Pocketful of Memory Cards

Autumn inspires me in many ways.  The Fall harvest along with the bite in the air, stirs my desire to cook comfort food.  I seem to be iphone photoing a lot of my efforts over the past few weeks.  This post is more about the recipes than quality of the photos.  Hope you find something delicious and comforting. I was inspired to make my version of this traditional Portuguese soup while looking at options for travel next fall.  I used chorizo from the stupor store, kale from our own garden,  walla walla onions and flavourful potatoes from Don-O-Ray . I'm not much of a baker but I will make the occasional pie.  This occasion was an evening of dessert and drinks with friends.  This pie set a high standard for any future apple pies I bake. Darned if I can remember what recipe I used but I definitely recommend apples from Bite Me Organics .  My mom made the best pie crust bar none.  I don't know what her secret was...

My focus has been on my writing as of late so I haven't been taking many photos, other than a few iPhone pix.  I've scheduled in some time to play with my camera and have a new project in mind so you should be seeing some interesting work (hopefully!) come April.  Hope these iPhone shots will entertain you for now.

Our daughter lives in a lovely old home with a lovely bunch of people.  However, having five roommates does make entertaining a bit of a challenge.  At the moment she's house sitting for a friend so last night she invited us over for a Mexican themed meal and asked me to bring dessert. We started with a flavourful tortilla soup followed by avacado mac and cheese.  I believe the pasta was her own creation and it's quite tasty with whole wheat rotini and lots of garlic! As the conversation wound down towards the end of the meal, my hubby turned his attention to his phone.  I was both annoyed and surprised because he's not a cell phone person at all and usually turns his off as soon as he leaves the office.  He ignored my jabs and set the phone in the middle of the table, allowing me to see he'd put it on speaker and it was dialling the number of our son who lives almost 400 kilometres away.  It took four attempts but we finally got th...

For me, the best part of Thanksgiving dinner is the Turkey Barley Soup made from the left over carcass.  This recipe is from the Recipes Only cookbook given to my by my good friend  Annie Bee . First, make turkey stock with the leftover bird using onion, carrots, celery etc. Turkey Barley Soup 1/2 cup pearl barley 1 cup dicd carrots 1 onion, coarsely chopped 2 cups diced rutabaga 1 cup diced turkey salt and peper to taste 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (optional) Put stock in large pot, stir in barley and simmer, covered for 30 minutes. Add diced carrot, onion and rutabaga. Simmer for a further 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add turkey, season well with salt and pepper.  Garnish with parsley if desired. Enjoy!

The bad news is my daughter is moving out this weekend, and yes, you guessed it, the good news is my daughter is moving out this weekend.   As I suggested in the blog post , when she returned to us last fall, I was concerned about the effects of her social life on me, thinking I'd be worried about her staying out late.  Turns out I was right, I worried for nothing.  I guess I've just learned to trust my daughter.   She's really is fun to have around and I've loved hearing her perspective on things going on in the world.  I've enjoyed hearing about her anthropology and fine art classes and the young men and women in her life.  It's both so different and similar to my own experience in the 80's.   I've also loved having someone else make dinner every Friday night and the recipes she shared like this flavourful one for  spinach soup . I've been sitting here trying to come up with some reasons that I'm not sorry she's leaving but th...

When I arrived home from grocery shopping on Tuesday I discovered my husband had already purchased a four litre jug of milk to replace the empty one I had spied on the counter that morning.  I bought one too.  We don't use a lot of cow's milk and a four litre jug will usually last us two weeks.  It's not that we don't like it, we just believe that milk is for baby cows, not people and use almond or soy milk (though someone  prefers cow milk in their cereal).  I've been on a kick to use up the extra milk for the past two days and tonight we are going to consume it in a flavourful curried cauliflower soup.   I used this recipe more or less.  The cauliflower was huge so I added a little more curry, used chicken flavoured vegetable broth and replaced the half & half with a cup of skim milk.  I also left some small chunks of cauliflower in the mix because I like a little texture in my creamed soups.  I also added a couple of hu...

Instead of posting a review on Chez Kelowna, (which I haven't posted on in almost a year), I thought I'd cheat a little post on my photo blog instead. In between our pre-vacation errands today, we stopped at The Green Room for a quick lunch.  We shared the Chili Butternut Squash Quesidilla, adding some chicken for $2.00.  Soup or salad was included so I had the small bowl that came with the entree and my husband ordered a regular bowl of soup.  Though the entree was good, it was tiny.  Cut into four, I could easily have fit one wedge into my mouth, but not wanting to appear too piggish I cut it in two.  The added chicken could only be found on one of my pieces. The corn and bean salsa was flavourful but there was more salsa than quesedilla.  The soup was homemade  creamed vegetable but I have to say it wasn't very creamy.  It was like a vegetable soup with some milk added to it.  Perhaps it was creamer at one time, but had to be stre...

While I've been beavering away on my novel I decided to free up some time and use my crock-pot a little more often.  There's lots of slow cooker recipe books out there, probably more than necessary, and some recipes I've made - particularly two that I made last week make me wonder "What's the point?"   Last Tuesday I made ratatouille that I must say was delicious, but it took more than two hours of prep and clean-up, dirtying almost every pot in the place before I deposited the ingredients in the crock-pot to basically re-heat all day. It would have been easier to just throw it in a pan at the end,  stick it in the fridge until 5:00, then cook it for half an hour. This morning I selected a recipe from  Canada's Best Slow Cooker Recipes, by Donna-Marie Pye.   This is the best kind of slow cooker recipe.  Chop everything up, throw into the pot with some stock and spices, turn it on low and fuhgedaboudit.  Donna's Spicy Vegetable...

There's something about a cool wet autumn morning that puts me in the mood to make soup.  It's my favourite thing to cook, my favourite thing to eat, and my favourite way to tell my family I love them.   I plan to use up the last of the harvest from our backyard garden.  With lots of carrots left and a few beets, I begin with curried roasted carrot soup .  I choose vegetable broth since my daughter is vegetarian.  Many recipes I've read in the past recommend throwing the spices in with the softened veggies, rather than later with the broth and roasted carrots as this recipe says.  I sprinkle the curry into the frying pan and reap the rewards as the kitchen is filled with a heavenly aroma. Once the first batch is simmering on a back burner, I troll the internet for a traditional Russian Borscht .   I give thanks to my mother for the pink rubber gloves she brought me as a hostess gift one visit as I shred beets into a bow...

This morning was cool and breezy and it felt like a good day to make stock.  I threw some red pepper corns in to add a little sweet to the hot and thought "Hey, that looks like Christmas."  Had to take a photo. By the way...has anyone noticed a trend with my photos over the last week or so?  I'm pretty sure it's coincidence, but it has been happening ever since I changed the colours on the title block.