Is that Dinner?

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you.  It is a dinner post.  Amazing I know but true.  I am back.

Yesterday the delivery man made a stop at our house and dropped off our latest purchases from the foreign buyers club.  So we are back in the basics.  Yes, nacho chips, granola and lasagna noodles are the staples of my life.  6 bags of nachos, 8 packages of granola and 4 boxes of lasagna.  We also got some garlic powder, bay leaves, pickled jalapeno slices and olives.  Basically it is all stuff we cannot find here or we cannot find it at a reasonable price.  The chips won't last but the pasta should go a couple of months and the cereal should see us through the new year.

 So with all that handsome goodness on hand I figured it was time for me to whip up some dinner.  I am usually good for at least one dish every other night but tonight I took on the whole task.  First I made the Dunnet style guacamole.  I think I over did the yogurt but it was still good.  The avocadoness was very mild which was a small shame.  The salsa was pretty good and though it was a little spicy (very nice) the kids still  managed to eat some.  The best was when the guac and salsa were mixed together.  Freak-tastic ©.  The other finger food was the satsuma imo fries.  Satsuma imo are the purple sweet potatoes favoured in this part of Japan.  Sliced, oiled, and seasoned they were baked for about 40 minutes.  Awesome.  Next up was some Nasu Miso.  Now I know that I should have just done the nasu in the miso and been satisfied with what looked to be a glorious dish.  However, I had to go the extra yard and add some cubed fried tofu and some moyashi.  Unfortunately, I didn't scale up the sauce ingredients so though the nasu was flavourful the tofu was pretty mild.  The kids still gobbled it up.  This evenings main dish was hamburg steak.  Basically hamburgers without the buns.  Even I was impressed with the overall flavour of this evening burgers.  Minced onions and mushrooms along with pepper, salt, cumin, coriander, the previously mentioned just arrived garlic powder, three eggs and bread crumbs came together very nicely with the mixed ground pork/beef we had.  Fried in a non stick frying pan then ended with the nice crispy outsides and juicy rich insides that burgers so richly deserve.  I feasted on chips and dip and sweet potatoes before the burgers had even started frying so you can imagine how stuffed I was when all was said and done.  Haven't been on the scale this morning. 

Finally here is a shot of Yoshiteru watching some TV while I make dinner.  He enjoyed the snack food but in the end Junko had a fish dish ready to add to his dinner.  When you reach seventy you are allowed to be a little set in your ways.

Love out.

Winter Show 2009

Well first off lets talk dinner. We had wraps this evening. They consisted of rice, bean and cauliflower sauce, fresh mozzarella, spinach and salsa. Quite a lovely mixture if I do say so myself. After dinner it was right out the door.
Because it is that Christmas season again and we were fortunate enough to have our daughter get a solo in her pageant at school. The video link is at the bottom. In the show she played Cupid. Here she is with the make up and antlers on. I think it works.Here is the full effect with brother doing his best to steal the scene.The best part of the night was right after being told not to take off her make up from the dress rehearsal this afternoon she walks back into the dining room with her face pristine. Apparently she wanted to get made up again. We put some fear into her that they weren't going to redo her make-up and even she was hard pressed to explain why she had cleaned her face when she was going right back out to do the show this evening. But in the end she got her make up done and had a great performance. The performance can be seen here. Along with some video of the boys playing at home.

Gratuitous Baby shot.

Winter Arrives

So we got our first taste of winter today. So of course we came home from school and started making a snow man.
Rumour has it that the man got crashed down and we now have a snow dog. I have yet to investigate but judging by how wet these kids were when they came back in there was definitely some serious snow play afoot.


Here is the littlest practicing standing. Walking can't be far away now. Then nothing will be safe.They say that when kids start crawling it has a big impact on brain development. Something about the right arm left leg coordination that brings things along. Well we have definitely noted a huge change in the littlest. When ever you change activity he totally reacts. For example if I am holding him and put him down he freaks out. However, if I sit with him and play for a bit then he gets into playing and everything is okay.
And finally we have dinner. Remember, this is a blog about dinner. The Mrs. went with finger food this evening and it worked. I shaked and baked some chicken. We got some home fries with yams. The Mrs. got brie cheese and crackers. Some kids salsa and nacho chips. A little green salad.

