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.

Is it spring yet?

I'm getting to that point where I really can't wait for spring. We have been getting quite a bit of snow lately and I'm so tired of it! It is a good workout to shovel, but it's not great for my back. I am still working out indoors but they are calling for a milder week, so just might head out for a walk. This picture was taken the other day

My workout buddy! He tends to like to walk the perimeter of the basement, sometimes he even gets the zoomies and runs around, or at times he lays down, not always in the most convenient spot, and I have to workout around him lol. I did a really long and awesome workout yesterday since I skipped on Friday, and today my workout was shoveling, and I'm doing a few things around the house, but mostly relaxing today.

I don't have any food photos to share, but I did make a recipe that it's been a while since I have made. I love this recipe, they are delicious and healthy. I made the Joyous Health carrot cake cookies.

Highly recommend you try them, we absolutely love them. The only change I make to the recipe is instead of raisins I tend to add in some chopped walnuts. Hubby is not a fan of raisins at all, so I tend to not bother to add any in. I could always make two batches, this makes 9-10 cookies, so I could make one with raisins and one with walnuts, but I do enjoy the walnuts as well, so I haven't bothered to get raisins but I really should sometime. I also made a potato salad, since it's been a while since I have made one. Not long ago, my in-laws came to visit, so we went to Costco since they have a membership, and we stocked up on a few things, especially when I saw they had ground bison. I can't seem to find any, so it was nice to see they had some. I ended up using half of it, and made sloppy joes for supper on Friday, and it was delicious! Tonight's supper will be pasta with some ground bison, mushrooms, onions and a vodka sauce, and I can't wait to have some! 

I do have to relax on the meat though, I'm getting some endo pain, so for supper tomorrow I'll take out some salmon for supper. A while ago I watched a show I recorded on the Magnolia channel called Magnolia Workshop and it was about gardening, learned some great tips, but it's making me want summer now so I can have my garden again. I miss having fresh vegetables on hand. I do have some herbs growing in the house, I got some grow lights so they keep growing, but some herbs don't seem to do well, my chives and basil died out on me. The rosemary, parsley and mint is doing well though. I actually still need to work on containing the mint more cause it's taking over the entire space.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. It's really gone by way to fast!

Scallops!

I just had to share this recipe I found online and it was very delicious! You can find the recipe here.

So to the left is a risotto I made, which I just winged it. I had 3 slices of bacon that really needed to be cooked up so I cut those into small pieces and then got those in the pot to start cooking. I chopped up a small white onion, then added that to the pot, and then grabbed a big handful of kale and cut that up so it was small pieces. Once the onion and bacon were cooked up, I added basmati rice to toast that up a bit. Then added a big splash of red wine, and then let that cook down a bit. In a small pot I warmed up some vegetable broth, an entire carton, and slowly added some. I would put about a half a cup or so at a time, and once the liquid was mostly gone, I would add more till I had no more broth left. Making sure to stir everything well here and there, especially after I added more broth. When I put the remaining broth I also added in the kale and let that cook up a bit more. Then I added in some goat cheese and a bit of parm cheese. I covered it and turn the heat off and let that sit while the rest of supper was finishing cooking.

So I did get the risotto going first, and once I added the wine in the risotto, I grabbed carrots, peeled off that top layer, then added broth to the risotto, and then sliced up my carrots. I added some butter, maple syrup, and the Oh Canada spice from Epicure to my carrots and a little pepper. I put that in the oven, and then kept working on my risotto, and got going on the scallops. I grabbed a package of frozen scallops but I took it out the night before to let them unthaw. I prepared the top crumbly mixture, topped it, and I had to give the carrots more time in the oven. The carrots took about 40 minutes, so 20 minutes in, I added the scallops so they can start cooking. Everything came out amazing! It was a very good supper!

For those not wanting to use bacon in the risotto, you can just omit completely, and add in mushrooms or anything else you think would be good, but I'm sure just omitting the bacon would be just as good, I would for sure add a touch of salt, cause I didn't since the bacon is salty. 

