Massive amounts of food porn here.

Ok, none of these are *my* recipes.  I DID however get some mutton in my CSA share this week.  Was completely lost as to what to do with it. So I googled..and googled..

This is what I got

FIRST!  The Rhubarb Chutney.

Recipe for the Rhubarb Chutney can be found here

It's about to start simmering here

Finished product! It thickened in the fridge.

Now, on to the Naan bread!!!

Recipe for the bread can be found here

Now I DID tweak the method a little, since I have a pizza stone.  I preheated my oven/stone to 500deg.  Then turned the broiler on and slapped the breads on the stone to cook.  Came out BEAUTIFUL.

About to be rolled out!!

Final product!!!!

Now, on to the Kebabs.

Mutton Kebab recipe can be found here!

Mutton/spice/onion mixture

On the sticks about to go in the oven!

Now on to the rice.  I used normal long grain because that's all I had.  Feel free to use Basmati or Jasmine..

btw if you don't know how to cook rice, you make me sad.

Rice ready to be switched on.

And here's the final product!!!  Was sooo delish.  MOST of this was provided by my local CSA at http://www.taprootfarms.ca  The mutton, cucumbers, rhubarb, onions...yeah all of that was from the CSA.  Nothing like eating exotic, locally!! HAHAH

More Food Porn

Ok Everyone!  I'm back.  I should blog more often but meh..I'll blog when I wanna blog.

Today, I'll share my recipe for mince pork pie..or as Quebequois call it "Tourtiere"

Here are the ingredients:



FILLING

• 5 slices of bacon, chopped (it's the stuff in the pan)
• 1lb of ground pork
• 2 medium potatoes, washed and diced small
• 2 medium leeks sliced
• 1 medium onion minced
• 2tbsp Clubhouse Montreal Chicken Spice
• 2tsp Dried Thyme
• 2tsp dried rosemary
• 1tsp dried sage
• *of course you CAN use Fresh and I fully encourage that, I didn't have fresh so I used dried*
• 1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic...or 3 cloves minced give or take

Step 1:  Cook the chopped bacon in your skillet. Do so until it's starting to get crisp.
Step 2:  Put the pork, garlic, leek, onion and spices into the pan with the bacon, mush it all up and cook until no longer pink and crumbled

While the pork is cooking, put your diced potatoes in the microwave for about 2 minutes to partially cook them.

Once the pork mixture is done put in a bowl with the potatoes, mix well and put in the freezer to cool off.

PASTRY!

1 Cup Shortening/Lard/Coconut oil/ Whatever Solid Fat you choose to use, I don't care.
2 1/4 cups of Pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
ice water.

Now, you take a cold fork or pastry cutter, and blend the flour, fat and salt in a bowl until it looks all crumbly like..almost like coarse oatmeal.  Keep it cold.  then add the ice water bit by bit until it comes together to form a dough ball.  Don't knead don't use your hands..keep anything warm away..or it turns to crap, and you don't get the nice light flaky pastry goodness.

Split the dough ball into 2 halves,  Roll out on a floured surface, put one half in a pie plate, dump the filling in, then put the other half on top.  Cut slits in.  Grab a pastry brush and brush beaten egg or fresh milk on top of the crust to give it a nice colour when it's done cooking.

Stick in a 375deg F oven for about an hour.

Enjoy!

The challenges of writing a novel.

This past November, I thought it would be cool to start up a NaNoWriMo project.  I was like 50k words in a month?  Cake.

Not so much.  That cake was a lie.  I got writers block not even 8000 words in.  That and life took over, husband came home with a broken leg, distraction upon distraction, you get the idea.  Now, I'm trying to get over it.

I had a few wonderful suggestions over Twitter on how to get over it, and I'm really trying.  I WANT this novel series to take off, and go somewhere.  I HAVE the world, culture and story in my head.  It just doesn't want to come out smoothly.

I don't want to front load my novel.  I don't want to make it too sparse either.  I want to set up the conflict, but I don't want it to be terribly obvious either.

It's such a delicate balance.  I don't want to put out a bad novel.  I want to put out a GOOD one.  Properly written, rich story, rich characters and a rich world that the reader can get lost in.

I've seen so many BAD books make the NYT Best-seller's list it isn't even funny.  Twilight, 50Shades...it's rather sad, really.  There are so many GOOD indie authors out there that put out great books, that get buried under that tripe.

Right now I'm reading and re-reading the stuff I have already, seeing what I can flesh out, prune, or whatever.  I don't want a sub par book.  I believe people are smarter than that.  I KNOW my potential readers have brains, and deserve to be entertained by a well written book.

I have really nothing to say.

The Boston Marathon bombings made me sad, and angry.  Twitter needs to shut up about the whole speculation as to who did it.

They'll find out eventually because someone who wants to create that much carnage has to be a grade A attention whore.

Until then, Here's a funny video that will make you go WTF in a good way

Not taking away the seriousness of the event.  I'm just trying to distract all the speculators and "False Flag" people with a funny shiny.

Cole Harbour, The Canadian Stubenville.

It's no real secret.  I live in Nova Scotia, Canada.  I'm also pretty angry at the whole rape culture/Slut shame culture/bully culture that has seeped slowly into humanity over the course of the centuries.