A lovely end to the week.

Back in the Saddle

...once more. Wow now there was a break. Life has gotten pretty hectic and there just doesn't seem to be any time anywhere. We were away for about four days and so I do have that natural excuse. However, life is just really really busy. This week should prove to be no better and the week after that will be a little nutty. The third week on is going to be crazy but the week after that ends in a weekend where I don't leave town at all. Asides from Halloween it should be a nice weekend of catching up and getting the garden ready for an ice rink.

While we were away I managed to take one picture of the kids. Here are the three of them basking in the electric glow of a television. I am now dealing with the discussion of why we don't have cable. Seven years, it was a good run. I wonder how long I will be able to stick it out. Fingers crossed.On the food front last night we had beans and rice. I crafted the mostly jalapeno salsa on the right. It was hot. The Mrs. whipped up the rest, while I ran around doing all the things that need to be done when you get back to town: Cross the border for gas, pick up our fishes from the fish sitter (Status Report: All fishes still alive), go get milk and veggies. Then it was dinner and off to work to get ready for today. Which thankfully is now in the books. Tomorrow is another day. Parent teacher interviews and Annie practice. I am booking rooms for anyone who plans to come and see the show, Thursday the 26th of Nov.

Tough Times.

Well we have been off line for the last two days. Still eating well but just busy and the blog has taken a bit of a hit. First off we were dealing with this.If you go back a couple of days you can actually see the celery seeds that were used to season the chicken. It is now my belief that what we have here is an allergic reaction to celery seeds. It seems like an obvious choice because he ate a bunch of the chicken and we haven't had anything else out of the ordinary recently. He is feeling a whole lot better today and all the hives are gone. In a few more day I plan to do my own scratch test with some celery seeds to see if it was indeed the culprit.This is us enjoying dinner tonight. Kids are currently outside playing as the light slowly settles into a warm late summer dusk.This evening was barbecue pork with rice and finger food. The pork was done in a miso garlic paste and turned out very well. The salsa was made with store bought garlic so it was a little spicy. It also took up all of the lemon so the veggie dip was without. Both were noted by our oldest and it was a cause of some gustatory friction. However, with a little vinegar and some sweet talking a catastrophe was avoided and the kids are both now crunching on mint chocolate chip ice cream cones while the wife eats toblerone in the kitchen. My treat was beer.

Finally we have a little gaffer who can now play on his own. I am sure he is saying something really important. Just haven't decoded it yet.

Sorry the video never loaded. It is up on youtube however, check it out. Very cute.

Full day of Work.

That is what 8 hours of salsa making is. We are now 24 more litres of salsa to the good. Which should put us at 35 if I have done the math right. The first batch was a kids batch. Used one whole clove of garlic and a bunch of plums we got from a neighbour last month. No hot peppers but I did once again use fresh basil. The kidlets had some with their dinner and enjoyed it. This bodes well. The second batch was a classic hot batch. If I can get away with calling anything I do classic. Two apples, a zucchini, half a pound of jalapenos, 10 pounds of tomatoes and 7 pounds of sweet peppers. I also used two tablespoons of salt and six tablespoons of vinegar. This is how I usually make my salsa.

For the last batch I did not add zucchini or apples. I did however add in two habanero peppers. This really intensifies the heat. Right at the end I chickened out and added in two tablespoons of our applesauce to each litre jar. It tastes pretty good now so it should be real real good in a couple of months. I am of the opinion that salsa ages like wine. The flavours blend and spread if you give them enough time.

Had an interesting conversation with the daughter. We were talking about having a garage sale and she said we should sell salsa. So I said our salsa was too expensive. Then I told her it actually cost us about $1.50 a jar. But to sell it I figured it was worth about $20.00 a jar. Because we made it there are only 40 something jars of it in the world. We can give it to friends or eat it ourselves but selling it doesn't really make sense. She didn't seem to understand how profound I was trying to be. She just thought we could make some bucks selling sweet salsa on one side of the stand and hot salsa on the other. Tuck that lesson away for another day I guess. (Her lesson to me or mine to her, I can't decide.)

