F*%k you scotch bonnet Steve!!!

So the last couple of days has been kind of running around.

On Saturday we planned out my Halloween steam punk costume and then went shopping for fabrics with a friend. It was hard but I did find a cool dark blue wool type fabric to make my vest out of. We ran around to a couple of places that day as well but in terms of creativity that was about it.

Sunday was a little more hectic and fresher in my memory so here goes. Talia went house shopping with a friend in the morning so i had free rain in the kitchen. Finally a chance to clean up a bit. I also did laundry and would have swept the floors but ran out of time. Talia came home with her friend around 1 and we all had lunch. A delicious scalloped potatoes made my Talia. Needed salt but other than that it was amazing.

Since we were unable to find any pant or shirt material at fabricland on saturday we decided to go down to fashion district and rummage around there. Talias friend also wanted to go and visit a game store she on bloor and yonge so she came along for the ride.

We did find a very cool fabric for my pants. Gray with black stripes, just what I was looking for. and then it was a run over to yonge street and a walk up so we could visit all the used book stores there :)

It was at our 3nd bookstore where I found a jamie oliver cookbook. I have looked all over the place for them for a price I could afford and I have never been able to find it. So after some humming and ha-ing Talia convinced me to get the book. While paying for the book I started chatting with the cashier and he mentioned that they had a whole bunch of books by jamie oliver at their other store which wasnt too far away. So off we went. Finally found a book I liked and yeah i now have 2 Jamie Oliver cook books.

I had planned to make pizza for dinner tonight but we have been out of anything I could use for pizza sauce for a couple of weeks now, so while we were down there we went to a grocery store (across the street from the BMV where I got then 2nd book) and headed home.

Talia also wanted to make cupcakes which takes a lot of soy milk and we were almost out of it so we had to make a detour over to the no frills where soy milk is a reasonable price (unlike the metro around the corner from our place). So we grabbed some milk and grapes and started home.

Talia wanted to also make some cauliflower and broccoli casserole so we started cooking. I made the pizza dough and she started cutting up the veg for her casserole. Unfortunately I found out too late that we had to aluminum foil to cook the pizza on. Talia said she would go grab some from the metro while I finished making the dough.

Flash back to earlier in the week. We had gone shopping at the fresh Co earlier and I had seen scotch bonnet peppers on sale. I had never had them but I have been told they are really good. So i grabbed 3 of them and they had been sitting in our fridge since them.

With the dough done and Talia still out getting alluminum foil I decided to start curring up the veg. Including the scotch bonnets cause hey, I love spice onmy pizzas.... OMG F*%C you scotch bonnet steve!!!! those things are murder.

I wont go into detail cause I'm exhausted right now, but Talia got pepper juice up her nose and I got it in my eye. MY EYE!!!!!!!!

Dry Baby Dry

So this morning I decided to try drying strawberries. Yesterday I asked my parents if I could borrow their fruit dryer because no frills was having a sale on strawberries. So we got 4 500g boxes of strawberries and with half of them I made strawberry jam. Mmmmmm jammmmmmm... and the other half I started drying this morning. The instructions say they are going to take 6 to 12 hours to fully dry but the hard part is done; cutting the strawberries up. Now I just wait and soon we will have nice dried berries for breakfast.

Bamboo troubles

So I finally managed to get some creativity into my life tonight. I was tossing around the idea of making a bread or drawing, and I have really wanted to draw the last couple of days so I decided to draw.

If you remember the last time I drew something I said I would try and ink it on the computer so that's what I was working on. Sadly I don't have anything to post because I didn't like any of the results from tonight, but I did get some good practice with my Bamboo tablet. Its not a super high quality tablet, but that ok cause I'm just learning how to use it. I would have liked to have tilt control because I think it would be more like using a real pen, but for now simple pen pressure will do.

So as I said, I don't have anything to show, but I did spend well over an hour fiddling with settings and getting used to the pressure settings of the tablet. I made a valiant effort in inking, and if I keep practising I think I will be able to actually do something post-able soon :)

~(' ')~

long time no see

So i have been really busy for the last little while which means that I havent been so good with the creative stuff for over a week.

again, im finding it hard to motivate myself in the evenings when I would rather just sit and watch some big bang theory or sleep. But no more! tonight I will do something creative. not sure what yet but it will be something!

