Food and Family

Well a weeks worth of food and I only have two shots to show for it. On thursday night we had chili dogs. Wicked good chili dogs. The dogs were actually the good breakfast sausages and it was more like a thick bean stew/sauce but whatever the ingredients it was an awesome way to get the weekend started. Then here on Sunday evening I whipped up a vegetarian lasagna. The brown beans in sauce were a little sweet but the overall effect was nice.

We did up a double shepherd's pie last night, one topped with mashed potatoes and the other topped with mashed yam. It was so tasty we had to have some friends over for dinner. I just didn't get around to the camera so your imaginations will have to provide the rest.

Now compared to the spartan visual fare that our dinners provided this week we have a lavish spread of family photos courtesy of the two oldest kids. The batteries on the camera are now low again but that is the cost of doing business. And it ain't that steep. Instant noise makers. Yes they worked very very well.

Chili and Chees Bread.

Well no mystery here. That is what we had for dinner. It was the vegetarian chili and here is what I did right. I sauteed the onions on 4 and had some finely diced carrots in with them. Once these were starting to brown I added two cloves worth of minced garlic but not so fine it was mush. Also added about 8 diced small mushrooms. This was sauteed further. Next I added a can of crushed and a can of diced tomatoes. For seasoning I added one tablespoon each of cumin, coriander and chili powder. I added maybe five tbsp of vinegar and a generous pour of molasses. Probably a tbsp of salt and a bunch of shakes of pepper. Next up were the beans, one brown in tom sauce, one black and one kidney. Finally, some finely sliced celery stalks with some home grown green peppers and eggplant. I had turned it up to six when I put the tomatoes in and now I turned it back down to four. 20 minutes later down further to 2. 20 minutes later turned it off and let it sit.

The cheese bread was a store bought crusty french loaf, split down the middle. I mixed margarine with crushed garlic and spread that on both loaves. Then I covered them with slices of cheese and baked them at 400. This also pre-heated the oven for the wife's pumpkin pies. But that is a story for another day.

Back to the main course, this was the vegetarian chili I always plan to make. It is the vegetarian chili I like. Lots of flavour. I am amazed at how often I am unable to make it. Practice practice practice I guess. I would have added a bunch of jalapenos or chili peppers if the kids weren't eating it but that is my life right now. Some day my food will be spicy again. Probably right around the time I am told by my doctor not to eat spicy food.

Stormy Vegetables.

Lets start with dinner. The Mrs. picked up a nice foccacia loaf from our baker friend and I made a vegetarian chili. Today was a good day and the spices and flavours mixed well. Who knows what makes for a good vegetarian chili day. Maybe the weather has something to do with it. My veggie chili has been so inconsistent lately that todays lovely flavour came as something of a surprise. Yeah me.
So on to the stormy, we had a thunderstorm here this afternoon. Massive booming noise, visible lightning strikes, occasional pounding rain. What does this all mean. No lake swimming. So still no movement on the ring front. The son however is making great progress in his swimming lessons. By great I mean he is mostly doing what he is told and have a great time doing it. Tomorrow is the last day and we have our fingers crossed that he is going to pass his level four. For some reason I think this is salamander.

We also had a swimming night at the pool. It is thrifty Thursday so I took the two oldest. A full two hours of swimming fun. They both had their new goggles and spent the majority of time under water. I was pooped by about 8:00 and sat and watched or threw the rings to dive for, for the last half hour. Good times.

The Mrs. and I have both noticed how tired we are. With the two of them looking for constant entertainment and no natural flow to the day we are both struggling a bit to get anything done. The schedule sort of works but what we really need are some activities that the kids can do with out direct supervision or parent input. Sort of looking forward to September. Yikes.

Dinner for Three.

Which means I was not in attendance. I had a meeting to discuss some bargaining issues about our contract. Really really fascinating stuff. At least I managed to get dinner out of the deal.

