My Moose

Last week I posted a photo of a moose that walked across the still frozen lake in front of our cottage.  Unfortunately I did not get to see that moose as we arrived at the cottage after it had walked by.  I have seen moose about a half a dozen times in my life, though, so I decided to post a photo of one of my favourite sightings. 

 My husband convinced me I needed a closer photo of the moose, so here it is -

We saw this moose in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba in 2006.  I had taken Kate, her friend, and her cousin for a walk through the woods.  It was one of those still, peaceful mid-summer days with the sun shining and the air just the right temperature.  We walked along eating raspberries - a lot of raspberries.  Later that night at an evening program we discovered that we weren't supposed to eat the wild berries as they were for the wild animals - whoops!  We all looked a bit guilty but not too guilty since they had been really, really tasty.

As we were walking along the trail we looked down into a swamp and there stood a huge male moose.  We just stood and watched him eat.  I have to say that seemed like the perfect moose spot, don't you think? Lots of trees and rushes and grass.  Just where you would expect to see a moose, and we did!

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Thank you to Sarah at All Our Fingers in the Pie for this lovely blog award.  If you want to see a true foodie in action you should head over to her blog.  The unfailingly kind comments and helpful supportive friends I have met have been among my biggest pleasures in starting a blog.  So to all of you - I'm passing on this award. 

Kitchen Advice Needed

This is our kitchen at the present time.  

This summer I will be painting the cupboards white.    I have always loved a white kitchen and can't wait to see the change.  We also need to replace the stove and fridge with stainless, although that may have to wait for another year, as we have a leaking sliding door that needs tending too.  

I took some photos of the kitchen so you can see the 'before', and you can help me make a few decisions.

Last summer we had the bookcase added at the end of the counter, a new deeper countertop put on, and bought a dishwasher - that's right folks, we washed all our dishes by hand for the past 8 years.  I can tell you we loooove having a dishwasher now.  

So now on to my questions.

1.  What colour should the hardware be?  The metal finishes already in the kitchen include: the sink and faucet which are stainless, the dining room light (in the picture below on the left) is black, and the kitchen light (in the picture below on the right) is stainless.

I have seen a lot of kitchens with black or oil rubbed bronze.  I doubt oil rubbed bronze would be a good idea, much as I like it, as it would introduce yet another finish.  I was leaning toward stainless, but I was wondering if the more recent trend is toward the darker finishes.  We also have a dark counter so the dark might look better.  What do you think?

2.  Should we do knobs or handles on the upper cupboards.  I'm assuming handles would be fine on the lower cabinets, but I was considering knobs for the upper cupboards.  The only considerations, would be that the knobs mean filling one of the holes in the door, which means the whole process takes longer.  Is it worth it?

3.  Should these two cupboard doors be removed to have open shelving or should they have glass-front doors?  I love the look of both.  Making it into open shelves would be much easier as we would just need to add some trim.  I don't think we could do the glass-front doors ourselves because of the curved part of the door.  Not sure about that, though.  I would put beadboard on the backwall of the cupboard and paint it - what colour?  the green of the backsplash?  the white of the cupboards?  another accent colour?

4.  What should we do about the stove vent hood?  It could be replaced with a microwave/vent hood unit.  We could build a traditional wooden structure that encloses the vent.  We could get a sleek stainless vent.  Not sure what to do.  If we don't put the microwave over the stove, then where should we put it?

I'm counting on you to help me out.  Toss me some advice - I may or may not take it but I would love to hear lots of ideas to mull over.  Is there anything else I haven't thought of yet? 

Holiday Magazine with Matthew Mead

 

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Now, head on over for your chance to win!

Earth Hour

Saturday was Earth Hour and we were supposed to turn off our lights for an hour between 8:30 and 9:30.  

So we had to do a little preparing.

It also seemed like a good day to finally plant the pots of seed, which really should have been planted a couple of weeks ago.

