Fun Fall Leaf Art

 

The leaves have only just started to turn here, but I wanted to share with you some fun leaf projects that you can keep in mind for when you have a yard full of leaves and are wondering what to do with them (apart from raking them).

1.  Arrange your leaves and laminate them to make a picture.

Artful Kids

2. Organize them by colour and make pictures - maybe an apple, a bird, an arrow, a heart, a leaf rainbow, or even words.

Mr Dale via Agonistica

Furgots

see post

see post

Agonistica

Wildlife Gadgetman

3. Organize the leaves into a rainbow of colours and then sew them together to make a fall tapestry.

Richard Shilling via Agonistica

4. Arrange the leaves by colour and find the matching paint colours. 

Chris Glass via Agonistica

5. Rake the leaves to show the passersby some love with a big leafy heart or a beautiful spiral.

Telegraph

Sylvain Meyer via Inhabitat

6.  Maybe just organizing leaves by colour is where its at. In which case you could arrange them into a circle like a glowing sun, or an arc, or into a bar of leaves, or a line.

Creaanita

Richard Shilling via Nature's Corner

Richard Shilling via BBC

Nature Whispering

7. Now here is where we get fancy - and maybe even move indoors to get some supplies like glue and pens and scissors.  You can make art with your leaves by arranging them into pictures, drawing or painting on the leaves, or even cutting silhouette patterns in the leaves.

Nature Whispering

Timothy Power

Architecturadure

Handmade Charlotte

Bicocacolrs

Inhabitat

Inhabitat

Lorenzo Duran via Fubiz

Lorenzo Duran via Fubiz

Lorenzo Duran via Fubiz

Aren't they amazing? It makes me want to get out there and have some fun with leaves when they turn colours. Are you inspired?

Curry Chicken Burgers

I only sort of like hamburgers and enjoy them no more than maybe once a year, so when I was shown this recipe for Chicken Burgers I was only lukewarm about it. Until I heard they had south Asian flavouring and came highly recommended. I can't agree more - they tasted fantastic. The spices were just right. 

I had to adapt the original recipe because I didn't have all the same spices, but the chicken burgers were so delicious that I didn't want to risk losing or forgetting about the recipe so I'm posting it right away.

Although the recipe said to cook the burgers for 10-12 minutes, I used my meat thermometer (stuck in one of the burgers sideways) and it wasn't registering 165F after 12 minutes of cooking so I cooked them a few minutes longer. There's no fooling around with raw chicken so I would advise using a thermometer to make sure.

Ingredients:
454 gm (1lb) ground chicken
1 egg
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup dried bread crumbs
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon garam masala
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Method:
1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Shape into 4 patties.
3  Cook in a frying pan turning once, for about 13-15 minutes until a meat thermometer registers 165F.

We skipped the bun and I served the chicken burgers with tzatziki, sliced tomatoes, and a couscous salad. I know, I know, holy fusion cooking, but man did it taste great!

Do you have big plans for the weekend?  This is going to be a low-key-get-things-organized kind of weekend and I'm so looking forward to it.

Summer Painting

I did a lot of painting this summer - mostly watercolours - which is a first for me. I started doing some acrylics last year, but always found watercolours to be frustrating because you can't really fix mistakes. When we went to Newfoundland in July, my mother and I packed our little paint boxes and a pad of watercolour paper and we painted most evenings. In the process of filling up my watercolour book and creating a fun memento, I learned to love doing watercolours. 

The little paint box with a collapsible brush is so portable that I didn't mind taking it with me and it gave me a way to capture the beautiful scenes we were seeing every day. One of things I love the most about painting is how it makes you focus on details you wouldn't notice otherwise - how the shadows fall, all the colours in the rocks, the different greens and browns in the vegetation ... Every evening I would look through the photos I had taken that day and paint one or two of them. I have posted a few favourites below. 

 

 

 

Recently a friend and I went to the cottage to spend some time practicing painting sky and water because boy is it difficult. We were very fortunate to have a fantastic display of different types of clouds and water textures.  I took photos on my iPad so we could paint from the pictures and ended up with a wonderful collection in just two days. I uploaded them to the computer so the quality is not as crisp as with my camera, but that just means they have a painterly quality to them already. 

