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I don’t know what to put here.

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Where do I begin?

It has been over a month since I posted. There are quite a few circumstances for why I haven’t been here, including taking possession of a new house, organizing contractors and making living arrangements for the next several months, as well as my grandmother breaking her shoulder in a fall that will dramatically change how she is cared for from now on. All of these reasons however are overshadowed by the loss of my Dad, suddenly, about three weeks ago.

I’ve been struggling about what to post. Words cannot sum everything my Dad means to me or how I’ve been feeling. It’s too difficult for me to make my feelings public right now.

Part of me thinks this is a good place to end this blog. It’s been a struggle for me to maintain for some time now, but sometimes I still have ideas and want to write. I haven’t completely decided my way forward.

For now, I think I will put my blog on hiatus, to give myself the freedom and space to deal with what’s going on in my life; to process everything that’s happened and to ruminate on what comes next. Chris and I took possession of our new house last week and have been spending time there working on exterior clean up and meeting our lovely new neighbours. Our next steps involve finalizing our renovation plans and getting the work underway. Stepping back from my blog is one way I can give myself the space I need to cope.

I hope, dear reader, that you will forgive me for taking the break, and come back in the future should I decide to keep this site alive. Thank you very much for your support.

Fresh, locally milled flour

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Arva Flour

Arva Flour

As part of developing my sourdough bread baking skills I wanted to try to find a local source of high quality, fresh wheat flour that was as unaltered as possible. Last fall my Dad was in the hospital in London, Ontario and Chris and I drove there to see him from Toronto. During the drive we passed by the historic Arva Flour Mill and I was reminded about how my mom used to get me spelt flour from there when I was experimenting with a wheat free diet for my asthma. Being that it was Sunday and the mill was closed, I made a mental note to look them up online to see if they happened to have an online store.

Hard whole wheat and hard unbleached white flour

Hard whole wheat and hard unbleached white flour

The Arva Flour Mill is Canada’s oldest continuously operating water powered mill, and it is owned and operated by a dedicated group of people who see the value in preserving Canadian heritage and in supporting locally produced food products. While I have not yet ever visited their store, I hope to make it there sometime soon. They do have an online store, but so far they are stocking only selected flours there. Hopefully more products will be available there soon — you can see by watching their video that they carry a wide range of milled products, beans, pasta and other dry goods, and have plans to bring in locally produced cheese and meat products.

After discovering their online store I ordered what I think is an excellent deal — their 6 bags of flour for $60 with free shipping to Ontario and Quebec (given that 6 bags totals 15 kg you cannot beat the free shipping deal). You can mix and match from three flours — hard whole wheat and hard unbleached white, as well as their Imperial unbleached pastry flour. So far I’ve baked bread and other goodies with the whole wheat and the white flour but I have yet to try baking with the pastry flour. I think however I’ll give it a try on my next pie.

What is “hard” flour you ask? It means the flour has a high gluten content, in the 12% to 14% range, and it generally produces a dough that is very elastic and holds its shape well. It’s typically used for bread baking vs. other types of baking. I’m not really a flour expert per se, but given that this flour is milled fresh and does not go through enrichment or other processing techniques, and then shipped directly, it is a more wholesome product than what you find on grocery store shelves. The flours you buy from your average grocery store are going to be highly processed, highly bleached for “whiteness” and probably have a reduced gluten content. These techniques give the product a much longer shelf life to  avoid rancidness.

I also recently discovered that some of their flours are also available at the store at Evergreen Brickworks, which just so happens to be right around the corner from where our new house is. So if you dont feel you want to order a huge amount of flour online you can find this product in Toronto too.

I haven’t noticed a huge difference in how the hard flour behaves in my regular baking but with my sourdough I have noticed that the dough rises much more significantly in the overnight final rise stage than it did using regular all-purpose store bought flour. And I think the flavour of the bread is greatly improved too.