I have been keeping things more basic this week, and same with this coming week. I am looking forward to tonight's supper though, I plan to make a stir fry. I will cook up some chicken for him in a separate pan, and for me, I'll make tofu. He may want to add tofu to his as well, since he does enjoy that too. I plan to cook my tofu in the oven, and I will do a quick marinade, with a little honey, some soy sauce or tamari, and I'm thinking some ground turmeric. I will whisk together, then cut my tofu into strips and then coat them in the sauce, and then add to a cookie sheet lined with parchment and cook those in the oven until golden brown. For my stir fry, I'll see if he wants noodles or rice, and then for the veggie part, I plan to add in some mushrooms, onions, bok choy and bean sprouts. I'll stir fry those up in a pan on the stove top on fairly high heat, and for the sauce, I think I'll use the satay seasoning from Epicure and add in some soy sauce and sesame oil. Going to keep it on the simple side I think. For his chicken I'll use the same sauce for the veggies. There should be some left over tofu, which I'm good with, cause I plan to make chicken another night for supper, maybe tomorrow, so I can cook that for him and I'll stick to tofu.

Valentine's day is coming up in a few days, so that night I'll make a fancier supper, I saw this cooking show, and she cooked up some pork chops with this maple, Dijon type glaze and it looked so good. Magnolia network doesn't have a website yet so I can't get the recipe online. I will make mashed potatoes with some gravy, and not sure about the veggies yet, either roasted carrots, salad or coleslaw I think. I guess it's nothing really fancy, but it does sound very delicious!

Pasta!!!

For those who know me, knows that I really love pasta! My fav is lasagna! There's not much I don't like really but pasta is my absolute fav! Last time I got together with my good friend, we made our own ravioli and it was so much fun. At Christmas my hubby got me the gadgets I need to make my own that attaches to my mixer. Having tried it at my friend's, I knew I wanted it as well. There's one that flattens the dough so I can make ravioli, one for spaghetti noodles, and the other for fettuccine. So I decided to make ravioli again and it turned out really great

So the dough recipe I went with is to make my own brown rice pasta. It was a little crumbly but not too bad, so managed to make 30 raviolis. I wanted to keep it vegetarian since I had pork chops the night before for supper. Here's what the filling looks like

So I used an entire package of spinach, and wilted it in a pan, and then I drained out as much as the water as I could and added some of that juice to my tomato sauce to keep that delicious nutrient that came out

I did get my sauce going first, I chopped up a red onion, a lot of mushrooms and 5 cloves of garlic and sauteed them a bit. Then I added a good splash of red wine, and let that reduce a bit, then added an entire jar of Passata, the juice of the spinach, some dry oregano, lots of black pepper, and let that simmer while I made the pasta.The stuffing for the ravioli was the spinach, which I chopped up a bit, then added 3 cloves of garlic, minced, some fresh basil, minced, some black pepper a little touch of salt then a block of goat cheese. My hubby did help me out, and worked out well. I boiled my ravioli first till it was floating then added it to the sauce to let them soak in the flavor of the sauce

I did add in a lot more fresh basil to the sauce, and we were finally ready to eat, which we had a slice of garlic bread with it. We both really enjoyed it! I would for sure make this again. We do have some leftovers to enjoy this week too.

On Saturday morning I did also make some blueberry muffins. I tried this recipe from Chocolate covered Katie. What I love about her recipes is she puts things like, flour of choice, sugar of choice and has comments when needed cause some things require more of something so it works. For this recipe I went with spelt flour, and used coconut sugar. Oh and instead of oil I went with the other option, mashed banana since I had a ripe banana. The spelt flour made the muffins on the dense side, but they are still good muffins. If I were to make this recipe again, I would try a different flour to see how they work out. 