Here on the home front they ate my delicious second day chili with garlic bread and rice. I had a small bowl when I came home and it really was that second day delicious. There were no "plate" shots taken this evening so instead here is the pot and what was left of the garlic bread wn
Well its time to brush some teeth and get the bed time routine rolling. Au demain.

Getting Sick

So among other things that happened today I think the daughter has come down with Strep Throat. I tried to get a good shot of the back of her throat but it wasn't easy. I took the image into photoshop and spent about five minutes realizing I had no idea what I was doing and started uploading the raw image.So she had trouble eating all day and ended up having yogurt for dinner. Yogurt and meatballs I should say more correctly. Mom is out at some woman function and made appetizer size meatballs to take. The piggies who stayed at home had to make do with the few that could be spared from the serving platter. Of course we also had almost homemade soup and leftover chili.
I think the almost homemade soup needs explaining. When I first started cooking I used to make a green pea soup with big chunks of vegetables. I would get two cans of Campbell's Green pea soup and then add celery and carrot chunks. It was a type of value added cooking. I didn't create anything from scratch I just enhanced something someone else made. Well I was going to go for the same thing this weekend but the wife brought home butternut squash soup in a tetra pak. I browned some carrots and onions and then tossed in some frozen peas. Once everything was hot I transferred half to the blender and added some whipping cream. This was pureed. In the pot I added the box of soup and brought to a boil. Then I added back the creamy puree and voila. Almost homemade soup. The wife and I loved it (she had some on the way out the door) but the kids were both unimpressed. The loved the meatballs and tolerated the chili. That was until the daughter's sore throat forced us to go with yogurt instead.Note her pensive face trying to decide whether to keep on eating of demand something else. Her first offer was a change to ice cream. I thought about it but that would have been giving away the farm as far as I can see. Yogurt was a good compromise.

After dinner the daughter mentioned that it has been a crappy day. I was trying to say what a fun day we had when she whipped out the list.

1. Sore throat.
2. Kicked in eye by brother.
3. Poked in the same eye by brother with kiddy tent pole.
4. Squished fingers between hockey stick and skating rink.
5. Hungry but couldn't eat dinner.

I was totally shot down. That list is irrefutable if you ask me.

Saturday Stuff

Well we got busy today. There was stuff going on all over the place. Lets start with the important stuff. The wife made bread today. She got the son in on the act as you will see.

I over course being the near genius level intellect that I am forgot to take a picture of the final product. The house was a little cold today so they didn't rise quite as well as one would have hoped. However, they do look quite nice and I plan to tuck into some tomorrow for breakfast. Which is fast approaching, where does the day go? This brings me back to my theme. A busy day.

So we were supposed to have a play day today but I got totally side tracked and never made the call. I did manage to wash the car, fill it with gas, go and pick up the new tap shoes from across the line and get some school work done so I cannot be totally faulted. The daughter made up her valentines cards today. I mean its more than a week away. As a grade one boy there is no way I would have been thinking a week out on Valentines day. I am sure I need mom assistance to even remember to bring them on the day.

Post card making, the kids and mom did the shopping and then played at the elementary school play ground. It was a beautiful sunny day so that was all good. We arrived back home around the same time and after a bit of tv watching (well video on the computer but its the same thing really) I got down to making some five can chili. Can's shown below.

Now I have read a number of blogs recently that decry the hideous addition of beans to chili. These purists use meat and sauce and everything else be damned. Well I'm sorry but my chili is all about the beans. I mean sometimes (including today) I don't even use meat. Maybe I should give in and call this multi bean, spicy, tomato stew. Not quite the same ring as chili but it'll do. I mean does anyone out there make a meat no bean chili. I have a buddy who always cringes when I mention beans but good fibre and good taste. What could be wrong with that. Check out the bowl don't it look good.See we're all on the same side here. After dinner we went to the family fun skate at the arena. Our good friends who just bought their kids skates were there as well and it was an awesome night. The son raced around with one of the sliding bar thingys but also had some quality no bar skating time as well. The daughter and I did some pairish figure skating and we both really enjoyed it. My skating has improved enough that I could be the rabbit for my daughter and a few of her friends to chase. I didn't even crash into or hurt anyone. I thought that was pretty impressive. And now I have to get back outside to lay down another layer of ice on the back yard rink. It is pretty crunchy and chopped up but with three layers added tonight it may be skateable tomorrow. I have already done the first two. I am just worried about smoothness for tomorrow.