I do have to add a caveat though. My mom called me last weekend totally perplexed and asking for advice. She has been using Arva flour for the last couple months as well — my dad has some gastro-intestinal issues that mean he cannot eat store bought bread so she makes it at home, and she wanted to use unbleached flour as well, and since she lives much closer to Arva than I do, she was getting flour there. She uses a bread machine to make her dough and then allows it to rise outside the machine and bakes it in the oven. But over the last few weeks her bread results were complete letdowns — and she had tried switching out all her ingredients (except the flour) to try to figure out where the problem lay. She just kept getting hard little lumps of dough that wouldn’t rise. Normally she has problems with her bread rising almost too much. I figured her problem lay either with the bread maker (odd since she didn’t bake the bread in it anyway — its essentially being used as a fancy mixing/kneading tool), or the flour. So I suggested switching out the flour to see if that helped and voila — it did. So we can’t explain why her Arva flour went from working just fine to suddenly not, but that was her recent experience.

Sourdough bread made with Arva flour

Sourdough bread made with Arva flour

Regardless, I have very much been enjoying this product and it makes me feel really good to do my part in helping this beautiful piece of our local, agricultural heritage alive. I can’t wait to visit the mill in person and load up on some of their other products. Chris has been encouraging me to make a rye sourdough like his Oma used to make, but it’s not easy to find really fresh rye flour, so I hope to either pick some up myself or get my mom to load up on it next time she’s there.

Space Jam

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I have a confession to make. I’m totally obsessed with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s absolutely fascinating Twitter feed, where he’s posting phenomenal, incredible photos of our planet taken every day from his unique vantage point at the international space station.

As a communications professional, I think Hadfield is single-handedly renewing (at least Canadian) interest in space exploration and study, and connecting with people back home in a profound new way we’ve never seen before, through the power of social media. Now maybe the interest is partially fueled by the Canadian media, who are also in love with Hadfield, but regardless, I think we can all be very proud to have one of our own up there, showing us how beautiful and special our home truly is.

And as if his exuberant joy and affable personality isn’t enough, the man is also a talented musician and singer! He recently collaborated with the Barenaked Ladies and the Wexford Gleeks to record their Space Jam: ‘I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing)’ song. Just beautiful.

Roadside Chicken Marinade

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So now that we’re working on trying to hire a contractor in preparation to do some renovation work on our new house, as well as getting ready to move, we’re pretty busy. Often lately we’re heading to work super early in the morning to make room in our day for site visits and other errands. I’ve switched into must-clean-out-freezer-and-have-easy-meals-ready-to-cook mode, which, I hope will have the added benefit of helping me improve my meal planning skills.

While I’m definitely working at cleaning out the freezer (all those zucchini muffins and soup I made back in the summer), I’ve also been making things to put in it. I have this habit of filling my freezer with raw ingredients, but not planning ahead what to make by taking stuff out the night before. So when I make certain kinds of meals, like Smitten Kitchen’s [awesome!!] chicken pot pie, I like to make a double or even triple batch and freeze up a few containers for future easy, no-planning-required meals.

Roadside Chicken Marinade

On the weekend I picked up a large package of chicken breasts (I was all out), and decided to marinate them before I put them in the freezer, so that when I pull them out for a meal, all I have to do is cook them — not first decide how to use them.

Marinating Chicken

One of my favourite marinades is one made simply with rosemary, mustard and lemon juice, with some garlic (fresh or powdered, whatever’s handy), pepper and olive oil, so I made some of that. I also love Rick Bayless’s grilled ‘roadside’ chicken however, which is made using a delicious marinade featuring orange juice, ancho chile powder and a unique blend of other Mexican flavours.

Usually I use this on a whole, spatchcocked chicken, but I’m sure it’s going to be great with regular boneless skinless breasts. For both of these I just mixed up the marinade in a bowl, coated the chicken and then bagged up the pieces with the leftover sauce and popped them in the freezer (tossing the chicken in the sauce before bagging made it easier to ensure everything was well coated before being bagged).

