Secrets in the Sauce.

When the apples start falling it is time to make sauce. Today we put up seventeen litres of the stuff. Should be good for a lot of baby food and the Mrs. also makes use of it in a lot of baking instead of butter.
The box in front of the Mrs. was totally full at one point. It is a large box. Our microwave came in that box. It is mostly empty now that we have put up the seventeen litres (10 litres pictured below). So after a wicked long day of running and making apple sauce and playing with and doing various things with the kids I was totally bagged. So I made pizza. It was pretty damn good pizza too. The wife however had a serious complaint. She wants more from her dough. She wants a whole wheat crust. Something with some fiber and heft. So from here on out I will be making two types of dough. I will make a smaller batch of the current dough and I will look for and try to perfect a whole wheat wholesome dough.
The basil leaves on top of this pizza were picked by the kids. Our garden is starting to round into shape. Speaking of gardening their is a truism that I read in one of my gardening books that I have really come to embrace. Vegetables are a lot of work. Fruit is almost free. I cannot tell you how little work has gone into raising the apples for apple sauce, the lovely cherries, and the raspberry canes. The eating apple tree is looking really good and come september they should be crisp and delicious. Good times. Have a good night.

ps. Both the wife and I managed to slice into a finger during the process. Used up the last two bandages in the house. We bought more when we got the pizza stuff.

Froming Pouting to Pork.

Well as usual Sunday was had a melancholy feel to it as the weekend ended and it was time to start getting ready for the week ahead. We started with some more shoveling. After I finished the rink I went to do the driveway and the daughter spent some quality time on ice. After I was done I went out back and managed to get this video.



And that is after having one lesson. I don't even think they have taught her to spin yet. She may be a natural but after hearing about the cost involved with being the parents of a figure skater I don't know if we would survive. This is the picture that I took after the son made his request.We followed this picture taking with a marathon snowball fight. The snow was that perfect grab a handful instant snowball consistency. This was the first snowball fight for the son and he was into it, I mean the fire was in his eyes. We have unleashed a monster.

As for the rest of the day I went into work this afternoon and returned home to some wicked awesome pork roast with roasted potatoes. I even cracked a jar of our home made apple sauce which made the meal other worldly. In a crazy turn of events the daughter wouldn't even eat it. She had chosen ramen noodles for lunch but wanted to eat the scooby doo alphagettis from a shopping trip on thursday or friday. The pout was really impressive and after a slammed door, some shouting on my part and lots of discussion she ended up having the noodles. On a slightly positive note, as the noodles were cooking she said she was feeling very guilty. Is this good or bad? hmmm....

Slooooooooow Day

So it was Saturday all day, still is as a matter of fact. I guess we did get some stuff done. The apples all got picked. We got a box of pretty good apples for keeping and all the drops, bug holes and bird damaged apples that were still in good shape were made into apple sauce. Once you start canning it is hard to stop. We are down to 9 lids remaining from the original 48. I also made a batch of crazy hot salsa today with the remaining, jalapenos, chillis, and the three jabanero's. Four big jars and 2 small jars. The hits just keep on coming. We also cleaned up the garden a bit, just a bit, pulling out the squash and cucumber plants. There were about 6 small to medium sized cucumbers left on the vine and these six squash.
With only 6 this year I do not know how far they will stretch. Hopefully there will still be one for thanksgiving dinner. As for dinner in the background of the first picture you can see te-maki sushi. The wife's great pun to night , "goo ga nai ha no goo". Goo is the japanese word for ingrediants, so goo ga nai means no ingrediants. ha is pronounced "wa" and is a japanese particle that you don't need to worry about. "no goo" is a japanesified way of saying no good which you might actually here in you live in Japan. So altogether we have , no ingrediants is no good. With the word play on the double meaning of "goo". There the lesson ends. In fact there was plenty of goo and it was very goo but when comparing things with how her mother does it I can see why she worries. The key point I try to emphasize is that we are a family of four, two of which are mostly satisfied with one ingrediant rolls and then just eating the seaweed. So yeah it was an awesome dinner as usual.

Cute moment for the kids today. They are sitting watching a Japanese animated movie for the first time. They are both seated in front of the computer. The opening theme song is playing and they are clapping along, in time, totally engrossed. A really precious moment.