We collected a bunch of these yogurt containers,

punched holes in the bottom of each container,

labelled them with the names of the seeds (and other random things - thank you Kate),

filled the pots with soil and planted the seeds (all done at top speed by William),

 watered each pot and covered the tray with plastic wrap.

And now we wait!

 

Culinary Adventures Around the World - France

We are cooking our way around the world and have finally arrived in France.  Since I started this long-term project over a year ago (you can read here about how it all began), long before I had a blog, most of the countries do not yet have posts done on them.  So far these are the countries I have made a dinner for:

• Ireland (see the recipe here)
• England
• Norway (see the recipe here)
• Russia
• The Ukraine
• Poland
• Germany
• Switzerland
• Italy (see the recipes here)
• and now France

I made two recipes from France - Salade Nicoise and Seafood Stuffed Crepes.  They both were very highly rated by everyone in the family, so I'm sure I'll be making them again, especially the salad.  I'm not sure why I never made the Salade Nicoise before, as it is anything but complicated, but now I have.

I used a Salade Nicoise recipe from MediterrAsian.com (What a fabulous site - chock full of heart-healthy recipes.)  Here is the recipe:

SALADE NICOISE

Salad Ingredients:

2 small potatoes - peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

16 green beans - ends trimmed and halved

4 cups lettuce leaves 

14 oz (420 g) canned light tuna in olive oil - drained and broken into chunks

2 tomatoes - cut into wedges

1/4 red onion - thinly sliced and rings separated

4 anchovy fillets -halved lengthways and cut into pieces

3 eggs - hard-boiled, peeled and quartered

16 black pitted olives

For the dressing:

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 clove garlic - minced

1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Cook the potatoes until tender (10 minutes), adding the beans for the last 5 minutes of cooking, then set aside to cool.

Arrange the lettuce, potatoes, beans, tuna, tomatoes, onion, anchovies, eggs, and olives on plates.

Place all the dressing ingredients in a jar and shake well.

Pour the dressing over the salad and serve.

I had a little more difficulty with the seafood stuffed crepe recipe as I had to put together a few different recipes, so I'll give you what I made, since it worked really well.

CREPES (from The Canadian Living Cookbook, 1987).

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp melted butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients and blend until smooth in a food processor.
2. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.  Stir before cooking.
3. Heat crepe pan (or frying pan) over meduim heat, brush pan with butter before cooking each crepe.  Use a 1/4 cup measure to pour batter into pan, tilting pan so batter covers bottom.
4.  Cook about 1 minute or until lightly browned, turn and cook other side 30-60 seconds or just until lightly browned.
5.  Stack crepes as they are cooked.  Use immediately or store at room temterature for a few hours, or wrap and store in refrigerator for up to 3 days, or place wax paper between crepes and freeze for up to 2 nothes.
Makes 12-16, 7-8 inch crepes.

SEAFOOD STUFFING

Ingredients:
1 pkg  salad shrimp (fresh or frozen, with tails removed)
2 lbs (900 gm) haddock fillets, cut into bite-size pieces
1 pkg scallops
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour

Method:
Melt the butter in a frying pan.
Stir in flour, mix, and cook for 1 minute.
Then add seafood and cook for a few minutes until scallops and haddock are cooked.

SAUCE

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheese (I used a French cheese)
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Melt butter in a frying pan and add flour.
Cook for 2 minutes.
Whisk in chicken stock, milk, and salt and pepper.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, stirring often until thickened, for about 8 minutes.
Remove from the heat and whisk in the cheese until smooth.

Assembling the crepes:
Spread about 1/2 cup sauce in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
Spoon about 1/3 cup of seafood stuffing onto the centre of each crepe.
Roll up and arrange in a single layer in prepared pan.
Drizzle remaining sauce over the crepes.
Bake in 375 (190 C) oven until golden, bubbly and heated through, about 35 minutes.
 

Bon Appetit!

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