Recipe: Roadside Chicken Marinade

Summary: Excellent for use on whole, spatchcocked chicken and chicken pieces

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 tbsp ancho chile powder
  • 1 tsp dried oregano (preferably Mexican)
  • Pinch of cloves
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon (preferably Mexican)
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced or crushed through a garlic press
  • 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 1 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. Combine the ingredients in a bowl. Place chicken or chicken parts in a bag and add marinade, closing bag and turning to coat. Allow to marinate several hours or overnight (or, in my case, freeze chicken and cook when you want to). Grill chicken until thickest parts reach 160 degrees F (about 45 minutes for a whole chicken).

Quick notes

Adapted from the book Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless.

 

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

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So… remember that news I was mentioning last weekend?

Um… yeah… well…

We bought a new house! And we just sold our current house!

Chris & Sarah's new house

Chris & Sarah’s new house

What a whirlwind the last three weeks have been. Long-time readers of my blog will know that Chris and I have been debating what to do with our little bungalow for quite some time. In a nutshell for those who’ve started following more recently, we live in an area of Toronto that is very high demand for redevelopment. Without getting into all the nuances, we’ve been trying to decide if our longer term plan would be to rebuild where we are, or try to move somewhere else more suited to our needs. We’ve been watching the market, which in some respects has been softening lately. Finally this past autumn we decided to do our due diligence and have a look at what’s out there.

We weren’t feeling too thrilled about what we saw. Admittedly we were looking very casually and being quite picky. We felt like it was mostly an exercise in covering our bases, making sure that staying where we are and rebuilding is really what was right for us. But just after we got back from the holidays we went to see a place that had been on the market for quite some time, over in the east side of the city, located on a ravine. And we immediately fell for the place, so we decided to make an offer.

Home inspection day however was our chance to take a sober second look, and it revealed some pretty major and immediate work that needs to be done. Nothing wrong structurally but big expenses like a new roof, new heating/cooling, new gutters, new siding, major ivy abatement work, removal of a very large, mostly dead tree that’s a danger to the house, and perhaps most disappointingly, the need to re-renovate the recently completed renovations, which are of very poor quality and often times incorrectly done. Such a disappointment and a waste. It would have been better if they had left the place in its previous state.

View of some of the decking.

View of some of the decking.

But despite all this, there are many pluses. We’ll be so much closer to work — a 20 minute bike ride to work (a BIKE ride!!), and when the weather isn’t so great, we’re on a very well served bus route and very close to subway and streetcar routes. We’ll be closer to many of our friends, and right next to the Don Valley parklands, Evergreen Brickworks and so many other amenities. The property is on a dead-end street with lots of street parking, and there are no houses across the street from us. And, all in a location that feels very cottage-like! We are so excited!

More deck!

More deck!

One thing that I may be sacrificing is veggie gardening space. I suspect that when we take out the big dead tree in the back we will be able to get a raised bed or two back there, but lighting is definitely not as good as where we are now. We also might be able to put a couple of beds in the front after removing some decorative fencing and flagstone, and trim the tree out front. I really wont be sure how viable things are until I see it in the spring/summer when the trees leaf out. But the copious amount of rear decking means I’ll probably be able to make a lot of container gardening work for me.

So I’m definitely mourning the loss of my gardens, and the years worth of soil amending and building up I’ve been doing. And all that garlic I planted in the fall. Sob! But… it’s a small price to pay for all the new awesome. We have lots of exciting ideas for turning this lovely property into the best it can be, and now that we’ve sold our current home, we can start looking into getting plans in place for renovations. We take possession in early April. We can’t wait!

Force of nature

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Stormy Winter Morning

Stormy winter morning at the cottage.

