October Already

I can hardly believe it's October already - it's scary how quickly this year has flown past.

Yesterday it had been a year since I was granted my Green Card, hard to believe it had been a year already, but in some ways it was also hard to believe it had ONLY been a year... a lot has happened in the past year.

To celebrate we made a 'full English breakfast' meal for dinner, and I made a Red Velvet Cake for desert - since it's our green card birthday, we had to have cake... right?

Oh my word, that cake was so good... now I'm not saying that to blow my own trumpet, especially since I got the recipe from a blog I read all the time, but I'm saying it because it was... the ganache topping was so chocolaty and so rich that it was perfect... I hate to imagine the amount of calories in the tiny sliver of cake I ate.

Since it was so rich and there was so much of it we figured there was no way we'd get it finished while it was still in it's prime, so we cut two large chunks and brought them to our neighbours.

September already!!!

Today is September first and I can hardly believe it. It seems like this year has just flown by and I feel like I'm still trying to play catch up.

The last two days of August were chilly and blustery. It really started to feel like Autumn was on the way, and I must admit I'm kind of excited for it to get here. I know we didn't have much of a summer and some people really like the heat but I'm not the kind of girl that likes it being much more than 80-85F regularly. Mid to upper 70's is much more my kind of thing ;)

I'm not really sure what this month will hold but I do know that the next couple of days will involve apples...

I've been trying to get my hands on apples at a really reasonable price and I even hit a produce stand this morning to see what kind of a deal I could score. I was pretty impressed at the price for a box really, considering you'd pay twice as much in the grocery store...

But, as I was having coffee with a friend of mine this morning my hubbie called to say that his Grampa was on route to our place with two types of apples for us. I couldn't believe it - I was stoked! There's really no better price than free... Only shame being that I wasn't home, but he said he'd leave them on the deck for us.

I got home to find that he'd brought us two big boxes of apples, each one almost full! I was so excited... It means I'll be having a double date with them and my canning supplies for the next couple days! (Yah, I'm weird and/or easily pleased)

Well, the other exciting thing that happened today was that I bought my very first hunting license and deer tag. Yup, this means I'm definitely going hunting this fall! It's kind of a weird thing for me, since I don't know if I'm actually going to have the guts to aim and shoot at the deer when the time comes, but I'm definitely up for the challenge and am starting to look forward to it.

Not so much of a city girl after all, eh?

Hello & Canning so far

Well, it's been a while since I've written on here... Not too sure why, probably just since I haven't had much to say... so I'll keep this post short so as to not bore you to death.

Last weekend we picked berries, and we picked a LOT! It's craziness how many blackberry bushes there are at the farm. It seems like with the weather this year everything is late producing fruit, the blackberries are no different. There was plenty of ripe and juicy berries for us to pick but I'd say about 75% of the fruit weren't ready yet. We picked several gallons of berries and will probably wait a couple weeks before another mammoth picking session.

So, I made jam for the first time ever! It was quite a process but so much fun, AND the jam tastes yummers too, so that's a bonus. I made two batches, one just straight blackberry and the second is blackberry, blueberry & strawberry mix. I also made a batch of blackberry pie filling and canned that, but all the recipes called for a product called 'ClearJel' that I couldn't find in any of the stores close by so I subbed with cornstarch. I don't know if it turned out ok, it seems a little runny to me, but I guess the only way to know for sure is to make a pie and see... so I guess I'll be doing that next week sometime too.

I'm still holding out for apples... I have an awesome recipe for canned apple pie filling and I'd love to have that stashed away for the winter.

Yah, I'm nutso

Well, those of you who know me will know how I love a good project... ideas bubbling over, sometimes I can't sleep at night because of ideas going round my head, or popping into my head in the middle of the night... my brain just keeps ticking over and over with ways in which to make it better and more exciting... and that in turn makes me more excited about the project... (Yeah, I'm nutso)

Some of you will also know (hopefully less of you) that I am just crazy about recipes... yep, you heard it. I'm a feeder. I love to cook, bake, create some kind of yummy edible goodies... and I love to also research these goodies, read about them, drool over them and they get my brain going in ways I just can't explain. I don't know why, except perhaps because I'm nutso.

So, imagine the insanity that would explain my excitement if a certain project also involved recipes and or cooking in some fashion, add that to the love I have for family and you have pure craziness. Well, that's exactly where I'm at right now!

I am working on a project that has all of those elements, and it's awesome. I am putting together a book... Yep, you heard it. Crazy, huh!?!?!

As you know Cory's Grandmother passed away in March, she was a wonderful woman and she loved to entertain, cook, bake and create... story has it that she was as crazy about recipes as I am and would often sit reading cook books for inspiration and ideas (YAY, I'm not the only person in the world who would happily take a recipe book to bed).