My hubby and I shared one, not long after they came out of the oven, and he's not a big fan, so I may be on my own to eat these. I did enjoy one this morning with a chai tea latte, which was delicious. I know I'll have more this week for breakfast, probably with different herbal teas. I like to switch up my teas and I don't have a latte too often.

I do have a small kitchen so making the ravioli involved using my kitchen table to put my mixer on, to flatten the dough, I used my moveable island to make the dough, cause I had other things on my counter so it involved a few surfaces, but worked out well. I would like to try to make the spaghetti noodles next, but I think I'll try whole wheat flour cause not sure how well the brown rice dough would work with that, I have a feeling it wouldn't really stay well in long strands. Not sure when I will make that, we have quite a few plans coming up, so I'll see when I get the chance. The weather has been very cold this weekend so it's been nice being home and into the kitchen. Friday night I had made the pork chops using a can of mushroom soup for the flavor, I haven't made that in forever! It turned out good, we had rice and salad with that. Tonight's supper I am cooking up some chicken in this red wine type sauce, it's another new recipe I'm trying out from Clean eating magazine that I ripped out, and we will have sweet potato fries that I'll make myself, and thinking to make a coleslaw. Tomorrow I'm thinking to see if I can find a good recipe for scallops, I have some in my freezer, and we haven't had that in a while, and it's a good break for me from meat. So I think I'll look this afternoon for a recipe, if I don't have ingredients needed for it, I'll keep that recipe for next week and I'll take out some salmon instead.

More soup!

I really love soup in the winter, it's so comforting and delicious. I decided to make like a minestrone soup. The recipe I got was from Joyous Health in one of her cookbooks, but the closest recipe I found online is this one. So the only difference is instead of butternut squash, it was sweet potato, and added in a can of beans, which I chose black beans for ours, and a few leaves of kale with stems removed, and I chopped it up so it wasn't huge leaves in the soup. The recipe also called for chickpea pasta, which I did add in. I didn't put in the zucchini cause he's not a fan, so I omitted that. I did use vegetable stock to keep it vegetarian for me. I unfortunately did not take a photo of the soup, but I have 2 mason jars in my freezer to enjoy another time, and kept some in the fridge which we enjoyed some for lunch today, and I had a bowl over the weekend as well. 

I did also make the banana caramel sticky buns, which I have made before on a previous post, so you can find the recipe here. I don't remember the last time I made them so it's been far too long and so glad I made them again. They are so yummy!

We celebrated our anniversary on Saturday, 28 years that we have been together. Normally I make a more fancy supper at home, but it's been a long time since we have had a date night. We have been to restaurants, but it's been forever since it's just been us two, so I suggested we try a new place close by called Browns socialhouse. I went once with work for lunch and the tiki tuna bowl that I had was so good!!! So I really wanted to go again and since he has never been, we decided to go there. We took our time, started with a drink, which I had a sangria, and then we got an appetizer, their cauliflower bites, which were very tasty with this spicy ranch sauce

After we had those we waited a while, then finally ordered our supper, which we both enjoyed.

He had the fish and chip, which I tried a bite of his fish and it was delicious!! Mine was called the dragon bowl, and I had it with tofu. Very yummy! And as you can see our drinks as well, I went with red wine, and he had a beer. Once we were done our drink and eating, we left not long after and we went to check out a place next door called Chocolats Favoris. We both never been in there, and we did get a few things to try out, some dark chocolate covered almonds, dark chocolate covered blueberries, milk chocolate cashews (cause they didn't have dark chocolate), and this small bar with rice crispy and like a caramel sort of coating on it. We tried a bit of each and all very tasty, and we do still have some left to enjoy. It was a really great date night for our anniversary.

I am a huge fan of bowls, we do tend to sometimes get bowls from Mad Radish, but they also do make very good burritos, so we switch it up. I have made some at home, but not much, and I would like to make more of them, cause I love the variety in there, so yummy! 