This morning I bring you a post from the cottage, where we’re cozied up by the fire enjoying the forces of nature around us. We arrived on Friday night after driving through steady, sticky snowfall, and Saturday turned out to be a sloshy warm day, perfect for building snowmen and forts out of the relatively fresh snow. This morning I took Luna out for a walk in blustery but warm winter winds. But the mild weather is about to turn — according to the forecast, here in Coby it will drop to -21°C by the evening, and remain frigid for the rest of the week. Brrr!

Luna by the Fire

Luna by the Fire – photo taken by Chris.

We decided to come up here this weekend to relax after a week and a half of a roller coaster real estate ride that isn’t over yet. We have big news, but I’m going to wait to share until all our ducks are lined up, which we hope to have figured out about a week from now. I know, I’m such a tease. Stay tuned!

I can ski. I’m a skier!

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Happy New Year!

This new year I learned something new. I learned to ski!

About to learn to ski for first time!

About to learn to ski for first time!

Chris is a pretty seasoned skier; he learned how in university and has been skiing ever since. He goes on a major “guys” vacation every year to places like Whistler, Utah, Lake Tahoe, etc. But this holiday a bunch of us decided to go to Vermont, and it would be a chance for me to take some lessons and give it a try. Have I mentioned that I’m 35 years old and I’ve virtually never skied? I have a vague recollection of going to Talisman in Ontario when I was maybe 12 or something, but I don’t really remember much about it.

GoPros!

Cass & Chris outfitted with GoPro cameras, which means there’s video of me cartwheeling down the mountainside.

Porter now flies a direct flight to Burlington, Vermont, and its just over an hour flight. We spent a couple days, including New Years, in Burlington before heading to our B&B in Waterbury and hitting the slopes. We spent two days at Stowe, then took a day off because it was -27°C (almost a record breaker), before heading to Mad River Glen. On our last day we spent the morning at Bolton Valley.

I was fortunate enough to get what was supposed to be a group lesson as a private lesson at Stowe — the “learn how to put on your skis, how to ride a chairlift and how to stop” kind of lesson. That was really great and I didn’t have to feel like a dork because there was no one else in the class to compare with. The second lesson I took wasn’t as great, as I was paired up with an 8-year-old who kept falling down on every turn down the bunny hill. After a while I bailed on the lesson and decided I just needed to practice and build my confidence because I had the basics.

Looking up at Stowe

Looking up at Stowe from the base of Spruce Peak

By the afternoon of day two I was (sort of) ready to try out a long green run called the Toll Road on the big hill across the highway, and to send Chris away from babysitting me so he could do some “real” skiing before we left the resort.

Sarah Learns to Ski from Sarah Mulholland on Vimeo.

So I got on the gondola and headed over to the chairlift across the way. I ended up alone on the lift, so I had lots of time to psych myself out! By the time I got to the top I was pretty freaked out — it was unbelievably cold and windy up there, and trails went off in every direction. I had wanted to take some photos on my phone but I could barely operate my fingers long enough outside my mittens to turn on a ski tracking app on the phone (so at least I have proof that I did it!). And I did! My hands were shaking every time I stopped to check my map, and sometimes I wasn’t even sure I was on the right trail. It took me over an hour to get 5km down the mountain, but I did it!

Top Vista Peak at Bolton Valley

Top Vista Peak at Bolton Valley

Mad River Glen is a unique resort that’s cooperatively owned, making it pretty anti-corporate and very community-oriented. It’s entirely natural snow, and their tag line is “Ski it if You Can” which maybe says a lot about it. It’s generally considered one of the most challenging places to ski in the east. I certainly had issues! I had a pretty rough go of it on my first attempt, so much so that I was ready to give up afterwards. But after warming up, getting some food and letting my frustration cool off, I took it again, and did not too badly. The next day at Bolton Valley, a fairly small and easy resort, I didn’t fall at all! Of course there’s no video of that because Chris was off doing his own thing, but my ski track app says I was hitting speeds as high as 50km! Not bad for a newbie!

Chris & Sarah

Ski buffs!

