Baking Day and European Hot Dogs

I was in a baking mood yesterday so I made some more Pumpkin and Peanut Butter Dog Cookies. I got 46 out of this batch.

Since my boyfriend is allergic to peanuts I never bake with peanut butter or peanuts. But Jack knows that when he smells peanut butter, it's cookies for him! He waited very patiently by the oven until they were done! Someone asked me why I bother to cut them with the bone-shaped cookie cutter. Why? I don't know, because it's FUN! I know the dogs don't care one way or the other, but I do!

Since we ate our last freezer-pizza on Saturday, I decided to make two more with the leftover ham in the freezer. Everyone has their own favourite dough. I got mine from a cookbook called 500 Pizzas and Flatbreads. It's Basic Pan Pizza Dough - but I roll it out quite thin to make 2 large pizza crusts. It's SO HARD not to want to eat the pizza as I'm preparing it, but I had to keep reminding myself it's for a quick lunch or dinner when I'm too tired to cook!!

And a baking disappointment :(((  I'm a huge fan of Williams Sonoma and I have 22 of their cookbooks. Once in a while I come across a disappointing recipe. This was one of them! From the Breakfast book, I made a Cranberry Coffee Cake with Streusal Topping. I've included the recipe for anyone who wants it, but I really didn't have a good result. I switched the cranberries for cherries and mine is dark because we use brown sugar. It wasn't sweet at all and the topping....all you could taste was the flour, sigh. I re-checked the recipe to make sure I didn't flub up, but no, I followed it to a T. I was so bothered by this...I really don't take it well when a recipe doesn't work, I guess because I put so much time and love into it! My boyfriend Alex said to me "In our 4 years together, you've made me over a thousand dinners. One disappointing recipe out of thousands is still very good darling." He ate it anyway...he's so nice, he knows how sensitive I am! But I think this will be fed to the garbage bin today while I think of something else to bake!

How many meals have you made for your significant other/family/self/fur-kids? I'm sure you can all out-do my 1400 or so! (I just did 365 x 4 years for an estimate - not to mention breakfasts, lunches, sweets and snacks...) When you come up with your number, you should feel pretty proud of yourself :) I'm going to remind myself of that the next time I have a failed recipe!

Alex made dinner. We had what we call European Hot Dogs, though I'm not quite sure how European they are! We use Italian sausages and Alex makes a honey mustard sauce, which I don't have any recipe for since he's the master of "winging it" - which I cannot do. He loads his hot dog up with sauerkraut.

Mine has no sauerkraut - I'm not a fan of it. We caramelize mushrooms and onions too, it's SO GOOD...and so filling too. I made the homemade potato chips to go with it. These are tricky to make because we don't deep fry. I started them in the microwave but then had to finish them in the oven. We found out that our microwave can't handle the workload very well, it got SO HOT to the touch after about 12 minutes of cooking off and on plus not all of the chips cooked well, half were soggy. I won't include a recipe this time. I need to find a better one. The chips that did turn out were crisp and yummy though!

Despite the hair-freezing weather again today, the huskies got their 45 minute walk! Charlie walks on the snow banks while Marlene and me are on the side of the road...Charlie always thinks she sees something in the woods!

Despite the deep freeze, the river flows on. How poetic lol...that water must be frrrrreeezing. That's where the huskies swim in the nicer weather every day after their long walk, they get so hot in the summertime. We bought a kiddie pool for them last summer, but they only use it as a big water dish, I think they prefer to smell like the river!

Greens and Scenes From My Kitchen

For the sake of husky happiness...I put on my fifteen layers of clothing and took the girls for a walk. Oh gosh, I almost wish I had a ski mask over my face, the windchill is a killer. There have been a few "hair-freezing" days in our mountains and today was another one. I think I have a collection of photos of my hair and eyelashes frosty and white! The sun helped a little bit with the cold though so I'm thankful for that!