We had burgers for dinner. No picture as I was right in the middle of the second batch and what with barbecuing and slicing, dicing, boiling and spicing I just didn't get to it. However, the Mrs. pointed out, and I noticed too, that the quality of the ground beef we got was really good. Overwaitea up here definitely has the best meat. The beef actually tasted like beef. Best burgers we have made in a while. Also they were served on our home made bread so esthetics aside an alround delicious meal.

Finger Food.

Well we have made it through another week. How about coming home to this. The daughter who stayed home sick (dubious sore throat) mentioned that she had added some love to the bean dish. Apparently she didn't want to make chili as last night they had had curry (I got it for lunch as I had a union meeting last night, sandwiches). So they made this interesting dish with brown beans and veggies. It was served over rice and thought i had brought out the hot sauce I didn't end up using any. Seeing as there was some searing hot fresh salsa right next door it seemed both like overkill and a waste. I didn't pick out the fresh basil flavour of the beans until my last few bites but in retrospect it was there the whole time.
I had whipped up the fresh salsa. September may just be my favourite food month. I can have fresh home grown salsa almost every day. I did head out and pick up my organic produce for another salsa session this weekend. Still need to wrangle up some onions and a few more coloured peppers. But things are looking real good. Hoping to bring home about 20 liters this weekend. That is 3 really full pots of salsa. I am figuring one kids, one medium and one crazy. Need more habaneros.

Below is the what happened today while I was at work. So nice dunked in a glass of milk. The wife ran out of some stuff so she used real butter. Wow!! Yes love is a worried that is often bandied about but I have to say. I had feelings of the four letter persuasion.

Soup and Noodles

Just not together.We had a nice squash and pea soup to start this evening. The peas were of the dried variety and though they had received a good soaking and boiling there were still a tad crisp. The rest of the soup was awesome and a little pea crunchiness couldn't keep it down.

The Yaki Soba was fried up with some lovely pork and the vegetables normally associated with Yaki soba. Onions and carrot spears. The sauce was quite lovely but then my daughter mentioned I could have it with hot sauce. So I did. There was some fresh salsa for dessert but it didn't make it into any picks. I made some for the kidlets and then some spicy stuff for me.

Had a big discussion about why I like spicy food. The gist of it was that I was sort of denied it as a kid and thus grew a craving for it. I remember eating it inspite of the burning mouth and runny nose. My mom had said I wouldn't like it. And now it is what I usually crave. Here is to hoping that my kids turn the corner some day, some day soon would be even better.

Home Cooking fo Sho.

Well we got our home cooking on this evening. The only really unfortunate part was I started to late and everyone had to snack before the main course.

So after the afternoon nap I got up to the idea of having steak fajitas wrapped in home made tortillas (the wife was egging me on). I tried to get the Mrs. to go for steak but she was not in the mood and told me to take out a can of beans instead. I'll give her this, at least she made the rice. I was in salsa mode as we had been to the local produce farm and had u-picked a bunch of tomatoes and peppers. So I started in making a batch of kids salsa (no hot peppers allowed) and then got to work kneading up some tortilla balls. These were then rolled and fried on the pan. One got way over done and surprisingly turned into Nan. Who knew. The other tortillas were nice. I whipped up some fried onions, pepper, zucchini and garlic to round out our wraps and voila.Wrap glory ala us. There is a little kids salsa and a few shots of hot sauce on there too. Very very nice.

With the wraps under wraps I started ladling kids salsa into jars and then it was into the water bath for them. And into the bath for the kids. Once all the bath times were over I got into adult salsa mode. Sultry and hot. Two giant jalapenos and four big chiles really added some punch. Then I put in one Habanero. As I was chopping it with some tomatoes in the food processor I actually had a moment where it was tough to breath. Man those are hot. So yeah this first batch of adult salsa should be pretty kick ass. Especially two or three months from now when the heat has seeped into every corner of the jar.Although I have already got two jars accounted for as I have to pay back some friends for some pretty good favours this summer. Damn friendly people liking salsa. Just once I want some favour doer to say, "no I don't like spicy food." Either that or I should start offering something else.

