Quinzhee!

From Out and About

I've only played "Yahtzee" once, but I remember that you get to yell "Yahtzee!" when you win!

I like that "quinzhee" sounds like "yahtzee" so that I got to yell "Quinzhee!" when we worked the better part of an afternoon last weekend to build a snow hut. It's a nice yelling word: "Quinzhee!"

A quinzhee is a cross between a snow cave and an igloo. It is made by piling snow into a (very) large mound and then digging out a roomy hole. The science works. It's incredible. The hardest part for me was shoveling snow into the pile. The whole left side of my upper back was sore the next day; apparently, I'm not an ambi-shoveler.

From Out and About

We managed to sleep in it for 2 hours that night until we decided that our dog was too cold, and that my sleeping bag was *just* not warm enough to be comfortable all night. (I think Angela could have stayed all night if she hadn't been so lonely.)

From Out and About

If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend you try to build yourself a quinzee. If not just to have the opportunity to yell "Quinzee!"

(I just realized this was my 50th blog post!!! 50! Yay! "Quinzhee!!!!!")

From Out and About

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To (properly) Build a Fire

From Out and About

In grade 9, I remember studying a compilation of short stories, one of which was Jack London's To Build a Fire. This is the only story I remember with such detail. The climax of the story involved him being lazy and building a fire directly below a spruce. The snow on the spruce eventually warms, falls, and snuffs out his fire.

Silly man.

We are smarter.

Last weekend, we were generously invited up to a friend's cottage. Tatiana built a fire. She's smart. She's an engineer. She built the fire in the middle of the frozen lake. The location of the fire was likely driven more by awesomeness than by winter survival skills, but it still reminded me of the short story and the unfortunate demise of the man who built the fire.

From Out and About

From Out and About

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The not-Russian, Russian Salad

From Food

As I'm cheering on team Canada while they pummel the Russians in the men's hockey quarter finals, I find it fitting to introduce you to one of my favourite potato salads: Ruska Salata.

Ruska Salata means "Russian Salad" in Serbian. "Come again?" Yes. It's not actually Russian. It's Serbian. Sort of like how French fries aren't French, and Pâté Chinois isn't Chinese.

I've seen a few variations of Ruska Salata, but the version I was introduced to involves potatoes (finely diced), carrots (finely diced), dill pickles (finely diced), and smoked ham (finely diced), all married generously with mayonnaise. I've seen recipes with peas or even eggs.

Here's your opportunity to improve your dicing skills. I still can't get the dices as small as they should be, but mine are about the size of Monopoly houses -- not the hotels: that would be far too large.

For the ham, I usually use deli meat: a nice black forest ham that I cut into mini squares. This time, I used roasted chicken breast because that's what we had in the fridge.

The potatoes and carrots came from the CSA box. One of my favourite things about the CSA box is the rustic, non-uniform shapes and sizes of the fruits and vegetables. We've gotten apples the size of our face, pears the size of a golf ball, and short, fat carrots that resemble the ammo in Super Mario 2 -- anything to make me smile as I dice and dice and dice away...

From Food

From Food

You can vary the amount of mayonnaise you use. I think it's a personal preference; I battle between my love of mayonnaise and my desire for a supermodel body. This week was a light-on-the-mayo version. We still think it's absolutely delicious!

Ruska Salata (the supermodel version)

2 large potatoes
3 medium carrots (or 2 Mario-2 sized carrots)
3/4 cup finely diced pickles
1/2 cup diced deli-sliced ham or chicken breast
1/2 cup mayonnaise

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Peel and finely dice the potatoes and carrots. When the water comes to a boil, generously salt and add the finely diced vegetables. Boil until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Drain in a colander and let cool slightly. Add pickles, deli-meat, and mayonnaise and mix until mayonnaise is well distributed. Add mayonnaise as desired. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

We love this salad. So much that I didn't remember to take a picture of the final product until there was barely a serving remaining. You might say I was "Russian" so much that I forgot to take a picture!

From Food

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The beets have me beat

From Food

I've been sucked into the world of the Olympics. I have suddenly developed an interest in all sports on ice, snow, and little bumps called "moguls."

As such, my posts have fallen behind.