I did do one kind of creative thing on the weekend.Talia and I and all our friends were at the cottage to celebrate talia successfully defending her masters thesis, and as usual I was doing all the cooking. So my 1 kind of creative things was a baked apple again. This time I had half a lemon as well so what I did was to cut the apples in half (3 of them) and take out the core. Then i put a small amount of brown sugar and a piece of a cinnamon stick in the middle. Finally I finished it off with a lemon slice on top and baked them on a super low heat (the cottage wood stove) for about 6 hours.

It was an interesting experiment but there was too much lemon and not enough sugar. Especially because I was using Granny Smith apples which are naturally tart.

I dont have any pics so a rough description is all you get

~(' ')~

Ichigo

So the other day Talia mentioned that there were strawberries on sale for really cheap. $5 a kilogram. So we went out and bought a kilogram and of course went and cut up half of it and froze it for home made ice cream and smoothies and the like.

The other half a kilo I was supposed to chop up and freeze tonight (we ran out of freezer bags which is why they werent frozen before) but as today progressed I got distracted with some Jamie Oliver tv shows and ended up watching an episode on strawberries. Some interesting recopies but the most interesting was for strawberry jam

Recipe:
Take 1 kg fresh strawberries
150 g sugar

1)Wash the strawberries so they are clean and shake dry but not too hard cause we want some moisture to dissolve the sugar.
2) add the sugar and mash the strawberries and sugar until all the sugar is dissolved. This can be done with your hands (as Jamie Oliver did) or with a potato masher
3) bring to a point and after it boils, lower the heat to a medium temperature and cook for 30 or so minutes.
4) every 5 minutes or so, skim away the pink foam that forms on the top.
5) cook until it is a dark red (|30 minutes)

So I made a nice half batch. very tasty. No pictures sadly

|(``)|

ready for my refund now...

So this is going to be a little ranty but I am really pissed off at the TTC right now.

I have to travel 7.6 km from my house to my school every day and all of last year this was fine. On a good day, when the bus was right at my local bus stop when I arrived I could do it in 20 minutes. If I had to wait for a bus it would take maybe 30 minutes. At most a 10 minute wait. And I'm ok with that. I understand that there is construction and delays and things happen.

So this morning I leave the house at the same time as always, around 9 am, and go and wait at the bus stop.... and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. I waited for 45 minutes before a bus finally arrived. 45 minutes!!! it took me an hour to get in today when a month ago it took 30 minutes! and a month ago the buses were on the summer schedule which means they dont come as frequently!

The thing that really pisses me off is that as I was waiting there for my bus I saw no fewer than 6 buses heading east (I go west from my place). 6 buses went to the other end of the route (which is only about 7 minutes down the road), then they waited at the station until all of them arrived and they all left together. That's right, all the buses arrived at my stop at the same time. How hard is it for buses to continue their route when they reach the end?

I am so pissed right now that if there was another option, even one that was more expensive, I would take it.

~(-.-)~

flat raisin

So i finally managed to find time to try my raisin  flat bread with cinnamon. it turned out ok, not that cinnamon flavoured cause all i had was a stick and no ground spice. I had to grind it up with a pestal and so i didnt do much. But it tastes pretty good. gonna have it toasted with butter tomorrow morning

Peaches and Walnuts

So has i said earlier I went and make walnuts with my grandma today and I did say I would post the recipe.

While I was planning this blog it got me thinking about the last time i made cookies with my grandma and I started to worry that I may have lost the most amazing recipe for stuffed peach cookies when I switched from my mac to my mini. Luckily I found it :) so i'm going to post that here as well as the walnut cookie recipe so I will never risk losing it again

So first, the peaches. These peaches are amazing but they take FOREVER!!!!!!!! Last time i made a batch it was 8 hours at least. This recipe was done kind of as we were making them and my grandma was in a rush to get them done so its kind as we went.

