culinary experiments, and Thanksgiving fun
Before we drove down to my parents for Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to cut up the little red hot peppers (maybe birds eye?) that we'd received in our vegetable basket. I neglected to use gloves, and my fingers were hurting so badly, even into the next day. It's like a neural disrupter, the pain sort of goes away, then returns if you put hot water on your finger, or even if you get sunshine on the spot ... I even got some burns on my nose when I used a kleenex! Owww! Thankfully that dissipated sooner.
In this week's vegetable basket, I received parsnips and carrots, and I still have some celeriac from last week ... I see a soup in my future!
Thanksgiving weekend was good. Owen was pretty well-behaved, in the car, and hanging around with all the adults talking. He didn't annoy us too much to pay attention to him, though we did let him watch youtube a few times to distract him. Mack and my mom and I played Carcassonne with him once, which we all enjoyed. At one point after lunch with my mom's side of the family, my aunt was giving Owen different tasks to do - touch your toes, crawl under the table, run to your bedroom and back, etc. She tried giving him speaking or singing assignments, and he would just clam up and hide his head. She turned to me and said, "I can see he's not into expressing himself in a vocal way ..." She's used to her grand nieces, who are very comfortable with both vocalizing and physical activity. But Owen would much rather physical activity! He was more than willing to do whatever she suggested, and she came up with a lot of neat and fun things! I should have taken notes.
Dinner that day (Saturday) was ham, and everything was really tasty. I decided to make a bit of a sauce for the ham, kind of a gravy. I read some recipes, thought about what we had in the house, and then made something inspired by the recipes I'd seen. The base was half spiced apple tea, half chicken broth. I added a bit of apple cider vinegar, then some honey, then some salt. I boiled it for a little while, then thickened it a bit. People who tried it while I was still making it said it was too vinegary, but after it sat for a bit, it mellowed. Plus, it was a nice complement to the ham - the slight acidity cutting through the sweet, salty meat. I was pretty proud of myself, and got a few comments on it - pretty sure they were compliments, not just "Well, that was interesting!" LOL!
Sunday we drove to my grandmother's place, and had lunch with her. We played some fun quiz games in the car, and had a fantastic meal there too (roast beef, potatoes, corn, carrots, and Boston cream pie afterwards!). Owen cleaned his plate, and then had two pieces of pie (as did some others!)!
We made it back to my parents place in time for some swimming before dinner. Dinner was pretty light, considering the big lunch we'd had! My mom and I watched the debate together that night, though I ended up sputtering at the screen a lot, and even yelled back at some of the things that were said. It wasn't good for my mental state, but I'm glad I got through it.
Owen slept really well the whole weekend. In the past, he'd made noises about being scared to sleep in the room we were in, and would sometimes creep out to the living room, but nothing came up this time. And on Monday morning (the day we were leaving) Owen slept in till after 8am! My mom and dad and I were all up before him! I guess that swimming the day before really took it out of him.
We were on the road back to Ottawa shortly after 10 am, and only did a few stops - one for lunch just past Toronto (traffic through TO was just fine, thankfully), and then once more at the Big Apple north of Toronto. It's a big touristy stop - petting farm, big apple structure, gift shops, cider brewery, mini golf, etc. We stopped mostly for the minigolf, but then bought some cider on our way out too. It was crazy busy there, but luckily while we stopped there, the traffic (which had been slowing down as we approached the Big Apple) cleared, and our drive from there on was pretty uneventful. We even made it home in time for supper.
Since we got back, it's been a crazy busy short week. I had to sneak out for groceries on Monday when we got back, as Mack was going to be out both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Owen's school seems to be low-key this week, no additional reading books coming home (so I got some from the library to keep up the good work he's doing!). It was picture day this week, and I got him to wear at least a nice t-shirt with no logo - I figured that's a win. I think they're getting progress reports soon, I'm curious how that will look.
We got a big announcement at work yesterday, they've decided on who the new Executive Director will be. They had it down to two final candidates, and staff were asked for their input last week. To us, there was one pretty clear winner, but now that we had met both and had invested our time in the interview process, we had all been dying to find out who it would be. So, we were all relieved to hear the news yesterday, as the one they chose was the one we all preferred. The new Executive Director will be starting on Nov 14th. She'll be dropped right into it, as it's Budget season, we've got lots of different courses happening, and our membership renewal drive is starting. It'll be a fun few months getting her up to speed.
In news from home, I made another interesting sauce for supper one day this week. I had bought fish (rainbow trout) in the market, and baked it. I found a dill garlic sauce recipe, but didn't have dill. Instead, I cut up some parsley, and mixed that with broth and garlic, and cooked that down into a tasty sauce for the fish. Owen didn't want any, but that was OK with Mack and I - more for us. Owen did help with the making of the sauce, which was I appreciated - apparently he likes peeling and crushing garlic cloves. Left me free to work on other parts of the meal.
Looking forward to a fairly quiet weekend at home. I'll probably do some baking, some cooking, and likely some football watching. There's an open house at the archive building of a local museum - they open their doors once a year, and we always enjoy the exhibits they have. We can't make it till the afternoon, but hopefully it won't be too busy (we've always gone in the mornings before).