Home for Dinner

So after chasing the kids around today while they played with friends I was delighted to find, upon entry to the house, that dinner was ready. With all the vegetable goodness that our garden has given us the Mrs. decided to make ratatouille (forgive the spelling). It was good. She also cooked up some beans with fresh basil that also came from the garden. Mmmm good. I topped it all off with some fresh salsa. With all the ingredients coming from our most recent harvest I was feeling particularly satisfied. So so good.

Tomorrow it is back to work but for now I am just enjoying the final glowing rays of what has been an excellent summer.

Not Leftovers.

So the original plan, at least I though the original plan, was to have leftovers tonight. However, as my wife ladled the last of the curry into her bowl at lunch time I was made aware that this was no longer, if it had ever been, the plan. So we had a kind of vegetarian pancake with a wonderful spinach salad, some rice and a little home made salsa (not pictured here). After finishing the pancakes the Mrs mentioned a few key ideas, 1) no garlic in said pancakes 2)forgot to put in the mushrooms 3) lets add some after the fact cheese. Well the cheese added something but the pancakes just didn't quite make it there for me. Now I wasn't cooking so I really can't complain. The son gobbled his with some ketchup and mustard and I put back my share so complaining would be unseemly. However, I think the garden grown green beans should have been nixed and the mushrooms and garlic were definites, not maybes, definites.

Well we are off for some more summer hijinx this week. Will try to keep you posted from abroad.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch...

We are back baby. And the car is unpacked the trailer has been emptied and sold (now that was fast) and everyone is eating dinner. But I get ahead of myself.

You may remember that on Friday morning we were supposed to get packed and out the door to go camping. Amazingly enough we did. We managed to arrive at the campground by two in the afternoon and were fortunate to get there that early. The last totally empty first come first serve camp site belonged to us.Note the tarp covering the trailer. It was well used as it rained a fair bit the first evening and night. We were dry and snug inside. See don't they look dry and snug. Gratuitous baby shot coming up. If its not your thing then just skip this next one Our site was a double but we didn't mind someone else taking over the other half and it had a direct line of sight to the playground. Very important.The kids spent a majority of their time over their playing. My favourite quote has to be the son. After talking to some kids for five minutes we left the playground and were walkign back to our campsite. "Yeah, their my friends," he says to me matter of factly. To myself I thought, "its probably news to them." but to the son I signaled my agreement. As there is currently a campfire ban througout British Columbia the meals were less than camping spectacular. We definitely need to upgrade to the double burner Coleman stove. The single burner works when you can also cook on the fire but without that we were in trouble. Everything took a long time. So campfire ban was compounded by the weather. At times it was pretty cold. For the most part the rain held off and we just played under overcast skies. Swimming was out except for one spectacularly cold plunge I took. When I popped out I said to a friend on the beach, "my pores have shrunk down to nothing," which of course was the perfect set up for, "oh that's what shrank." Can't be lobbing up grapefruits like that. Its unbecoming. This is us bike riding down to our friends campsite. (Real friends not "five minute" friends, we had organized this trip in large part to hang out together).It is hard to see but these glasses are made of glow sticks and were glowing in the dark the whole evening, except of course when the flash went off.
We hung out a few times at the park and on the second night we went over to their site after dinner(they were sharing a double with some other friends of theirs) and we hung out till well past all our bedtimes. The lady with the kids on the left is part of the couple we were their with. Guy on the right is their friend who had organized the sites for them. My buddy is taking the picture. What a guy.

So that was the trip. No tubing, next to no swimming, weak camping meals, yet it was still a great time. I almost finished a book. I did finish my beers. The kids made tons of friends and just played their faces off. We went to the beach on the way home as it looked like the sun was going to make a break for it but in the end the clouds came back and after an hour or so we packed up and headed for home.