We had dark and looming clouds

and light and fluffy clouds

  
and wispy clouds

  

and a blue sky with just a few little cotton puff balls 

and even for a short period of time early on one of the mornings a pure blue sky.

The water ranged from ruffled

that was insanely sparkly at times

to soft undulations

to a smooth glassy surface which allowed for great reflections of trees and clouds

   

  

 to an absolutely smooth mirror-like surface.

I can't say my paintings were out of this world, but I learned a lot.  Namely, that clouds and water are hard to paint. Ha!

Quirpon Island Salmon Loaf

When we stayed at the Quirpon Island Lighthouse Inn in northern Newfoundland (which you can read about here) we had the most delicious salmon loaf for dinner. I asked the cook if she would mind sharing the recipe and she let me copy it out. I modified it slightly to accommodate our tastes, but when I made it recently it was just as good as I remembered. 

The cook also told me that they usually serve it with cucumber sauce, but they hadn't received any cucumbers in the last shipment of food so she had substituted a sauce made from mayo and mustard. While the mayo-mustard sauce tasted great, I wanted to experience the real deal so I made the cucumber sauce. I served it with potatoes and veggies and everyone loved it. The secret to this salmon loaf is that it is made from fresh salmon which means it is a little pricier to make, but man oh man, is it moist and delicious.

SALMON LOAF
Ingredients:
900 gms (2 lbs) fresh raw salmon, skinned and chopped into small pieces
1 1/2 cups dry bread crumbs
1 1/2 cups mayo (I used low fat mayo)
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped red or green pepper
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt

Method:
1.  Mix ingredients together
2.  Pack into 2 greased loaf pans
3.  Bake at 350 for ... actually I forget how long I cooked it for and forgot to write it down (oops) and the orginal recipe didn't say, but I just googled how long other recipes call for and the verdict seems to be 45 minutes. I vaguely think that is what I cooked mine for.

CUCUMBER SAUCE
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sour cream (low fat)
1/2 cup mayo (low fat again)
3 tablespoons milk
1 cup finely chopped cucumber, drained and packed into the measuring cup (about 1/2 an English cucumber)
1/2 tsp dried dill (3 teaspoons if you are using fresh dill)

Method:

1.  Drain cucumber for 15 minutes in a strainer
2.  Mix ingredients together 

And just because any excuse will do to post some more photos of our time at Quirpon Island (you can see more in this post) I thought I would take you on a tour of the lighthouse keeper's house, which is now the inn.

  
Somehow lighthouses look gorgeous no matter the weather.

The lighthouse keeper's house was built in 1920 and is actually two identical homes side-by-side. There were two families that worked at the lighthouse and alternated one month on and one month off.  Instead of clearing all their personal belongings out every month when it was time to leave the island they just built them each a home to use. 

When the lighthouse keeper's homes were converted to an inn an opening was created between the two homes and it is now used as one building (you can see the two front doors in the photo below). The original living room for the house on the left is now the inn's living room and the original living room for the house on the right is now the dining room. Likewise, the original kitchen for the house on the left is now a staff room and the one on the right is the inn's kitchen. 

I love knowing the layout of older homes and imaging how they were used. Isn't the white with red trim perfect for a lighthouse keeper's home ... and just imagine decorating your front porch with whale rib bones.

Let's take a look inside shall we.  Here's the front hall with the door cut through between the two homes with the living room visible beyond.

And turning the other way is the dining room.

with the kitchen behind it.

We actually stayed in the guest house so I don't have any photos of the original bedrooms. Life on Quirpon Island is slow and quiet. You go there to see icebergs and whales and beautiful rocks and gorgeous skies which we did in spades.

I hope you give the salmon loaf a try as it is too good to be missed. Have you ever made salmon loaf?  I always used tinned salmon in the past, but the fresh salmon is the best.

p.s. Linked to Enchanting Inspiration at Migonis Home