Chilling with the Chili

So I am up on the roof with my shovel and this guy walks by and yells out, "you better be careful. One hole in those shingles and its good-bye Charlie." Good bye Charlie. Asides from the obvious advice I really enjoyed the use of good-bye Charlie. The man had an Italian-Canadian accent and I would say he was in his 50s. He walks past our house all the time and this was the first time he ever started an exchange other than hello. Even though he was pointing out that shovelling off the roof is a bad idea, which it is in so many ways, I enjoyed that whole bystander taking an active role in my well being. Small towns do have their charms. He also mentioned I should buy a roof rake. Maybe next year. For now I will just live with icicles.

After the shovelling I started the fire down stairs with the last of the wood I had inside and then got to chopping. Six loads later and I was ready to start making this evenings chili. It was a mushroom, tofu vegetarian chili so I started by cutting the onions and mushrooms and crushing a couple of cloves of garlic. This was thrown in a pot which was placed on the now really hot wood burning stove. I went back up stairs, realised I was quite short on time (had to go referee some basketball) and got the wife to chop tofu, carrots, peppers and the rest of the veggies while I opened season on some can opening and spread some seasoning around inside a big bowl. This was then carried down stairs and poured over the now simmering/steaming onion/mushroom/ garlic combination. I put on the lid and had just enough time to eat some cereal (12:30 in the afternoon and I still hadn't had breakfast) and get out the door.

I came back to ice rink time in the backyard and a house bubbling with the scent of vegetarian tofu mushroom chili. After a bit of play time we came in and started putting rice and chili into bowls. I also whipped some of our home made bread into a little bit of garlic bread. The chili was very low on the spicy heat but nice and warm in the tummy on a cold winter evening. Counteracting this was this evenings dessert menu featuring Neapolitan ice cream from one of those four litre buckets. Nothing like bulk buying of ice cream. The kids put on some aprons to eat dinner, they are really into the whole cooking thing. They even helped me with doing the dishes before dinner (prep stuff and lunch). Now they are in the bath and we are getting ready to watch the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Roll on.

Speaking of Roll on it looks like Obama is going to be inaugurated on Tuesday. Is he the real deal? Can he make a difference? Are there heroes in this post post modern age. I want to believe but I just don't buy it. Time will tell.

Hot Yoga Makes Me Chili.

So with the stove burning all day, and myself at home to keep it hot, it seemed like the right thing to do to make chili. The daughter had a friend call her up this morning while I was out raking the leaves. Said friend came over for a play day at 1:00 and by that time the wife was back from work. I voted, returned a book and bought the necessarys for chili. Threw it all in a pot and settled it down on top of the stove. As you may have noticed there is a time lag between putting the pot on the stove and being able to eat from that pot. This is the perfect time to get your yoga on. The standing poses are almost insufferable but the laying on the floor poses towards the end get the nice cool draft from the cold air returning from upstairs. I am feeling truly released and should try to get to bed by 9:00. That would make for a very good Sunday. It aint gonna happen but it sounds nice in theory. Here is the dinner shot.How can you tell I was in charge of dinner. Single bowl of chili. No accompanying rice, soup, or salad. The bread was bought and the chips were being snacked on pre dinner. I added some extra water to the chili because I only had one can of stewed tomatoes and I was worried a really thick chili might burn. The kids called it soup but it was still pretty thick. I put mushrooms in my chili for the first time and they really do go with any meal. Between mushrooms and olives I feel I have turned around most of my vegetarian cooking. Not that this chili was vegetarian but the mushrooms sure do go a long way.