Peaches:

4 whole eggs
3/4 cup sugar
 -> mix on machine to fluffy

1 1/4 cup vegitable oil in a cup. slowly add to the mixture.
1 package of backing powder 14 g Dr. Oetker baking powder
1 package Dr. Oetker Original vanilla sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tbsp of *instant flour add to eggs slowly and mix

do the night before and cover in fridge (at least 2 hrs)

after that put in bowl add instant flour as much as needed than make small balls and bake size of thumb.

bake at 300F for 15 minutes in small batches so they are still hot when you carve out the centre

carve out the center and save the center for the filling.

crush up the center parts into bread crums
add 2 cups of ground walnuts
zested lemon peal from 1 lemon

about 1/4 to 1/2 cut sugar depending on the sweetness of the alcohol

some kind of alcoholic liqueur (amaretto or peach schnapps - this is optional)
about 8 spoons until it is mushy

half a cup cream and 1-2 drops red colour
dip the cookies and place on a tray to drip partly dry. then role in granulated sugar and decorate with green icing sugar for leaves if you want



The walnut recipe is much simpler but it requires some walnut shaped baking tins

Walnut Cookies:
3 cups flour
2 cups ground walnuts
2 cups icing sugar
1 lb butter
1 tsp salt

combine ingredients and fill thinly into walnut shells
bake at 370 for 10 minutes
tap out of baking shells while they are still warm or they will stick

Filling
1 cup icing sugar
2 cups ground walnuts
1 packet vanilla sugar (or 1 lemon zest)
8 Tbsp milk (or lemon juice or ameretto)

fill shell halves and press together

Yum brain food

So last night didn't quite go as planned. Instead of going home and baking break I went out on a date with talia. We went down to the big carrot like I said but then I started to get hungry so we went to dinner at Astoria which is a really nice Greek place. For dessert we got some fugde around the corner.

Then we went to the eglinton bmv used bookstore and wandered around for about an hour. I ended up getting a book for an Christmas gift but that was it.

By the time we got home we were both too exhausted to do anything. But I did do some baking today.

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon and my dentist is close to my grandmas place so I called her up yesterday and asked if she would teach me how to make her famous walnut cookies. So that's what we madeto day. A half batch makes 80 cookies. If I remember I will post pics and the recipe later tonight.

Now I have to get home and make dinner. Curried chickpeas I think :)

Yum carrots

So tonight I feel a little chefy so I'm heading down town with my gf to the big carrot.

For those that don't know, the big carrot is kind of an organic vegan friendly grocery store. Thy have non vegan stuff but for anything vegan its the best place to look (except for that vegan only grocery store panacia or something of bloor but I don't even know if its still around)

The prices at carrot are a little expensive bit that's to be expected with an organic place. I'm really excited cause I haven't been in about a year.

As for cooking tonight I'm thinking of making the flat bread recipe but instead of Moroccan I'm going for more of a breakfast bread with raisins and cinnamon.

I actually got the idea on the weekend at the cottage cause my dad was telling talia about this breakfast bread that he can't find any more. If it works out I'll give him a batch to have for breakfasts.

~(' ')~

cant sleep

So i went to karate last night so i didnt have much time to do anything. My parents were nice enough to drive me home after (they also go to karate) and then they came up for tea.

So i guess its lucky that I couldnt sleep last night. I'm sure I will regret it later today but instead of sleeping I went and drew something. I havent drawn in a long time so this is really just a doodle. maybe I will find some time to clean it up on the computer. Until then all you get is a messy scan

As you can see there are 2 types of ears on this guy, not sure if i like the fin one of the other one, we will see what happends.

~(' ')~

at long last

So the last half of the week has been a little hectic. As I said I went away to the cottage to chop wood for the winder (and chop wood I did :) but that was the slow part of the week. Sunday night my parents and we went to pick up some Japanese people form the airport. Its a big convoluted story, but the short version is that my parents have a girl/lady (she is 23 i think, what should I be calling her?) staying with them for a month or so while she looks for work. Reiko (the person from japan) is a dietition who is here on a working holiday.

