Skies, Saltimbocca and Sundaes!

Every time we go out and it's not too long a journey, we like to bring the dogs with us. One time, my boyfriend went in to the post office and Jack lamented the entire time!

One of the reasons we think he's part hound is because he howls! He was howling for "daddy" to come back to the car! When we first got Jack, we figured he was a Cocker Spaniel, but he's showing signs of hound and maybe pointer too. He's a good "sniffer" and he points his tail when he sees little critters in the woods. Having dogs brings so much joy to our lives!

My eggshell collection is getting out of hand lol...I'm keeping them all for the garden. I have to remember to crush them up and put them in the storage container once in a while!

Last night's dinner was Chicken Saltimbocca with a side Cesar salad. The recipe is from my Williams Sonoma "Chicken" cookbook. I always go to their recipe site as well to see if I can find the same recipe online, just to read the comments. "Saltimbocca" means "leaps into the mouth" in Italian, or so I have read! And this dish does the same! Yum yum! The chicken breasts are pounded down to a thin size, floured and gently fried in butter and olive oil, then topped with Prosciutto, chives and Mozzarella (the original recipe calls for sage, but I didn't have any fresh). I put it under the broiler to brown the cheese then top it with more chives. It's so tasty!

And because I couldn't leave healthy-enough alone...I suggested Sundaes for dessert!!

Mine was vanilla ice cream with a mix of caramel and chocolate sauce. For my boyfriend, I made his with some Nutella, broken up sugar cones and sweet dark cherries. Bugs Bunny and Sundaes...can't beat that!! We're so spoiled!

I wanted some fresh air last night so I took my camera out for photos of the night sky. Here's the waxing moon around 9 pm. I was lazy and didn't bring the tripod out - which you really need for good night photography.

What looks like another picture of the moon is actually Sirius, the Dog Star and brightest star in the night sky. I can't be 100% sure, but according to all of my astronomy sites, I believe this is it!

I ventured out behind the house into the woods, but I didn't get very far...ever feel like something is watching you??? My wild imagination creeped me out too much so I hurried back to the safety of the porch lol...

When I woke up this morning, there was a blizzard happening...we definitely got that wind everyone is talking about lately!

This is out my office window towards the street, you can't even see the duplex across the road! White out. I guess it's a good day to tackle the huge laundry pile, and maybe do some painting!

Getting Back To My Routine and Bread Making

We woke up to another ice rink this morning...I still like this better than 10 inches of wet snow though. We don't pay for a snow service, and all we have are a few shovels (I think one belongs to Mama Pea from her windstorm in February!) and a snow pusher. We do this work gradually but obviously would prefer not to shovel at all! I buy a new pair of cleats for my boots each fall because they never last the entire winter, the little cleat pin-thingies always end up falling off. They are a bone-saver that's for sure! I've been buying and wearing cleats every winter since 2001 when I found myself on my back with a broken left wrist to deal with. So this morning taking the dogs out, I was very grateful to have them on! The poor dogs were slipping a lot though. The huskies have furry feet and we don't trim that hair until the spring because they need it to keep their paws warm, but it makes for slippery exploring!

But quicker than I could say "Wacky weather we're having..." the skies cleared, the sun came out and the ice started melting. Just a few hours ago I saw the moon rise. Two years ago, my boyfriend got me a wonderful camera for my birthday, I love the optical zoom. It's a waxing moon and it'll be full on the 12th I believe. Does anyone "moon garden"? Planting seeds by the cycles of the moon depending on what crop you are planting? I've been reading about it and it looks really interesting.

I'm almost all organized from Monday's shopping extravaganza! The freezers are packed and organized, the cupboards are too and I have an inventory list written out. I have this dry-erase board by the kitchen with the upcoming meals so my boyfriend can anticipate yummies :) and so I can have a quick look to see if anything needs defrosting or preparing the day before.

We go through SO MUCH yogurt...I had to make more already this morning. The dogs get some in their dishes each morning too, mostly for the husky's health, being girls! I eat some every day with maple syrup...I need more maple syrup... :) Love the stuff!

And I baked my bread this morning too. I have a great recipe for No Knead Bread. You start it one day then let it sit in the fridge overnight, it makes it super fluffy and moist on the inside with a nice crust on the outside. It's our "go to" bread for nearly everything. I do always keep a loaf of POM bread in the freezer for club sandwiches and sometimes for grilled cheese if I have no bread made.

We had the leftover Mac and Cheese for dinner last night, THIS time I remembered the bread crumb topping! And what looks like an egg on there is just a plop of Cheddar that was leftover from last shopping day!

Here is a photo of the bedroom veranda all lit up with candles! See the rock wall? That's our HUGE chimney. It's a heat waster unfortunately, but very pretty! When we moved in back in 2015, my boyfriend screened this veranda in so he could put up his hammock. The bugs here are intolerable on a good day, screens are very necessary! This little village is a horror of weekenders and tourists on snowmobiles on weekends, but the weekdays are normally so quiet you could hear a pin drop. It was mild enough that we both got into the hammock together under a big blanket and listened to the rain falling for an hour or so. It was so romantic! I feel very lucky that I have a man in my life who is just as much of a sucker for romance as I am, I never take that for granted! :)

Shopping Day Is DONE!!!

