Culinary Adventures Around the World - Italy

Yep I just had to start out with a photo of my favourite part of the meal - the dessert.  I have always wanted to try panettone bread, as I see them every year in the store, but have never bought one before, so that is what we had for dessert and it was fantastic. What can I say, I'm a sweet-type person.  

Now that we are in Italy, on our round-the-world cooking adventure, I made the Italian meal in Martha Stewart Living magazine December 2009 issue, well some of it anyway.  The menu was as follows:

Antipasto: 
sundried tomatoes, olives, provolone, and prosciutto

Primo: 
Spaghetti with crab ( I didn't put the lobster in)

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/nonnas-crab-and-lobster-with-spaghetti

Secondo: 

Oven-braised Lentils

Cod cooked in a tomato sauce

Carmelized Brussel Sprouts
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/caramelized-brussels-sprouts

Dessert:

Panettone

Clementine Oranges

Sorry to make you all drool with that photo of the panettone - it really was as delish as it looks - lovely soft bread with chunks of chocolate throughout and chocolate on top.  It was a great ending to the meal and definitely something we will repeat.  We just might have to make that our New Years day tradition from now on - have Italian food with panettone for dessert.

Now on to FRANCE!!!!

Culinary Adventures Around the World

I decided about a year ago that we would cook our way around the world.  Actually to give credit where credit is due, we watched Michael Palin's Around the World in 80 Days, which we enjoyed despite the anti-climatic ending.  Anyway - I got the idea that we could cook our way around the world even if we couldn't literally travel around the world.  I figured it would add some variety to our meals and we would get to have some fun doing it.

The rules were pretty simple - we had to travel to adjoining countries or ones directly across bodies of water and couldn't skip countries, and the food had to be something we hadn't tried before.  For example, I make borscht frequently, so when we got to the Ukraine I couldn't make borscht.

I get the recipes from the internet by Googling traditional foods from that country.  I pick the recipes based on what ingredients are readily available (and I often do have to make some substitutions in the recipes - my apologies to the countries from which I'm butchering the recipes); recipes we would enjoy eating; and how hard it looks to make.  I let William, my 15 year old plan the route around the world as he had firm ideas about which direction we should go.

We started in Ireland and so far have been to Great Britain, Norway, Russia (bet you didn't know that you could get directly from Norway to Russia - I didn't  - well William proved you can, so that's what we did), the Ukraine (we were stuck here for about 5 months when I was sick, busy at work, and summer happened with everyone away at camp), Poland, Germany, Switzerland, and finally Italy.  Stay tuned for details about the other countries.

At the end of the dinner, we all vote on how well we liked each of the dishes I have made.  In the process we have found some sure winners, recipes that I have already repeated, and will add to our family repetoire.

My Favourite Shoes

I have to start of by saying that I love the blog You Look Fab.  Angie often talks about her difficulty finding shoes that are comfortable 8-hour shoes and that look good as well.  I can really sympathize - having wide feet, with high insteps that cause me no end of problems.  Well, I recently bought these Clark shoes and I love them.  They have a 2 inch heel, which for me is high, but they are so comfortable I can wear them all day and even wear them on purpose if my feet are sore as they seem to align them properly and my feet feel better wearing them.  Wierd, huh?  Especially, given that I usually wear flats or very low heels.

2009 - Projects Accomplished

Well this year we accomplished 3 home projects - wow, wahoo, yippee!!!  I know, I know, we are so awsome, such heavy duty reno-freaks.  Anyway the three amazing projects are, in order from most to least impressive:

1. installed hard-wood floor in the family room.  You can see the during and the after photos posted above and for the before picture you can visualize cream-coloured carpet with some large pee stains thanks to Juno.  I tried and tried to clean the carpet but eventually we decided that we needed to replace the carpet with hardwood.  We had installed laminate in the basement but had never done real hardwood. We bought the hardwood flooring on sale, installed a plywood subfloor, and rented a nailer and compresser, one weekend in early December, and went to work.  We finished late on Sunday with sore muscles, a few scrapes, and a great feeling of self-satisfaction.  I have to say the wood floor looked fab with the Christmas tree.

2.  had a new counter, dishwasher, and bookcase installed in the kitchen.  We didn't do this one ourselves but we have certainly loved the results - especially the dishwasher (which hubby actually did install himself).  We haven't had a dishwasher since we moved into this house in 2001 so that is a lot of sinks full of soapy water.  Sorry no photos, as I'm just too lazy to go and take photos (well to be honest to clean up the counters first, then take the photo, then up-load it to the computer).  We have more to do in the kitchen, so stay tuned.

3.  painted the front door a new colour.  It used to be a dark green colour, that was nice, but a bit 90s, so I picked this new blue and hubby painted the door this past summer.  Then I selected, bought, and hung the wreath - I know, I know, very impressive work on my part.  Isn't that the most beautiful colour of blue - it is called Georgian Bay by Benjamin Moore.  Not only do I love the colour but we go to a family cottage on Georgian Bay in the summer so it has fond associations for us.

Anyway there you have the three projects we did.  Not earth-shattering, but  made our home a little homier. 

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.