I’m pretty damn proud of myself for trying something entirely new that was very scary. I mean, it’s not like I bounce that well anymore! I enjoyed it so much that I’d like to get my own skis and do it again soon so that I can practice some more, so Chris and I might hit a couple of the hills around Ontario later this winter, if things get cold again and we get more snow. It’s not usually Chris’s thing to ski locally as he’s kind of spoiled on real mountains, and our local runs aren’t that challenging for him, but I think he’s happy to humour me, and its something we can do together. And Vermont isn’t that far away either, thanks to Porter!

 

Maple Leaf Pillows

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Maple Leaf Pillows

Maple Leaf Pillows

Well Christmas has passed and the New Year is right around the corner. Almost all the presents have been given and received (Adria, I’ve still got yours waiting under the tree for you!). And, as usual for me post-Christmas gift-giving, my mind is conjuring up ideas for next year!

While I tuck away those secret lists, and make use of my time off to put my basement sewing/crafting/stashing workspace back in order (the holidays always turn our basement into a disaster zone), here’s a post about one of my favourite creations this holiday: a pair of Maple Leaf Pillows for my mother-in-law.

Maple Leaf Pillows

Pillow detail

I made similar pillows to these earlier this year for my friend in Norway, using bright reds and whites, but I had also thought this design would be a lovely addition to Chris’s parent’s cottage in Coboconk, Ontario, where their living room enjoys a beautiful view across the widest part of Gull River.  I originally considered doing each leaf a different colour for the season, but of course maple leaves fall off for winter, leaving one of the four seasons problematic, and I couldn’t come up with a symbiotic mix of colours from my fabric stash.

To make colour choice even more challenging, the room where these would go at the cottage isn’t entirely finished renovations yet; it will eventually get new flooring/carpeting (right now it’s a slate-blue colour), and probably new (matching) furniture. But Chris’s parents paint virtually every room some form of beige, and the living room is no exception, so I decided to use a beige fabric for the negative space and to create the leaves and other details in warm reds and browns. These are left over fabrics that I originally used for my Party Mix Tape quilt (Elizabeth Hartman design).

Maple Leaf Pillows

Pillow backing

I’m very pleased with the results, even though the pillow covers are a teensy bit tight over the pillow forms; I had a bit of a brain fart while figuring out if I had the right amount of fabric left for the red borders on the pillow fronts (I have issues calculating square yardages for some reason, and I’m generally challenged in the mathematics department). I actually had plenty of fabric left because I had folded my fabric in half for easier cutting, but my brain fart involved leaving that factor out of my calculations before I started cutting, and to ensure I had enough I tightened up my border measurements, but I only realized my mistake after cutting more than enough — in fact too many — border pieces. Duh. HUGE forehead smacking moment right there.

Unlike the pillows I made for Norway, I kept the backing of these very simple, mostly to hurry along the project, which I completed over a long weekend a few weeks before Christmas. Also for speed and to learn something new, I tried machine binding for the first time on the pillow backs, using this tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts. This is a great project for practicing the technique, because one side of the binding is hidden by being on the inside of the pillow, and so if you don’t quite get your technique down perfectly, it’s not going to be as visible as it is on a proper quilt.

Anyway, these pillows will provide many years of enjoyment while nestled on the sofa, enjoying a warm fire and the beautiful serenity of the cottage.

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful New Year!

P.S. I just might write these pillows up as a pattern at some point… if there’s a demand for it!

A little colour for winter

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I’ve had a stock pile of beets left in the fridge, from my garden, for quite some time, along with some cabbage that needed using. I realized it’s been some time since I made borscht, so, voila!

Borscht

The great thing about borscht is that you can vary the vegetable ingredients to use up whatever you have in the fridge. Got some turnip? Throw it in. Got some parsnips? Leeks? Throw them in too! The mainstays are simply the beets and cabbage. You can even add some beef or beans if you want the extra protein. This is one of those soups that’s even better the next day, so you can even make it ahead if needed. Finally, borscht also freezes nicely so pack up the leftovers for some future work or lazy Saturday lunches.