I woke up bright and early yesterday morning, I think it was just after 6am. It's funny, since I stopped working, if I have something planned for the next day, I have trouble sleeping the night before. I'm not sure why! It's not like I have a set schedule anymore! But anyway, I was up and after letting the pooches out into our yard, I took off for my shopping day. I was out from 7:30 am until 4 pm. My boyfriend had just finished working on his music when I got home and he emptied the car out. It took us both until about 6 pm to unpack, organize and put everything away.

I now have six weeks worth of food and food to be created, jammed into the fridge, deep freezer and cupboards! When my boyfriend and I met, he had a little mini fridge that we use mostly for beer and soft drinks. We had to empty it out for some of the produce because it didn't fit in the big fridge. Look! I'm back on the horse lol...I bought another pork shoulder after I kind of messed up the last one! I'm going to take the advice you guys gave me about cooking it! :)

I have a maple syrup obsession! I hoard it and I fully admit it! We love the pure stuff :) And when it's on sale, I snatch it up. It's the season, the cans go for $5 right now and they are usually double that price. We use maple syrup as our main sweetener and I currently have a store of 18 cans! 

I should have taken before/after shots of the fridge and deep freezer...on Sunday night it was appetizer night, actually, it was empty the freezer night! We had ribs, bbq chicken drumsticks and baked potato skins with cheddar and bacon. The ribs were in a box that has been in the freezer for at least 10 months! For the chicken drumsticks, I follow this recipe: Honey BBQ Wings. This is the best recipe I've ever used for wings and drumsticks! For the potatoes, I follow this recipe: Easy Potato Skins. Though we were out of sour cream, I used Ranch dressing instead. Not quite the same but yummy! My boyfriend makes his secret BBQ sauce for dipping too, he says he just "wings it"...but I know he uses Montreal BBQ chicken sauce and some rum...though I can't reveal the recipe since I don't know it!

I'm so grateful that I thought about preparing some food on Sunday. When I got home on Monday all I wanted was a white wine spritzer with some baguette and Brie...that's kind of our tradition. We munch on that while we're unpacking! And a special treat, I got a big pile of shredded Prosciutto from the deli counter. My favourite lady was working there and she shaves the meat so thin it falls apart, it's mostly all gone as I type this!

Sunday afternoon I made all the fixin's for Chicken Pot Pie and Mac and Cheese. I figured it would be so easy to put it all together and not have to stress about cooking dinner.

We didn't even bother with plates, lol...we ate out of the dishes! The only thing I forgot to do was the breadcrumb topping on the Mac and Cheese, oh well! We have leftovers for tonight too, which again, I'm so happy about because I'm wiped out! But I will make sure to add the topping this time :)

Everyone is tired after I go shopping :)

Except for the four cats :)...Charlie is at it again. We leave our bedroom patio door open when it's milder weather so that the three cats can hang out on the screened-in veranda...but Charlie thinks she's a cat too and she was up on the shelf with them. My boyfriend had a hard time lifting our 64-pound squirming Husky down. She was resisting but we have to keep insisting she doesn't jump up on things, we're afraid if she jumps down herself, she'll hurt her legs.

After spending the morning in bed drinking coffee and watching Disney movies, we had a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato for lunch. Mmmmm!

Black Diamond cheese was on sale this week :) I spent about an hour labeling the cheeses, the meats and anything else I need to keep reserved. I label "ok" on food that is a free for all! And my pride and joy, my 6-7 week meal plan:

I had to keep in mind the holidays and special food I'm making. I also had to remember to get some Easter chocolates for April 16th! (Which are now very well hidden!) :) In the end I have SIX leftover nights. The last time I did grocery shopping was January 23rd and I saved a lot of money in the end because I'd planned and shopped for 4 weeks, and it turned into nearly 7 weeks worth of food that I had. I'm saving about $100 in gas per month now that I don't have to do the bi-weekly shopping. It's a wonderful plan if you can get yourself really organized. If I didn't have my lists and labels, I'd be lost!

I'm done for the day though, tomorrow I'm going to re-organize the cupboards, fridge and freezer and redo my inventory list. I also have a "to do" list that I need to put into my calendar. Things like "make ricotta for tomorrow's pasta" and "start bread for tomorrow's dinner". I also have a list of things I want to bake. I'm going to look through my dessert cookbooks and Pins tomorrow to, and add to the baking list :) Now it's time to sit in bed and read about 4-season gardening until dinner! 

Chicken Parmesan, Jack Frost and Menu Planning

It's funny, last night my boyfriend asked me what I'd planned for dinner, I told him Chicken Parmesan. He said "I feel like we should be eating more healthy." I offered to make him a marinated chicken breast baked in foil with some rice and green beans. He said okay. Ten minutes later he said he wanted Chicken Parm! Lol...we both LOVE our comfort food. Since I write so much about food and recipes, I'm going to make separate pages for the actual recipe and just add the link to my blog post! I'll put an index on the right side bar for easy reference. I'll try to make pages for all of the previous recipes too. Blogger is quite buggy of late, so if anyone notices any funny business, can you let me know?