Anyway, the flight was delayed on sunday so instead of coming in at 6:30 they came in at 9pm >.<
This would have been fine except I had agreed to make little personal pizzas for everyone. So when we got back from the cottage (around 5) I immediately started making the dough. Made the dough, Talia cut up all the veggies and cheese and stuff. and we put it in the fridge for later. Then we found out that the flight had been changed.

When we originally agreed to go pick up people from the airport we had said that we didnt want to be out too late (i.e. home by 11) but with the change that wasnt looking likely, so we were just gonna go home and then maybe meet up on monday (which was a holiday). We had wanted to be dropped off on the way to the airport so that we could get all our stuff from the cottage home as well, but as usual my parents left the house too late and so there wasnt time to drop us off. So we went to the airport picked up Reiko and Mayan (my sisters host mother from when she was in japan) and started chatting. Long story short, we ended up going back to my parents house and having pizza with them. Fun times, nice people. but we didnt get home until after midnight.

One of the side effects of having dinner with my parents and their guests is that we invited Reiko to join Talia and I and one of our friends to a board game cafe on bathurst and bloor (cool place if anyone is around there). We also invited Mayan and Reiko (and my parents) to dinner at our place monday night. So of course this means we have to clean. So I wake up at 7ish and start to clean. Not a huge mess to clean up, just the floors and the bathroom. So after not getting home until after 12 (didnt get to bed until after 1) and then getting up at 7 I went down to the cafe with Talia, Karen, and Reiko and had some fun playing new games in the afternoon.

This is getting to be a long entry so im gonna speed up.

Went for a late late late lunch (5pm) at a thai place. Got groceries for dinner (most places were closed cause of the holiday). Got home, made dinner (just in time for guests) and served dinner. One thing i should mention is that we dont really have seating for a lot of people. In fact we only have 4 chairs for our table... and we had 6 people including us. So the solution, well we served dinner while everyone else ate and then we ate after everyone left.

So that was monday and we were all exhausted. Tuesday there was a possibility of going to dinner with my family but Talia and I were just too tired to move so we ended up eating dinner after work and then curling up to a movie.

Mayan left wednesday afternoon so now its just Reiko staying while she looks for work.

So you may be wondering about wednesday. Well cause we had guests for dinner we didnt have much food in the house (especially since half our food went to feeding family at the cottage. So yesterday we made an epic trip to Michael's (a craft store) for some primo clay. Then we went to home depot looking for some bathroom corner shelves for plants (I'll explain that if we ever get them) and finally to a grocery store where we grabbed some food and went home. Made the food and then since it was about 9:30 curled up for an episode of the pretender and then bed.

So thats been my life for the last couple days. Hopefully things will get back on track with the creativity tonight. I am going to karate tonight so we will see. Depends on how I feel after class.

On a slightly creative note, while we were at Michaels we saw this figure craft book that talia really wants. She hadnt found it before except online and now that she has looked through it she wants it even more.
Book I am probably gonna order it some time this week or next for her.

Also, for those looking for gift ideas for Talia Here is a good place to start.

~(' ')~

Off again

Heading to the cottage for a day so no posts tonight or tomorrow. I am hoping to do some cooking. Maybe do some cooking. I had a request for some more Moroccan flat bread so we will see.

~(' ')~

Back on track

So after a couple rough days in the creative and personal department I am back on track with trying new stuff and being creative. Tonight My gf, Talia, and I decided to play with her sculpey for a while. I was all inspired to try some doctor who stuff from looking at some esty shops and from watching the latest episode (Such a good episode)

So as you might guess I decided to go and make a dr who figure out of scupley and this was the results

Its the 11th dr in case you didnt know. I think he turned out pretty good. His jacket is a little crooked but other than that I think he looks pretty cute. His face and eyes will be painted on after he has been fired in the oven, but that's him.

I used the following image as a reference. Big thanks to Talia for helping me with the colours (I can't see most of them :( )

Next I think I will try to make Amy and Rorrie

~(' ')~