Borscht
Yield 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients:

  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 6 beets, peeled and shredded
  • 2 leeks (white and light green part only), chopped
  • 2 carrots, shredded
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 turnip, peeled and shredded; or 1/4 to half a small rutabaga
  • 1 stalk celery, chopped
  • 2 potatoes, diced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 7 cups beef or vegetable broth
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 2 cups shredded cabbage (white or red is fine)
  • 3 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp granulated sugar
  • salt and pepper
  • sour cream and snipped chives or green onion tops for garnish

Directions:

  1. In large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add beets, leeks, carrots, garlic, onion, turnip, celery, potato and bay leaves; cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.
  2. Stir in broth and tomato paste. Bring to simmer and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Stir in cabbage; cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, until cabbage is softened.
  3. Season with vinegar, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste, adding more vinegar and sugar if needed. There should be a nice sweet and sour balance. Discard bay leaves.
  4. Place dollop of sour cream and sprinkle of chives on each serving.

 

Ginger-awesome

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Gingerbread cookies

It’s that time of year. After a year of doing very little in the crafty department, I’ve been cranking it out the last couple of weeks. I’ve finished several pillows, quilted and otherwise, along with a few small knitted gifts. Of course I don’t want to post any of this until after the holidays or I might spoil the surprise!

Over the remaining week and a half I plan to make and smoke some sausage. I’ve made sausage before but will be smoking it for the first time, which is a bit of a time-challenger as there are several steps involved that need to be done over a couple of days, so planning when to do all this hasn’t been easy. And I also need to make cookies!

One of my stand bye recipes for the holidays has been a very straightforward gingerbread or gingersnap cookie that I adore. The only sweetener used is molasses, and they have a super spicy ginger punch. They store very well and are just as good after a couple weeks as they are fresh out of the oven, and, they are perfect for decorating. Frankly, you could make and enjoy these any time of year, but I usually make them just for Christmas.

Gingerbread (or Ginger Snap) Cookies
Based on the recipe from A Guide to Good Cooking by Five Roses Flour
Yield: about 5 dozen 2 inch cookies

For cookies:

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 2/3 cup fancy (not blackstrap) molasses
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

For frosting (makes 3 cups; dries hard):

  • 3 egg whites
  • 2 1/2 cups sifted icing sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Directions:

  1. Cream butter. Heat molasses to boiling; cool slightly and pour over butter, mixing well.
  2. Stir dry ingredients together; mix into first mixture. Wrap dough in waxed paper and chill 1 hour or more (I sometimes find it helpful to divide dough and flatten into a couple of discs; this makes it easier to chill and easier to roll out once it is chilled).
  3. Roll out dough to 1/4″ thick on lightly floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Recombine dough scraps and cut into shapes until dough is used up.
  4. Bake on parchment-lined cookie sheet at 375 ℉ for 5 to 7 minutes or until delicately browned (crispness of cookie will depend on how thin dough is rolled and how evenly the cookies are baked). Cool completely before decorating, if desired. Best results come from baking one cookie sheet at a time, rather than putting two sheets in the oven at once. If you’re rushed and need to bake two at a time, quickly rotate the cookie sheets halfway through baking time — not just on the levels of the oven, but also turn the pans around, to ensure they bake evenly.
  5. For Frosting: In a large bowl combine egg whites and 1/2 cup of the icing sugar. Beat vigorously for 10 minutes; add another 1/2 cup of icing sugar and beat again. Add cream of tartar. Continue adding icing sugar and beating until mixture will hold its shape when forced through a bag or tube. Colour with food colour drops (icing thickness  may need to be adjusted due to added liquid) or food colour paste, and decorate cookies with piping bags and tips. Leave out to dry for several hours or overnight.