I mentioned yesterday that it was bitterly cold outside and look what Jack Frost did to my window! Kind of nice! The sun is very deceiving though!

Do you complain to companies for their sub-par products? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed the quality of everything nose-diving while the ease of returns sky-rockets. Companies don't care about quality control anymore, they'll just replace it or refund you too easily. When I had my bout of food poisoning a few weeks back, my boyfriend went to the store to get me soda crackers and this was what came out of the box. They might look okay, but they are burned and they smelled and tasted burned too! All 4 sleeves of crackers...so I wrote to Premium Plus and within minutes I got a reply "Send us your address and we'll mail you a coupon for a free box". I responded, "Would you like me to keep the burned crackers to send back to you for quality control?"...8 days later, no reply. At least we didn't waste our money because we'll get a free box, but it left a bad taste in my mouth both figuratively and literally! I do get lots of freebies with a gentle complaint though, so I'm thankful for that. One time all of my garbage bags came in the box unsealed at the bottom...what joy to find out the hard way that your garbage isn't sealed lol...I was pretty upset that day, but Glad sent me a $10 coupon for their products. 

The meal planning is done!!! Now today I have my list of ingredients and have to write my shopping list for tomorrow! I'm throwing all caution to the wind and I'm planning meals until the week after Easter...that's 41 meals including a few special days like Easter and our 4-year anniversary! I love challenging myself. I know that I'll have to go out for fresh stuff a few times during the next six weeks, but not having the pressure to drive hours to the big towns to grocery shop makes life so much easier! Now I have to enter all of this into my handy little shopping and menu journal!

Freezer Day and Johnny Cakes

I'm coming to the end of my meal cycle and Monday is shopping day. Weird how I'm actually looking forward to it! I used to dread it, but I'm so proud of my once a month efforts that I can't wait to start it all over again. The last time I went grocery shopping was January 23rd, so not bad! I had a few dozen eggs left in the fridge that had a due date of March 2nd so I decided to freeze them. I found the method seeing a photo on Pinterest. Aaah, Pinterest, it can be such a wonderful site and such a wonderful time waster!!! On my sidebar, I have the link to my Pinterest account, if anyone wants to give me theirs, I'd love to follow you.

The next task was what to do with this pork shoulder. This is the first time I've bought one and I was stunned at the amount of fat on it! It's a 4 1/2 pound shoulder, but I'm sure I lost over a pound after cutting most of the fat off. My initial idea was to make a bunch of sausage patties with it...

...which I did, well, not a "bunch" more like SIX.  They're in the freezer now for future use. I mixed in some maple syrup, rosemary, thyme, sage, s&p. They smelled amazing cooking!

When I was looking up what to do with a pork shoulder, I thought I'd have a few pounds for sausage patties, a pound for these pork pies, a pound for sweet and sour meatballs and a little bit to make a pulled pork sandwich for my boyfriend. No such luck! I was able to get six of these pork pies only and they're in the freezer too for snacks. I used this recipe for the pork pies:  Mini Pork Pies and this is my full-proof recipe for pie/pastry dough: Martha Stewart's Perfect Pie Crust. I love her recipe, I've never had a problem with it and it turns out delicious every time. I use it for sweet pies and savoury ones.

I have to say, five hours in the kitchen and this is what I produced? I'm a little disappointed. What do you do with pork shoulder? Do you take the time to trim all the fat off? Maybe I shouldn't have been so fussy about trying to trim it all off...I feel like I got gypped! At least I only paid $9 for the meat, but I think I might stick to pork tenderloin from now on.

Dinner wasn't much more successful! Here's an action shot of the maple syrup drop lol...I made Johnny Cakes from my Breakfast Comforts book. My boyfriend and I weren't sure about this because we're really not big on cornmeal, but we thought we'd try it. It was okay but I won't make it again. We don't like the texture, that didn't stop us from eating it though!

It is a great recipe though, you mix up bacon and cheddar into the dough and if it wasn't for the cornmeal, we would have loved it. I'll likely try to make my sour cream or buttermilk pancakes with the bacon and cheddar in the dough next time. I think the birds will enjoy the rest of the cornmeal mixed with some peanut butter for the bird feeder!

I'm currently reading this book, trying to learn more about gardening in general, but mostly winter harvesting. We've taken to spending a few hours together in bed before dinner, just reading. It's actually helping me a lot to relax before I eat, so the last three days no food has gotten stuck! Woo hoo! That's a record! :)

I love living in the mountains, I love the four season...but this is just too cold for me. I've lived with weather like this all my life and I find each year as I get older, I tolerate it less, I feel like I can't go outside more than a few minutes. Just to bring the dogs out in the yard, I had to wear a full snow suit! That wind is a killer. It's a good day to hibernate and finish up my shopping list. Hope everyone has a nice cozy Saturday! :)