After arriving back home, before all the other work, I went out to the garden. This was today's haul.
Don't the eggplants look nice. I am very pleased. Also the basil continues to provide its green leafy goodness. Me likes it a lot. Below is the kids salsa. No hot peppers but with the garlic, basil, and tomato mixed in with zuchinni, apples, onions and red pepper it is really really flavourful. For dinner the wife was going to make some ground beef filled spring rolls but after cooking up the inside ingrediants I talked her out of going to the store for the wrappers and we just ate it over some rice. A very pleasant meal.Up next, another week of summer vay-cay. We have some swimming lessons and assorted paperwork and sundry coming up this week. Cleaning, gardening and possibly prepping the hallway for a paint. Back on the road next Friday so lets hope this week goes swimmingly. Weak as pun intended.

Three Times the Fun

Well I have been a little remiss in my blogging so this evening you get not one, not two, not three, not four, okay actually it is three blogs. I just got carried away.

Lets go back to Thursday. It was a warm afternoon and I had a school function to attend starting at seven so we decided on something simple. Smokies. I have come to enjoy my smokies on a split cheese bun. Really the bun should be toasted but even just right out of the bag it is still good. Coincidentally, these were cheese smokies so it was a double cheese night. The kids aren't much into the buns. They are all about the smoky. Unbeknownst (first time typing that and boy it sure feels wrong to type) to them there were side dishes with this evenings meal. I whipped up some garlic mashed taters to ride side saddle with some pasta salad that had been featured in the lunch portion of Thursday's menu. A grand meal all around. However, with smokies in the mix it would take another day before the daughter managed a, "these mashed potatoes are so good."

As for Friday I was feeling much the worse for wear. Late nights and general festoonary tend to have that effect on me. I am sure other people had something else but I was more than satisfied chowing down on the wifes bean salad mixed with the last portion from the third to last jar of our homemade hot salsa. I have to say the mint and cilantro in the bean salad really take the salsa to a strange and wonderful place. Once again other people ate other stuff. It just isn't coming to me right now.

Today we spent a fair bit of time out side picking stuff. It started with the last of the Hoary Alyssum in the front lawn and ended with these bad boys. Now you might be thinking that they should be a little more red before we pick them.Well the birds don't wait so if you don't get them just as they are breaking into ripeness, you just plain don't get them. Also at this stage we have yet to come across any wormy cherries. Everyone keeps warning us and I did find a few cherry pests while in the tree but so far everything is looking cherry licious. And yes we are warning the kids about the possible side effects of eating too many. But that is probably something they just have to experience first hand.

As for dinner it was a pizza night this evening. I bought some hot "something something" salami. I know it will come to me.... Not yet. Anyways, I really need to stick to the chorizo sausage I bought last time. The salami is good but not great. We managed hold off on eating the third and fourth pizza for the most part so lunch or breakfast should be pretty good tomorrow.

This last picture is a testament to the satisfaction factor of my pizza. The came, they ate, they slept.

Finger feast.

Well we started making a new movie today. Its got a princess, a witch, a dragon and a parrot. If you want to know where it is on YouTube then drop me a comment and I will send you the URL once I have it edited and posted. Now on with dinner. Originally it was supposed to be a pork stir fry night but I never took out the pork this morning to thaw so at 4:30 as I was supposed to start making dinner it was still a solid block of ice. The wife had tried to save my butt and took it out around lunch time but it was too late. So instead we took out some chicken nuggets and the leftover french fries from the perogie night and that was dinner. That and the wicked awesome spinach dip the wife made. Now knowing the wife there was no cream cheese or sour cream in this bad boy. Instead there was tofu and homemade yogurt. But it still rocked. Not your classic spinach dip but it was still awesome with both nacho chips and raw veggies. I say next time add a little cream cheese and send it over the top. But it was still delish. So with some not hot salsa, this was a total finger food night. The wife mentioned as she looked over the dearth of dishes, "we didn't use a single fork." Nice.

Double Trouble

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh..... That is the sound of first semester ending. Sure I still have three exams to prepare, invigilate and mark but that is peanuts. Sure we are down at the coast next weekend. Meh.. Its done. I get my preparatory block back this semester. I get to do Calculus this semester. Weeeee...Three levels of concious. Un, barely, overly. Which is who? You decide.