Tonight's supper I took out a chicken breast for him, and salmon for me, just not quite sure what I will make yet. I'm tempted to create a bowl, or just a salad, but I'll see what he's in the mood for. This morning I did workout, and got an added workout at lunch by going out to help shovel. He did use our snowblower, but still had to use a shovel a bit. Looking forward to winter coming to an end, I miss seeing the sun a lot more, and having warmer weather.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Butternut squash soup!

So it's been over 7 months since my last post. I have been feeling a lot more tired and low in energy so I have been keeping things more simple. I'm starting to feel less tired, so I'm working on getting into the kitchen a lot more. 

So a bit of an update. Almost 2 years ago I think, I started to take a small dose of progesterone, cause it's been a few years that I keep getting major pains from an ovarian cyst, and when it hit, I was folded in two and crying cause the pain was so intense! In talking to my gynecologist, he suggested a progesterone pill (small dose) to see if it would help. I have to say it has been helpful, the pain from an ovarian cyst, when it hits, hasn't been as frequent and not as painful, and it actually has helped my endometriosis pain as well. I haven't been eating as I should be (no meat, no dairy) but I haven't had pain. The downside, I think it's causing me to lose more of my hair. There's a possibility that I now have PCOS and the reason I think that is because there's a high possibility that my hormones are not in balance since I did get a hysterectomy and only have 1 ovary remaining, and in reading up on PCOS, every woman that has it, has a hormone imbalance, I have some of the symptoms which is ovarian cysts, tiredness and loss of hair. I just got a call from my doctor's office and I see him next week, so I will bring it up to see what he says. I think I recall reading something on a way you can find out if you do have PCOS, so I'll see if I can do that and it would explain things. Last I saw my doctor I did stop taking the progesterone, as he suggested, and I don't seem to be losing as much hair, but I am still losing a fair amount. I have always had thick hair so it being this thin is a very new for me, and I really don't like it!

So, since I stopped that progesterone pill, I am getting more endo pain again. I do enjoy vegetarian meals and I do love seafood as well so it's going to be a nice change to cut back on meat. In terms of dairy, we have been eating a bit more cheese lately, but that too will be a good thing to cut back a lot on as my stomach doesn't like cheese very well either. 

So to start eating healthier and get back into eating more like I should be with endo, I made this delicious soup

I really do love butternut squash soup, and next to it is a biscuit, which I used the package from Epicure, so all I had to do was add the wet ingredients to make them, and they are delicious as well! For the soup, here's what I did:

I bought 1 butternut squash, peeled it, took the seeds out and then cut it into chunks and roasted it in the oven at 400 for 15 minutes which I also added an entire garlic wrapped in foil. After those 15 minutes, I took it out of the oven and added in a chopped onion, and sliced carrots (2), tossed everything and put it back in the oven for a half hour. Once I got those out, I added it to a pot, with a huge handful of spinach, put in some vegetable broth (entire carton), added a little water, then added some fresh herbs, thyme, rosemary and parsley all minced. I also added a little salt and lots of pepper. I let that heat through for about 10 minutes and then I put it in my blender until nice and smooth, I had to do it in sections cause it was too much soup for my blender. My hubby and I had some for lunch, then it filled up almost 3 mason jars, so 2 are now in my freezer to enjoy another time and the other I kept in the fridge and enjoyed it for a few more lunches. 

Yesterday I tried a new recipe, but forgot to take a picture of it, it was this kimchi, cucumber, noodle with shrimp salad, and it was really good! The sauce was delicious, it's tamari, rice vinegar, honey and some siracha sauce. You cook up some noodles, I used ramen noodles, but you can use spaghetti noodles or even rice noodles, chop up some green cabbage, green onions, and cucumber, add it in a bowl with the noodles once cooked, and also pan fry up your shrimp for a few minutes with a little of the sauce, then add in your shrimp and sauce and toss, and enjoy. It was very good. Got the recipe from the Clean eating magazine. 

I also have been trying to exercise more cause over the holidays I barely worked out. I do have plans to make a fish burger as well, I will try to remember to take a picture and share that. 

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and Happy New Year everyone!