I wish I would have had some time to know her in the prime of her life, I have a feeling we would have gotten on like a house on fire.

Anyway, I have collected books and books and just tons of recipes from her and I am probably not even a third of the way through. I am sifting through the recipes and books and collecting ones that she loved to cook and some that stand out to people when they think of her.

My plan is to put these together in a book that people can have, and so not only will the memories of Paula Ann Fast live on, but her recipes will also.

It's working title is: After all, there's nothing quite like Grandmother's cooking!

Canning time!

Laugh if you will, but I have never done any of my own canning before. Probably partly due to the fact that I grew up in London and it's not really the thing to do in the big smoke.

Last year we had an awesome vegetable garden, a bumper tomato crop and grand plans of canning sauces and all sorts of goodies to see us through the winter months.

Unfortunately, my diagnosis of Graves Disease and then the dental stuff on top of that kind of put a spanner in the works and we just couldn't keep on top of the garden or get round to doing anything with the produce either. We were up to our neck with other stuff going on so we had to just let people have the tomatoes from our garden. At least they didn't go to waste - that would have been unbearable.

This year we had high hopes too. We planted our garden and were excited about being able to have our own produce to see us through the winter months. Unfortunately the weather this year wasn't quite as good as last year for tomato plants and we haven't had the bumper crop of last year that we hoped for. It's kind of sad, but hey, that's life. We will have some tomatoes from the plants but they're coming so late. I doubt we'll have much to can though.

But the canning story doesn't end there... no, no, no... We still have grand plans! We are going to whip up a batch of berry jam and I'm planning on gifting some of that to friends and family and we have grapes galore in our garden too that I will find something awesome to do with. We're going blackberry picking this weekend too and I'm planning on using some of those for the jam but most to make pie filling and we'll be getting our grubby hands on some apples too for pie filling. So, it should be pretty awesome... and there are rumours that a friend of ours might have a bunch of extra tomatoes that they'd be willing to share with us... YAY!

So, watch this space people - the canning extravaganza is going to start in the next couple days... I have no idea how easy or hard it will be, but I'm guessing it's not rocket science... and after all, we are two fully grown and fairly smart adults, I'm sure we won't blow up the house!

Bringing home the bacon (literally)!!!

So today Genie and I went on a little outing to the Lady Di's British Store and Tea house in Lake Oswego. I was pretty excited to see what they had in the store and a few days ago I called ahead to see if they had Easter eggs. Apparently they did, so I was planning to get one for Cory.

Easter eggs like we have in the UK aren't a thing here, infact I haven't seen them anywhere. You can get the Cadbury creme eggs, but they are slightly different, but none of the usual hollow eggs. So I was determined to find one for Cory. I also read a few reviews this morning that said they sometimes have bacon... real back bacon! I couldn't help but get excited, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too high.
Anyway, we headed out of Mac and up to Lake Oswego - it's a pretty drive and a really nice area. We found the store up on Second Street - It had a big Union Jack flying outside, it was hard to miss.

In we go and the first thing we see is all the Easter eggs (YES!) and then a bunch of familiar pantry items. It was wonderful. They have bisto gravy, curry paste, chocolates from home, Jacobs cream crackers, porridge oats, Robinson's orange squash... They have so many things, and a pretty large selection of Tea too.

As I was looking round at the Easter eggs I spotted the freezer... Ooooh, maybe I was in luck! I peered in and there it was, yummy bacon! It was galtee bacon which is Irish, but I was just so surprised to see any bacon from home. They had 2 packages... Hummmmm
So, we decided to have lunch first and then come and do our shopping afterwards... So we sat down in the Tea house part of the store and had a look at the menu.

Moya (an expat herself) came and took our order for tea while we decided what to have for lunch. I opted for soup and a sandwich (cheese and tomato) and Genie had the same, except she went for the cream cheese & cucumber! YUM!
It was Heinz tomato soup, I could tell instantly. I didn't really realise how much of a difference there was between that and the soup we buy but I guess my taste buds had just adapted to the new flavour.

After finishing our delicious lunch we went back to shopping. I settled on a Crunchie Easter egg for Cory, I thought he'd like the honeycomb centre and that it wasn't all chocolate, and I picked out a Flake one for me. I also got some Bisto gravy and both packages of bacon. I wrestled with the bacon, since it was $8.50 a package and there was only 6 slices per pack I was planning on just getting the one package, but Cory knew how much I missed bacon from back home so he persuaded me to get both packages, and we could freeze one.

We'll be having bacon for dinner tonight! :)

I know it's pretty sad that I miss foodstuffs from home so much, but it's what I was brought up on, it's embedded into who I am, so it's hard when there are some things that are so different here from back in the UK & Ireland.

I think Easter eggs will have to be a yearly tradition in the Fast household from now on. Next year I plan on pouring my own, but we'll see what happens between now and then, it's a long way off.