In celebration of this momentous day, I decided last night I would make dinner. I told the wife we would be having wraps with two types of filling. One was mexican style, just ground beef, onions, garlic and red pepper fried up with chilli powder, salt, pepper, garlic powder, some vinegar and ketchup. The other filling was a chick pea, tofu, coconut curry mixture. It had onions, garlic, mushrooms and some frozen corn added to it. Usually I mess up one of the fillings and dinner is a lop sided affair but this evening they both turned out. I like the anticipation of working without a recipe. Its kind of like the trapeeze without a net. Only I am starting to take my failures harder. Maybe I should be writing these down so that when they turn out I can duplicate them. Nah, lets face it. I would never even read the recipe the next time. I guess it will just always be an adventure.

To fill up the wraps we also laid out, rice, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, guacamole, salsa, home made hot pickles, and some french fries but they didn't show up until after the picture was taken. I had two wraps, a tonne of french fries and a left over pop from Christmas. Uncomfortable would be an apt adjective for my bodies condition right now. Only, when one feels uncomfortable is it an adverb because it is a way of feeling. Probably not. If it were uncomfortably maybe but I am sure someone wiser than myself has the answer to this one.

As you can see from the top picture, the son crashed out early this evening. He is currently sawing logs. The wife and daughter just had their bath and apparently the daughter was doing lengths in the tub. Where does she get the energy? Well that is all for tonight. Hopefully we will have some guests and a real feast to show you tomorrow.

Later

Ps. On further reflection, I had three wraps. That might have been the tipping point.

Everyone's Doing It.

Well it is Thursday night so we are all geared up for a snack fest followed by some movie watching. Only one week left in this semester. (Deep sigh of relief and fatigue) We also had a landmark day. The daughter got her ears pierced. Six to eight months ago when the mom in this family got her ears re-pierced the daughter was totally excited to get hers done until we got to the store. Then she chickened out. Well with "All" of her friends at school having their ears pierced she wanted to join the gang. So today she did.
I think they are slightly lopsided but no one ever really looks that closely at both ears at the same time anyways, right? Come on help me here. I know there is no way to fix it so just play along and make me feel better. Remember, it is all about me. Not unlike tonights dinner. It was guacamole with salsa and last nights curry. Couldn't have picked a better dinner if I tried. Not to mention the daughter managed to pick Ketchup flavoured Pringles as her choice of snack. Sweet. So now were are settling in for a nice busy weekend. Contracts to be read for the union, basketball games to be reffed on Saturday. Tonnes of time spent getting exams ready and setting things up for next semester's courses. Yes, life is good and busy. With any luck we will manage to get a play day and some outside skating in as well. Got another couple of layers on last night as it was cold and clear. Nice.

Hump Day

Well I am just delirious. I totally crashed after dinner. Too much work and not enough sleep makes daddy a tired boy. And I still gotta get back to work. Thats life eh. Fortunately dinner was a balm for the soul. No chicken soup though.Lets start with the soup we did have. It was a lovely miso type affair with quite a clear broth and some chopped up bok choy. Gotta love those dark greens to keep your energy up as the days grow short. The salad was lovely. Two major players were the carrots that were pulled out of a friends garden today. She is also a co worker and said she has more than enough to last her and had asked me if I would like some. I was all like, "don't even tease me, we'll be over to pick at 3:00" about it but she brought them to work. Then she was all self deprecatory about the size of the bag and the carrots. Well I should have known. They are delicious, firm and very carroty. They along with the tiny toms that we are still eating from our garden made the salad. The toms are the little red one's we picked still on the vine and are ripening down stairs. Every week the flavour gets more intense. Lovin it. I finally come to this evenings entree. It was a rice and turkey casserole. There was a layer of cabbage layered over the top and it was all topped with some grated cheddar. The seasoning was wonderful and even thought the wife thought it might have needed some salt it did not. With some of my crazy hot salsa and some natcho chips to start and a small bowl (come on I had to finish the carton, it was practically empty) of the fudgesicle ice cream I was in heaven.

Post dinner we finished the last chapter of Harry Potter, the dude in Jail one. Then I suddenly felt a little sleepy. It is now an hour and a half later. Wow, I missed all of As It happens. One more day. I think I can make it.