There was an incident, not an hour away from me, 18 months ago, a young teen got gang raped.  Pictures were taken, and distributed all across the internet far and wide.  Sound familiar?  Sounds like Stubenville right?  Well that's where you're wrong.

Cases between Cole Harbour and Stubenville end there.

Jane Doe got justice.

Rehtaeh Parsons, did not.  Actually, after 18 months of Hell on Earth.  Bullying, slut shaming, sexual harassment, all as a result of teenage boys taking pictures and showing the world how they violated that young woman, she couldn't take it anymore.  She hanged herself in her bathroom.

The RCMP, said, there was not sufficient evidence to press charges. THAT IS FUCKED.  I'm sorry.  There was PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE of this crime.   Remember the rules?  Pix or it didn't happen, yo!  Well there's the evidence.

I am just sick to my stomach about this.

These are the words of her father.  The pain from that newspaper article...you can feel it.

Here is a petition for you to please sign, to get justice for Rehtaeh.   The more pressure we put on the Justice Dept of Nova Scotia to re-open her case, and charge those perverts with the crime they committed.  Even if she won't be alive to testify...I hope those who have the pictures, can come forward, and submit the evidence.

PLEASE..sign the petition, and please let's get justice for Rehtaeh.  Jane Doe got justice for her case...let's keep up the momentum.  Teach that it is NOT OK TO RAPE.

btw:

You might want to read that. I guess I'm not the only person angry about this.

My Daughter's 10th Birthday

I try  not to Mommy Blog, I really try not to,  but this is just one of those "Too Awesome" things to not share.  Ya'll can just not bother reading this or watching this I don't care.

See, my daughter has Aspergers/Autism.  She's verbal, she just has the whole "Social Issues" kids with it have.

She also has obsessions.  Or rather, single focused interests.  That's a more diplomatic way of putting it.  Her kick right now, is Pokemon.  I love pokemon as well (no Mudkipz plz)

Well a couple of weeks ago,  we all came down with this nasty stomach bug.  We knew that the 3DS XL Pikachu edition would be coming out on the 24th of March.  Well I sent my husband to Walmart on that day, because we were sick, to get us some gravol (anti-nausiant for you American people) and some Pepto Bismol to ease our suffering.  He went to the electronics aisle, and saw a Pikachu edition 3DS.

He bought it.  For my daughter.  She's been wanting a 3DS FOR..EV..ER  I mean FOREVER.  This, was the only ONE in our town.  The girl *just* put it out in the display case.  That's how limited edition it is.

My daughter's 10th birthday was yesterday, but we waited until today to give her her presents, because that's when my parents were going to be coming down.

This was the result:

Please don't mind the messy living room.  lol

Nommy Breakfast Tiem Farmshare style/CSA style

Yesterday, we got our first CSA/Farmshare delivery.

We got a bunch of goodies, like apples, and carrots.  We also got a couple of things people would find odd, and wouldn't know what to do with.

Like Celeriac and purple fingerling potatoes.  Last night I made scalloped potatoes with celeriac and some normal looking potatoes, was meh.

Today, I still had a chunk of celeriac root ( Click here to see WTF I'm talking about ) left, so I decided to make, potato pancakes with a couple of the purple/blue fingerling potatoes, and the rest of the celeriac root.

Here's the recipe for the potato pancakes:

You'll need:

2 Purple fingerling potatoes (don't bother peeling they're like the whole 'new' potatoes with the super thin peel)   grated

 about 1/8 or so of a large chunk of celeriac root, peeled and grated

1 egg

1/4 or 1/2 cup of flour, depending how juicy the veggies are

2 tsp of baking powder

1tsp of dried thyme

1tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp of salt (or whatever you think is good)

Mix all this in a bowl.

Then Grab half of it, and put it in a hot greased pan (I used bacon grease because well bacon grease is good) smush it down into a pancake.  Grab the other half and repeat.  Cook on one side until set/brown then flip...cook until other side is brown, flip...cook for another 5 minutes or so...just flipping so each side doesn't burn...so it's all cooked inside.

I served mine topped with the alfalfa sprouts I got from the farmshare and a side of bacon.

Yeah they look kinda funky because of the purple potatoes, but they taste pretty damn good.  

Veggies from http://www.taprootfarms.ca

on my plate before going in mah belleh.  

topped with organic alfalfa sprouts and some 

low cal ceaser dressing. See the happy veggies and bacon?

ENJOY

Oh and the scalloped potato recipe

3 medium potatoes scrubbed and sliced into rounds.

3/4 med/large celeriac root, sliced thin

2 cups milk

1/4 cup flour

garlic powder

1tsp rosemary (dried or fresh)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Mix milk, flour and seasonings in a bowl

layer, potatoes, and celeriac in a casserole dish,  pour milk mixture over everything, cover and bake for about 45 minutes.  Remove cover, bake for another 15 til brown and bubbly.  Let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

I didn't get a picture of it before we ate it. Was kinda meh, needed more salt at the table for us.  Feel free to add bacon and cheese if you want.  Next time I'm gonna do that.