But you know what? Charlie ate her whole breakfast when we got home; and she bounced around the whole 45-minute walk. While we were out, she was looking for deer, chasing little squirrels (well, trying to!) and sniffing out rabbit tracks! :) Or is that wabbit twacks? Elmer Fudd influence :) When the temperatures remain mild, I'm out with all three dogs every morning for an hour's walk, but lately...I can't handle it too well, I'm making a big effort for Charlie though! Only the huskies can handle this cold, Jack stays home eating bones to keep him quiet :)

I love how winter and wood burning mix into such a gorgeous fragrance! Seems like the entire village had a fire going. When I got home, the first thing I wanted to do was build a fire in our leaky fireplace! We try not to use it too much because our Hydro bill soars when we open it up. It's such a paradox...the fireplace is to make fire to keep us warm, which it doesn't because it's so badly insulated. It's really just for atmosphere. When we buy our place, there will be wood stoves, NO fireplaces!!

From the "not surprised at all" file:

Last November, I sent a complaint to Glad for faulty garbage bags. This is the EXACT SAME WORD FOR WORD response I got in November, that I got yesterday for my complaint about their cling wrap. They don't care!!! But I'm $7 richer I guess because the cling wrap was $3. What am I going to buy??? I don't buy their garbage bags anymore, and I'm done with cling wrap...I have to hunt out some other Glad product I guess. And check this out:

See the arrow? We bought new hoses for the washer and dryer at Canadian Tire. That's a store that usually has decent quality items. When we opened it, it was missing the steel hose end-thingy!!! Oh my gosh...it NEVER ENDS!!! I feel like I could start a "rip-off of the day" blog! At least it was just one of the two hoses that was faulty...We both went on a well-deserved rant about bad quality, out-sourcing and uncaring companies lol...we have decided we need to learn how to make our own washer dryer hoses...okay that was just part of the rant, but really...We're going back to the store on Tuesday anyway, so at least we can replace it, but my gosh...anyone else having such bad luck lately with quality?

Greens and Scenes From My Kitchen:
Here is some freshness to warm up a freezing winter day.

All these veggies are now blanched and in the freezer, except the Italian Parsley which is sitting in a Mason jar with water in the fridge. I was slow in doing this. My shopping day was March 6th and I only got to it 5 days later. I'll have to be quicker next time, I don't want any of the food to spoil! All these veggies are reserved for a meal during the next 5 weeks :) So basically that's what I did yesterday! 

For lunch yesterday we had the last of my frozen pizzas. I have to make some more today I think! It's so nice to take one out of the freezer and not have to deal with dough-making. I got the idea from this website: How To Make Homemade Frozen Pizzas. I think that fresh is always best, but it's so convenient and I don't know why I never thought of getting some ready for the freezer before! I had just cheese pizzas made, but today I'll probably add some ham and olives too.

Last night for dinner, I made Chicken Aloha! with my homemade Rice Pilaf for Alex, that's my boyfriend's name :)

I have trouble with rice, so I just had some orzo pasta with mine and I don't like pineapples so I gave mine to him. We finished up the asparagus too, yummy dinner! It's weird, I love pineapple juice, but don't like the texture of a pineapple.

I always post photos of the dogs, but we also have 3 cats. This is Dana, the oldest of the three. He fell asleep on my hand last night when I was watching British comedies before bed. For a while he was a terror, attacking the dogs...but over the last year and a half, he's calmed down a lot and gained his confidence back. He would never come up on the bed if a dog was up there, but you can see Jack's butt in the front of the photo and Dana is very comfy! Harmony at last!!! :)

Stay warm my friends! :)

Two Questions and Two Dinners

Premium Plus sent me a coupon for those burned soda crackers. They never answered me on whether I should send the poor quality items back to them for quality control or not, they just don't care. Refund the customer to shut them up is the new policy for most businesses now! I'll probably buy my favourite Peak Freans cookies with this coupon, so not all is lost! And I'm at it again:

Do you see anything wrong with this Glad cling wrap? It was packaged so badly that most of the wrap is bunched up on the left side, making it impossible to pull out in one piece. It gets all tangled up and rips. I tried to gently fix it and pull it out by hand, without success. So guess what? I just sent an email to Glad Canada and all bets are on them saying they'll send me a coupon. It starts to get to me, the poor quality of everything. I just have to slowly move towards not buying these products and accumulating glassware. I hate cling wrap!!!

