Catching Up - Part 1

It has been such a long time since I posted and so much has happened. I never really intended to stop blogging, but a few things got in the way. First, I discovered Instagram in the late fall and have slowly been falling in love with it ever since. So yes, I've been cheating on my blog over on Instagram. I know I'm late to the game, but instagram fits me well as it is all about random photos of small details of life or your travels and lets face it that's mostly what I write about. If you are interested in checking out what I'm posting on Instagram my name is "aliasgracie", you can find the link on the righthand sidebar of my blog, or here.

So yeah, sorry blog. You've taken a back seat for the past few months. In addition to me spending all my screen time over there on instagram, we've also been super busy in real life. We bought a house and sold our current house and are currently getting ready to move in July. 

Here's a picture of our new (old) house. It was built in 1872, but has been been really renovated inside. It is located in a little village near a larger centre so we have the best of both worlds. We back onto conservation land and can walk to the centre of the village which has a little bakery and a book shop and an art centre, but aren't far from groceries and the train station. It is all the things we always dreamed of having in a home.

the front porch of our new house

the gazebo and tree-covered hill in our new home's backyard

The timeline was tight on selling our house and we had so much to do because we weren't really planning on moving just yet.  We had it on the radar to move to somewhere quaint over the next few years, but when your friend sends you a  listing with a house that ticks all the boxes on your list, you jump at the opportunity.  

Once we bought the house, then we had to do the mad scramble of decluttering, repairing, and staging our home (which included having all new windows and a new roof put on). It was a crazy whirlwind of a month.  Here's how it played out (I want to record those dates so I won't forget how fast/tiring/crazy that month was):

April 7th - a friend sent us a real estate listing of a house she thought we would like
April 12th - we bought the house
May 6th - our present home was finally ready to be on the market
May 11th -  we had 44 people view our home and two open houses and sold it with 6 offers and over the asking price. Hurray!  It was such a tiring month that I'm only now recovering from it.

And to make things even more fun, the husband broke his wrist a few days before we listed the house and we were still in the throws of sorting and tidying. Good times. He still managed to do an amazing amount of work with an arm in a cast. 

Here's a few photos of our current house after it was tidied up and the stager had made suggestions. The person we had come and give us suggestions on how to stage our house was fantastic. She was not a minimalist and did a great job of making our home look better than it ever had before. (Apologies for the terrible photos as I took them all with the iPad,)

 

I was going to put everything in one post, but it was just getting unwieldy so I'm going to post the rest in another post.  Stay tuned for Part 2 in which we go to Nova Scotia.

And as for the blog, I hope to post updates on the house once we have moved in. It will be fun to see its transformation. The new house isn't terrible now, but we do plan on putting our own stamp on it. I do know I won't be posting as frequently as before and mostly when I have something to share. In the meantie, feel free to keep in touch over on instagram.

New Food #2

Continuing with my project for the year to try a new food every month, I bring you New Food #2 - the tamarillo.  I had never heard of it and my interest was piqued when I saw it in the grocery store sitting with the exotic fruits and looking so pretty. The skin is such a pretty blend of reds and peaches and yellows. I actually had to check twice to get the name right as I wasn't familiar with it.

After some Googling I discovered that it is a fruit grown on a small tree and is also called a tree tomato. It is native to South America, but now is grown in many subtropical areas around the world with New Zealand and Australia leading in commercial production and exporting. 

There are yellow and red varieties, with the yellow being sweeter and often eaten like a kiwi scooping it out of the skin. Since the red tamarillo are more tangy, I thought it would make sense to cook a savoury dish with it. I served it with chicken and it was delicious. While I liked the taste, I doubt I will be buying it again too often as it was very expensive. Have you ever had a tamarillo or is new to you too?

Tamarillo Chutney

INGREDIENTS
1 tamarillo
1/2 red onion, peeled and chopped
1 apple, peeled and chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
5 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1/4 cup white vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar

METHOD
1. Cover tamarillo with boiling water and allow to stand for 3-4 minutes. Then drain and when cool enough to handle peel and chop.
3. Cook the onion and garlic in a small amount of oil for about 4-5 minutes.
2. Combine ingredients in a saucepan and cook for about 30 minutes (add small amounts of water as needed) until the consistency of jam. Remove cloves before serving.

Winter Fun at Island Lake Conservation Area

  

The husband hasn't skated in about 25 years. I thought he didn't like to skate - or at least that's how I remembered it after all these years, but it turns out his old skates were uncomfortable so he never went. We fixed that problem on Saturday by buying him new skates and on Monday we went to try them out. 

I don't like to skate indoors because of all the nasty smells so I did some Googling to find outdoor skating in our area. We decided to go to Island Lake Conservation Area near Orangeville, Ontario. It turned out to be so much more than just skating and was a great choice.

There was a skating area on a pond for hockey and one out on the lake for pleasure skating. I guess skating is like riding a bike because the husband did well once he got going. It was a cold day (-15C), but no wind so we actually warmed up while we were skating and walking around and even had to take our mitts off. 