I guess I should get back to it - to those I saw last weekend, it was good to see you all. To the rest, hope you're doing well!
In this week's vegetable basket, I received parsnips and carrots, and I still have some celeriac from last week ... I see a soup in my future!
Thanksgiving weekend was good. Owen was pretty well-behaved, in the car, and hanging around with all the adults talking. He didn't annoy us too much to pay attention to him, though we did let him watch youtube a few times to distract him. Mack and my mom and I played Carcassonne with him once, which we all enjoyed. At one point after lunch with my mom's side of the family, my aunt was giving Owen different tasks to do - touch your toes, crawl under the table, run to your bedroom and back, etc. She tried giving him speaking or singing assignments, and he would just clam up and hide his head. She turned to me and said, "I can see he's not into expressing himself in a vocal way ..." She's used to her grand nieces, who are very comfortable with both vocalizing and physical activity. But Owen would much rather physical activity! He was more than willing to do whatever she suggested, and she came up with a lot of neat and fun things! I should have taken notes.
Dinner that day (Saturday) was ham, and everything was really tasty. I decided to make a bit of a sauce for the ham, kind of a gravy. I read some recipes, thought about what we had in the house, and then made something inspired by the recipes I'd seen. The base was half spiced apple tea, half chicken broth. I added a bit of apple cider vinegar, then some honey, then some salt. I boiled it for a little while, then thickened it a bit. People who tried it while I was still making it said it was too vinegary, but after it sat for a bit, it mellowed. Plus, it was a nice complement to the ham - the slight acidity cutting through the sweet, salty meat. I was pretty proud of myself, and got a few comments on it - pretty sure they were compliments, not just "Well, that was interesting!" LOL!
Sunday we drove to my grandmother's place, and had lunch with her. We played some fun quiz games in the car, and had a fantastic meal there too (roast beef, potatoes, corn, carrots, and Boston cream pie afterwards!). Owen cleaned his plate, and then had two pieces of pie (as did some others!)!
We made it back to my parents place in time for some swimming before dinner. Dinner was pretty light, considering the big lunch we'd had! My mom and I watched the debate together that night, though I ended up sputtering at the screen a lot, and even yelled back at some of the things that were said. It wasn't good for my mental state, but I'm glad I got through it.
Owen slept really well the whole weekend. In the past, he'd made noises about being scared to sleep in the room we were in, and would sometimes creep out to the living room, but nothing came up this time. And on Monday morning (the day we were leaving) Owen slept in till after 8am! My mom and dad and I were all up before him! I guess that swimming the day before really took it out of him.
We were on the road back to Ottawa shortly after 10 am, and only did a few stops - one for lunch just past Toronto (traffic through TO was just fine, thankfully), and then once more at the Big Apple north of Toronto. It's a big touristy stop - petting farm, big apple structure, gift shops, cider brewery, mini golf, etc. We stopped mostly for the minigolf, but then bought some cider on our way out too. It was crazy busy there, but luckily while we stopped there, the traffic (which had been slowing down as we approached the Big Apple) cleared, and our drive from there on was pretty uneventful. We even made it home in time for supper.
Since we got back, it's been a crazy busy short week. I had to sneak out for groceries on Monday when we got back, as Mack was going to be out both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Owen's school seems to be low-key this week, no additional reading books coming home (so I got some from the library to keep up the good work he's doing!). It was picture day this week, and I got him to wear at least a nice t-shirt with no logo - I figured that's a win. I think they're getting progress reports soon, I'm curious how that will look.
We got a big announcement at work yesterday, they've decided on who the new Executive Director will be. They had it down to two final candidates, and staff were asked for their input last week. To us, there was one pretty clear winner, but now that we had met both and had invested our time in the interview process, we had all been dying to find out who it would be. So, we were all relieved to hear the news yesterday, as the one they chose was the one we all preferred. The new Executive Director will be starting on Nov 14th. She'll be dropped right into it, as it's Budget season, we've got lots of different courses happening, and our membership renewal drive is starting. It'll be a fun few months getting her up to speed.
In news from home, I made another interesting sauce for supper one day this week. I had bought fish (rainbow trout) in the market, and baked it. I found a dill garlic sauce recipe, but didn't have dill. Instead, I cut up some parsley, and mixed that with broth and garlic, and cooked that down into a tasty sauce for the fish. Owen didn't want any, but that was OK with Mack and I - more for us. Owen did help with the making of the sauce, which was I appreciated - apparently he likes peeling and crushing garlic cloves. Left me free to work on other parts of the meal.
Looking forward to a fairly quiet weekend at home. I'll probably do some baking, some cooking, and likely some football watching. There's an open house at the archive building of a local museum - they open their doors once a year, and we always enjoy the exhibits they have. We can't make it till the afternoon, but hopefully it won't be too busy (we've always gone in the mornings before).
I guess I should get back to it - to those I saw last weekend, it was good to see you all. To the rest, hope you're doing well!