Have You Ordered Yours Yet?

I love it when someone through talent and sheer perseverance makes good things happen and that's just what Matthew Mead has done with his Holiday magazines.  

Now I'm a firm believer in no-Christmas-before-Hallowe'en talk, but I'm making an exception in this case so you can order your copy of the new Holiday with Matthew Mead 2011 magazine.  I've had several issues of Matthew Mead's magazines in the past and loved them. 

• I love the recipes, crafts, and decorating ideas.
• I love, love, love the beautiful photography.
• I love the inspiration.

Check out this video clip to see what I mean. (I love that the video starts with the photo of the lovely, talented Linda MacDonald from Restyled Home - one of the first blogs I found and still one of my favourites.)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fs08ocTDFk

I'm looking forward to getting my copy in the mail - how about you?  Have you ordered yours yet?

Thank You Queen Victoria

I would personally like to thank Queen Victoria for being born.  Let's all take a moment and pause to remember her.  

 

Today is Victoria Day in Canada, a national holiday, so we get a 3-day weekend.  Wahoo!!!

Victoria Day is celebrated on May 24th, although that varies from year to year, since it is celebrated on the first Monday on or before May 24.  Hence it is aka as the May Long weekend, or May 2-4.  That last name is a bit of a joke referring to both the date and the name for a case of 24 beer, also called a  2-4, and a lot of beer often gets consumed on the long weekend. - get it!.  

As far as I know we are the only country in the Commonwealth that still celebrates her birthday.  We are just that loyal (or ... we just love a long weekend, but we'll never tell).  The Victoria Day weekend is the unofficial start to the summer season and all good things like going to the cottage, camping, and bbqs.

A lot of communities have fireworks, but since we go to the cottage we usually don't see them.  Our long weekend is more about walks in the woods, eating, playing games, eating, celebrating William's birthday which will involve eating...

Happy Victoria Day to all my fellow Canadians!

p.s.  Don't forget to enter my Cottage Charm Giveaway.

St. Patrick's Day

We have been cooking our way around the world for the past year and the first stop we made was Ireland.  I thought I would cook the same thing that I made for our stop in Ireland, since it is St. Patrick's Day.  Colcannon was a big hit with the family, so it is a recipe I'm happy to repeat.

Colcannon is really easy and I have to say one of the best ways to eat cabbage.  You know how healthy cabbage is, but it isn't always easy to use a big head of cabbage.  Colcannon not only uses a lot of cabbage but it is the ultimate comfort food.  I'm sure there are a lot of variations of the recipe but this is the one I used.

COLCANNON

Ingredients:

1 pound green cabbage

1 pound potatoes

2 leeks (for info on how to prepare leeks see here)

1 1/4 cup milk

1 pinch ground mace

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup melted butter

Directions:

1. Boil cabbage until tender, then drain and chop well.  Set aside and keep warm.

2. Boil potatoes until tender, then drain, season, and mash. 

3. Wash and chop leeks and simmer in milk until they are soft.

4. Stir the cooked leeks and milk, and chopped cabbage into the mashed potoates and heat the whole until it is a pale green fluff.
5. Make a well in the middle and pour in the melted butter.  Mix well.

Our green table just waiting for some dinner to be served.

One more peek at the fluffy, green yumminess.  Mmmmm!

Wishing you the luck of the Irish today!

Linked to Strut Your Stuff St. Patrick's Day link party at Somewhat Simple

p.s. Don't forget to enter the Easter egg giveaway, on until Sunday, March 21st.

Cock-a-Leekie Soup

My father's father was born just outside of Cardiff, Wales and came to Canada when he was about 7 years old.  Since I am part Welsh, I thought it would be fun to celebrate St. David's Day.  St. David is the patron saint of Wales and March 1st, which is his feast day, is a time of great celebration in Wales.  

Leeks are the symbol of Wales and daffodils are the flower of Wales, so today we had some of each.

I couldn't find any daffodils in bloom so these ones were the best I could do - they'll open in a few days.  We also had some cock-a-leekie soup, a traditional Welsh chicken and leek soup. I know, kind of a bad name.

A lot of people don't know how to cook with leeks - even my mother emailed me for cooking instructions.  Leek are a very mild onion and taste great on their own or in soups.   You need to cut them approximately where the green part of the leaves starts, cut off the root part, slice lengthwise, and rinse carefully.

Then cut into small 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices.

I'm not sure how authentic this soup recipe is but this is what we (my Mom and I) made.

 

Cock-a-Leekie Soup (for 6 people)

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

3 celery sticks, thinly sliced

3 medium carrots, thinly sliced

3 small potatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces

10 mushrooms, thinly sliced

3 leeks, trimmed and washed and cut into slices

salt and pepper to taste.

How to prepare:

Boil chicken in water for about 20-30 minutes (use the water for the broth).

Remove chicken from the water.

Add celery, carrots, and potato pieces to the water and boil for about 5 minutes.

Add the mushrooms and leeks and boil for about 10 minutes.

Chop chicken into bite-size pieces and add to soup.

Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with some crusty bread.

Happy St. David's Day!

Anyone else have a Welsh background?  Anyone cook with leeks?

New Years

We went to the cottage for 2 days just before New Years and enjoyed lots of winter wonderland fun.  As you can see from the last photo, we have to walk in to the cottage in the winter, pulling our food and clothes on toboggans.  It is about 2.5 kilometers from the main road, where we park our car, so it isn't too far, and it certainly gets you some exercise and fresh air.  It was -17 when we were walking in so it was a little nippy when I kept taking my gloves off to take photos because the lighting was soooo pretty.

Over the two days we did some snowshoeing, walked on the lake, took some photos, ate yummy food, read, and played cards. 

A perfect few days all in all.