces, and spinach. I still have seeds left, I am starting with this since that's all the pots/cups I have right now. See how those do and hopefully it turns out. I guess if they don't. I can try again, or just buy already grown and attempt another time to start from seed. Some take about a month, some 2 months to start sprouting out.

Tonight I'm trying another new recipe I found on Pinterest, and it's a mashed potato with a mushroom gravy, we are having it with a pork tenderloin, and I'm thinking roasted carrots.

We got some rain yesterday, but then the sun came out and it was warm, I was good with just a sweater on, no coat needed. Later at night though it got cool so the coat came on, but we are getting nicer weather here and there, and it's a nice change. Love seeing the sun more as well, and the longer days. Now that I have the seeds done, it's getting me excited to have my garden again, and once I can actually eat what I grow, is always so amazing! I seem to always switch things up each year, and I'm excited to have carrots and radishes this year. The others I had the last few years as well and they get used a lot so it's a must have in my garden, I love salads year round, but mostly in the summer. I'm considering to grow garlic again, you just take a clove of garlic and have the pointy end pointing up, and just under a bit of dirt and it sprouts up, it turns into what looks almost like a green onion, it's milder garlicky flavor and it's really good. So if I have room I'll do that again this year. My thought is when these are sprouting, I will hopefully be able to get them outside, and then I can sprout more indoors and then when I have used up what I have outside, I can swap and transplant the ones inside to outside so I get more veggies. I'll try to remember to take pictures and show you guys the progress as this goes.

I do still have my grow lights for some herbs in my basement which are still doing great, so I have thyme, rosemary, mint and parsley. The mint has gone crazy! It's like a weed and going everywhere, so I have to take some time to got something to block the mint from going everywhere and keep it more contained. Once I can get my herbs outside, I want to add in some basil and chives.