I finally decided to try a new beet recipe (we're talking several weeks ago now.) I had already tried making a beet salad; I moved to a pureed beet soup; neither were satisfying to the palette (well, *my* palette.) My friend Jenn suggested a beet cake. Why not? Carrot cake sure is delicious!

I decided to try and increase the chances of success with a recipe that included a cream cheese icing. Things that I learned while making this recipe:

1. Grating beets by hand is ridiculous. Use a food processor, but take pictures with the hand grater because it's prettier.
2. Don't leave any important mail on the countertop. The beets will fall on it. Your mail will turn pink.
3. Grated beets look like worms.
4. The cake will first look magenta -- it then bakes to an auburn.
5. Beet cake smells like horse feed (thanks, Susan.)
6. Beet cake tastes better with cream cheese icing.
7. This recipe does not make me love beets.

From Food

From Food

From Food

It looks like the beets have me beat. But as I mentioned before, my posts are very behind (although I am now an expert judge in moguls: keep those knees together!) I have recently discovered my first use of beets that I can safely say is delicious... stay tuned...

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Thirty and Flirty and Thriving

From Maximus

"My mom turns 30 today. I can't even count to 30. But I've been told it's not hard. 30's not that much. My dad's way older."

Happy Birthday Kandice!

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There's a 'P' on her Tee!

My best friend's birthday was yesterday.

I had the perfect gift.

After purchasing my very own Bernina Serger with Christmas gift cards, I immediately signed up for the t-shirt class at the workroom. I think it's my favourite class so far (except that the birdie sling will always hold a special place in my heart because it was "the class that started it all.") I chose to make myself a v-neck, extra-long t-shirt. Everyone in the class had a spectacular product worthy of purchase in any American Apparel.

From sewing

From sewing

I had just enough leftover fabric to make another tee for my teeny tiny best friend. And for a special touch: a P (for Priscilla.) Super chic houndstooth with a button for the hole. I just love any detailing that incorporates buttons!

From sewing

From sewing

It was also time that I came up with a label to sew onto my handmade masterpieces. After lots of humming and hawing, Dustin helped me design this simple label. I printed it on cotton that feeds right in your inkjet printer and am so impressed with how professional it looks. It's a good thing I married into the Dunwell family, and not the Duncrappy family.

From sewing

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Say you love crepes!

Ricky Bobby prefers to call them "really thin pancakes" but I think crepes are so much better than a spongy pancake.

From Food

Our CSA boxes have been plentiful in the world of flour. First, Red Fife flour which I used to make Red Fife Blueberry Banana muffins. Then I received some Spelt Flour, which is still standing proud in my pantry. Today, I picked up some Rye Flour. Time to learn how to bake bread! Rye not?

In the meantime, I need to keep replacing regular recipes with some of this fancy flour.

This past Saturday, I woke up at 8am. Definitely not because I wanted to. I just can't seem to sleep in on Saturday mornings, especially when I want to make crepes.

I used Alton Brown's recipe for crepes, replaced half the flour with Red Fife whole wheat Flour and then decided it was far too runny and added more all-purpose flour. In the end, I think I did 3/4 cup AP flour, and 1/2 cup Red Fife flour.

From Food

The great thing about crepes is that you can cook them, cool them, stack them, store them in the fridge and then warm them up in the microwave when the rest of the house is awake 2 hours later.

Add some fresh fruit (I used bananas, mangoes, kiwis, blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries), plain yogurt, real maple syrup, and homemade granola: YUM-O!

From Food

My homemade granola was adapted from the Joy of Baking recipe. I nixed the nuts, cut the cinnamon in half, split the mixture into two pans in the oven, made sure to take it out after 15 mins (not 30) and right after it comes out of the oven, I drizzed some organic honey on top and gave it a last mix so it kinda stuck together. Perfect crunchy topping for the crepes!

From Food

From Food

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Confused Christmas Cactus

From garden

My Christmas cactus is flowering! For many years, the plant was confused and thought it was an Easter cactus flowering mostly in March or April. Then, trying hard to make us proud, it would flower again in the summer. Poor little confused Christmas cactus.

It is early February, and this is the closest Buddy (yes, I named him Buddy) has gotten to flowering at Christmas! I'm so proud of him!

From garden

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