  

There were about 40 ice huts on the lake and a fishing derby for the kids. I have seen fishing huts lots of times at the cottage, but never up this close. I looked inside one of the huts (well two, but one of them had people inside looking back at me - gulp). I figured you like interiors as much as I do so I even took a picture of the inside of one. They are a little plain inside and could do with some decorating. In addition to all the ice fishing huts, there were lots of holes in the ice and even a clever contraption to cover the hole and allow access to it.

  

Other activities for the kids included making snow art using paint and bird seeds and minnow races. These were both new activities to me. The snow art would have been something I would have done with my own kids if I had thought of it when they were young, but the minnow races ... well, let's just say the minnows looked a little hypothermic and the rain gutters were freezing over and leave it at that. There were also snow shoe rentals and plenty of trails through the woods to use them on and there were campfires to cook marshmallows and hot dogs. 

Island Lake was a great place to get out and enjoy winter. I'm on the lookout for some more outdoor skating rinks now that we've established that the husband likes to skate.

   

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Do you get the urge to bake when it is cold and wet and stormy outside? I sure do. Today was one of those days - with a winter storm giving me a snow day and putting me in the mood to bake.

I decided to make a version of Ann's blueberry coffee cake (from On Sutton Place). Naturally I can't just make a recipe as is, but have to tweak it somewhat. The husband and I are trying to eat healthier so I cut down on the sugar slightly, used whole wheat flour, and added sunflower seeds. After a long snow-shoveling session this afternoon I had a piece of cake and a cup of tea, and man, did it taste great. 

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup margarine or soft butter
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
For topping: 
1/3 c. Sugar 
1/3 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup soft butter or margarine

METHOD:
1. Mix the first four ingredients together.
2. Add the baking powder and flour in a separate bowl.
3. Add slowly to butter-sugar mixture.
4. Fold in blueberries
5. Pour into 8 x 8 greased pan.
6. Sprinkle topping over blueberry batter.
7. Bake at 350F for 40 – 50 min. or until a pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Pineapple Gojju

I have a real treat for you today - a guest post by my friend's 17-year old daughter Molly. She is one of those uber-talented teens who is sweet and thoughtful, studies hard, can do yoga like nobody's business ... and is an amazing cook. She teaches the exercise/yoga class I attend every week and does a wonderful job of tailoring the moves to my aging body. Molly traveled around the world two years ago and fell in love with South Asian cooking. I've invited her to share one of her favourite recipes with us today - Pineapple Gojju - which I can't wait to try.

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It is Saturday morning and as I’m enjoying my pocket of warmth in my bed, safe from the frigid winter air outside, I am already planning what to eat for breakfast (the only motivation for leaving at all). I could opt for my usual meal - oatmeal with some chia seeds or berries on top - but today I have no plans, just a craving for some extra spicy-savoury-deliciousness.

I took a trip to India two years ago with a close family friend of mine and of all the incredible dishes we tried my absolute favourite was the coconut pineapple curry *mouth waters*… it’s the perfect balance of heat and if you love coconut as much as I do, this is bound to become your new ‘fav’ as well.

The majority of our trip was within the state of Karnataka, home to the small town of Hampi, and a few hours from the main city of Bangalore. There was one particular restaurant that holds a fond place in my memory, obviously for the food, but also for the breathtaking scenery.

This was the view from my bamboo mat on the floor

After weaving through a banana plantation for about a kilometer you’d come to a quaint little cafe - The Mango Tree Restaurant (even though there were in fact no mango trees nearby). It looked out on a beautiful green marsh with water buffalo passing by nonchalantly every half hour and monkeys climbing up in the trees… surreal I know.

Once our shoes were off and we were comfortably seated cross-legged on the floor mats the waiter would come around with fresh watermelon juice and our menus.

To the left is me (Molly) - we are very grateful to be under the shade of a big tree and about to eat!

A special bond was formed that day between the curry and me. Since returning home I’ve been trying to recreate the recipe on my own with the help of the Internet and cookbooks. I came up with this version, inspired by a recipe found on food.com, with my own twist.

Pineapple Gojju

Now its quite possible that this dish seems so magical to me because when I ordered it I hadn’t eaten in hours and was so hungry anything would’ve tasted like a five star meal, but I’m putting the recipe out there anyway and I hope you find it’s as comforting and homey on a cold winters day as I do.

So here goes!

PINEAPPLE GOJJU (Serves: 4-8)

INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon canola or grape seed oil (I use grape seed) 
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped 
1 garlic clove, finely chopped 
1 cinnamon stick 
3 clove hearts 
2 cardamom pods, capsules crushed
3 teaspoons ground coriander 
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (more or less depending on how spicy you want it) 
1 pineapple peeled and cut into small squares 
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut milk (I used the Thai Kitchen brand, from a can)
*if you prefer a sweeter tasting curry, add 1 tablespoon of sugar

Optional:
1/4 cup dried currants or golden raisins (I use currants)
Sprinkle of desiccated coconut flakes and/or extra cinnamon when serving.

DIRECTIONS:
1. Prepare all your ingredients.
2. In a frying pan heat oil and fry onion, garlic and whole spices until onions are soft.
3. Add ground spices and stir for one more minute.
4. Add pineapple and stir until well coated.
5. Add salt, coconut milk, and sugar if using.
6. Cook uncovered 5 minutes or until soft.
7. Serve with steamed white or brown rice.
8. Enjoy!