Question number 1:  Will my formerly beautiful green rosemary plant come back to life or is it just done? I've had it in the window all winter and slowly but surely, it's dried out completely. I followed directions I've found about sunlight, watering and keeping it away from drafts, but I think I killed it! Any suggestions?

Question number 2: Does anyone have a dog that seems depressed? Charlie seems to go through this every spring/end of winter. She was an outdoor dog as far as we can figure, before we adopted her. But we can't let her loose or allow her to stay outdoors all day long because of the bad neighbours whose dogs are always loose and causing trouble. I'd love to build her a nice dog house and turn our yard into a fortress but it's not feasible in a rental. It's worse on days like today, in the -30's when I just can't be outside too long to walk her. She won't eat all of her food...she lies under my boyfriend's desk all day...she's healthy otherwise. Any advice from the doggie people out there?

Food Time!!! Thursday night I made pork tenderloin with an apricot brandy glaze and fresh steamed asparagus. That pork, omg....it's so tender. I had previously posted the recipe from my Williams Sonoma Grilling book, but I made some changes, so here is my version: Roast Pork Tenderloin with Apricot Brandy Glaze. The asparagus is $1.50 a pound and we had more than enough for the both of us, plus I'm going to serve the rest with dinner tonight. I love our market, I'll miss it when we leave this area!

Last night was burger night again!! This is my chicken burger. It's just a chicken breast cooked in teriyaki sauce, but it was just okay. I need to find a good chicken burger recipe that doesn't involve frying. I have McChicken burgers on the brain...even though I'm quite sure they are not all chicken, they do taste good!

I made our Fries last night. The basil made NO difference, but they sure looked good :)

This is my boyfriend's burger...he loads up the toppings more than I do! And I made the Strawberry Milkshakes again. It was a fun dinner! Usually I wait a little bit between burger nights, but we had this really good melty Cheddar that needed to be eaten up. It's perfect for the burgers, so I made them earlier than I'd planned.

We're in a deep freeze again, so I'm going to spend my day blanching and freezing veggies, and maybe baking something sweet. :)

***PS: My boyfriend convinced me to get a domain name so that in future I can get away from Blogger and try my own web designing. So you'll see my name in the address bar as www.rainfrances.com. So far it still points back to Rain's Garden on Blogger. I'll let you guys know if I ever get the courage enough to make my own site and host it!!!

Painting :)

This is the watercolour of Jack that I did yesterday :) Hmm......he looks a little sad doesn't he? I think that's his "I'm starving, I want your bagel" face. 

Thanks for the encouragement Mama Pea and Susan. I'm shy about my paintings. Sometimes I feel like I'm tooting my own horn when I post about my hobbies and my cooking. But I think that is the side of me that I'm trying to really overcome- the insecure Rain. But during the worst of my depression, I decided either I live or I give up. I chose to live my life to the fullest. I try so hard to stay positive and to fill as many moments in my life with good, creative, delicious and happy things. We only live once and I don't want any more regrets at all. I lost a lot of years and I'm making up for them now.

I walked around the house this sunny morning and took photos of all the paintings I've done and I have to say, I didn't realize there were so many! This is one I did for my boyfriend for last Christmas. I've mentioned that he had really nice memories of his grandmother. He showed me a photo of her cottage once and I decided to paint it for him. He loved it!

I painted these two for Halloween last year. I started painting in 2004 after my work burnout. I did art therapy. I HATED it!!! Every painting I did was black with some kind of red barbed wire in blotches. Of course the therapist did find lots of meaning in them, but I didn't feel that the art therapy helped me at all. But then I met an elderly woman who lived near me. I forget how we met. She was a painter and lived by herself and told me to come over anytime to paint with her. That's when I started to dabble with acrylics.