I finished the book Flowers for Algernon last night. We picked up a Japanese language version of it this summer for the wife. I am looking forward to seeing how the two versions compare.

Post Hallowe'en Post

Well due to popular demand (hey one comment must mean there are thousands of the silent masses yearning for their piece of the action) here is a super man snap and a short video. Just pretend like they were taken last night and we can all go to bed happy.
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As for tonights dinner we have yet to sit down to it. I was Supper man and made myself a bowl of chilli but is has been a stay at home, not do to much day. Pay no attention to my daughters massive bag of candy sitting open next to my meal. Honest, I was good. In other news, we had a cord of wood, or at least most of it, dropped off this morning. Then we went to the bank and bought some spongebob noodles and some bob the builder noodles for lunch. Kids choice. I made a veggy potato dish but in my haste it didn't turn out that well. The wife brought home so baked goods from work and now we are contemplating going out for a video or two. hh Saturday night.

Friday News

Well after blogging last night I played some online poker while listening to comedians on an internet radio station. After the tournament finished I lay down for a bit while still listening and actually fell asleep on the couch only to be woken by my irate daughter. It seems that my staying awake listening to the radio all night kept the tooth fairy from coming to our house. I will definitely not make that mistake again tonight. I am sure the tooth fairy will notice when I go to bed and she will remember to come by. Fingers are crossed.

As for the rest of the day I got caught up on some important sleep. We went for an ultrasound and after consulting with our doctor post exam it looks a little boy might come and live at our house next February. It isn't 100% but we are definitely thinking in that direction. Post hospital visit we went to the library, bank, and farmers market. We deposited some money, picked up grapes and prune plums and got some books and videos. I hope you can figure out which activity happened where. Then it was off to the grocery store for some chili fixings.
We used our home grown toms for the sauce and it had a really nice sweet chili flavour. I made a hot addition on the side and that brought the temperature up nicely. The green salad was nice and we made more garlic bread with our own garlic. Once again all the taste without the bite. I managed to get three pieces of brownie into my mouth before having to slap the back of my hand and cover it up. The chili was split, some for lunch tomorrow, a big bucket for another dinner/lunch sometime in the future. It was a good Friday but I have to spend some time at work this weekend. C'est domage.

By the way we have a boy's name that we like right now. Lets see if we still like it in a couple of weeks.

Summ-ahhhh

Oh the heat. The heat is lovely. We hit 26 degrees today. My daughter had to change her clothes twice going from a long shirt to a tank and then from pants to shorts. I of course choose the hottest day of the year so far to dig the tomato trench. 60 feet long, 12 inches wide and deep. I filled it with compost and manure. The returned the soil. I lay a 100 ft soaker hose down the length of the trench and the remaining 40 ft will feed our raspberries. Then I covered the filled in trench with weed fabric. The remaining task is to erect the tomato/cucumber/bean/ cantaloupe supports and then I just start planting. This is all based on the Square Foot Garden. A lovely book that has me down sizing the garden and upsizing expectations.

Oh yeah we had dinner tonight too. It was left over chili on rice. I added some of the hot green salsa to mine. We also had a light green salad with a (just a sec...) okay listen to this dressing, peanut butter, lime, vinegar and honey. It was really nice. The dressings continue to keep me satisfied.

We have planned this week and it is looking good. See you tomorrow.

Kansas: they make chili there.

Just got back from watching the NCAA final game. Kansas came back at the end to send it into overtime and then prevailed. Memphis had four free throws in the last minute of regulation and only made one of them. Free throws win basketball games. But the real story this evening was the chili. It was kid friendly and you should have seen my son throwing back the zucchini chunks. I even added mushrooms tonight which was really nice. Low on the heat but it was juicy enough to warrant the garlic bread. A really nice green salad with grated cheese and romano sprinkled on top. All in all a good eating Monday. Sure to see that chili again this week for lunch. The nice thing about chili. Its always better the next day.