The "oranges". The bottom painting started off with just my two pugs, kind of a dedication to the two loves of my life who passed away in 2011 and 2014. Then it grew into the pet painting as I added the cats and each dog that we adopted! It'll keep growing over the years I'm sure! It's hung up right in front of me so I see it every time I look up :)

This is the wall in my office. A few years back I downloaded all of Bob Ross' "The Joy of Painting" PBS series. I used to watch him a lot back in the day and I decided to try out oil painting. Most of these are oils with some acrylics mixed in. His instructions are really easy and gave me confidence with oils. You can find some episodes on You Tube. This got me hooked on painting! And well, I was in a romantic mood when I painted the bottom right painting of my boyfriend and me kissing :)

These are the paintings my boyfriend wanted for his office, the Shipwreck is an oil and the other three are acrylics. The red one is my version of Little Red Riding Hood. :) It's hard to see here, but the wolf is very fierce with red glowing eyes...just waiting for Red to visit :) Bwah ha ha ha! :)

The black and whites are in my boyfriend's office too. The first one is a very famous film noir scene from the 1950 film The Big Combo. I made it for my boyfriend one year as a gift when he asked me to make him a film noir painting. :)

These are on the walls around our "breakfast bar" - basically where we eat all of our meals. We don't really have a dining room - I use it for my office so we eat at the "bar".

These are the last three acrylics I did last winter. I love using blues and doing landscapes - I cannot draw for my life so portraits and a lot of detail are very challenging for me! I'm not ashamed to say I DO USE TRACING PAPER!!! :) I get a lot of my ideas from browsing images online. I'm slowly starting to come up with my own ideas, but I still lack that confidence darn it! It'll come with time! :)

I started doing watercolour painting last spring - and I'll be honest - because it is much cheaper than buying canvas and acrylic/oil paint!! I wanted to keep painting but the budget was so tight that I just bought a watercolour pad and some paints for $25 and away I went. I remember the first watercolour I did was last April, sitting on the porch in mild weather with my easel :) I started with landscapes, but I branched out to do some things I've never done before, like the shark scene and the seahorse. 

I started on some fairy tale stuff like Sleepy Hollow and Moby Dick. The top right painting is my version of The Little Mermaid (you can kind of see her swimming under the creepy boat in the water). The butterfly is the last one I did before Jack. I really fell in love with this medium!! For a long time, all of these paintings were filed into a large file folder...awaiting the day where I could afford to frame them. They buckle because I don't have the best quality paper so I wanted to keep them flat and safe until framing. But last month I realized that I won't be able to afford to frame them for some time. So up they went onto the stairway wall with pushpins!!! My watercolour wall! Jack will be added once he's dry :) Now I have to think about painting the huskies and the cats!!!

And finally, this is the abstract series that I did in January. My boyfriend is a musician and he is putting out some new material in the near future. He asked me to paint a series of abstract watercolours for him. He wanted blues and whites and flow but chaos at times. I have to say...abstract is not my favourite way of painting and I felt SO UNCOMFORTABLE showing these to him, but to my real surprise and delight, he genuinely loved each one! He's used bits of all four in his backgrounds for the CD covers and booklets, as well as the cassette covers and booklet. Makes me kind of proud of that! I'm not too fond of these, though I love the second one because I used salt to get some kind of texture! He has these safely tucked away because he wants to frame them :)

When the fur kids are busy chewing their bones, it's time for me to relax! Relaxing each day before I eat is really important so that my food doesn't get stuck and painting does the trick :) I really think that hobbies are wonderful. I learned the hard way that work isn't the be-all and end-all of an accomplished life. I have so many things I want to try, my list is endless! I love seeing my Blogger friends' projects and accomplishments, they inspire me to keep creating! My boyfriend and I chose to live a simple life 3 years ago when we moved back up north. It's nice to have money for lots of "stuff", but that doesn't do it for us anymore and we'll never go back to the grind. As long as we have enough for our needs and to keep the pets happy and healthy, we're just fine! For me anyway, nature, hobbies, simplicity and a good, safe, loving and harmonious home life are the secrets to my happiness and gratitude! :)

Thanks for reading :)