Ontario Artisan Share

This is a pretty neat service I was just introduced to yesterday. There is a store up at Eglinton & Mt Pleasant called Culinarium that provides this service.  It is a weekly (well in winter biweekly) box of organic locally grown veggies, meat, cheese and some sort of pantry item.  Seems pretty cool to me.  They even offer an email with all sorts of recipes you can try with the items you have received.  Part of the plot is to get people to try all sorts of local foods you wouldn't normally think of.

The only downside to for me (hence why I'm not trying it right now) is that they don't do home delivery.  They only deliver to a "hub".  My office is considering becoming a hub.  Since I won't be at the office for part of the winter program it wouldn't work for me.  But I'm hoping when I'm back I can participate in the program.

www.ontarioartisanshare.ca

A place of some tasty recipies

Lately I've been pouring over recipes looking for some new ones to use at home that are healthier, more variety and just plain different from what we've usually been making here at the old homestead.

Tonight via a Facebook share I found the Noble Pig Blog.  There looks to be some tasty recipes there.  Especially the Bread Egg Bowls.  It think i'm going to have to try that out some saturday morning soon.

In fact I think I've actually accumulated a giant pile of recipes I may not make it through.  But it's been fun checking it all out.  Bought some brown lentils to try working with today.

Beets

Over the past couple of months I've take more of an interest in cooking and trying new foods etc... than in the recent past.  I've also been trying to work more and a wider variety of vegetables into our diet.

I've rediscovered one of my favorite foods.  Beets.  They are just tasty tasty tasty.  Lately I have been roasting them with sweet potatoes and onions.  Super super tasty.  And I have on my list of things to try, a beet humus and mashed potatoes with beets. 

The only thing about them I don't like is how pink my hands become when I'm working with them.  

Dilly Meatballs not so good

Tonight I tried a new recipe for dinner called Dilly Meatballs from Company's Coming Make-Ahead Meals.  It was not so great.  I thought it would be tasty, but it was just kind of bland.  Which is odd as there are a good number of recipes in that particular book that are on the tasty side.  The meatball part was tasty.  It was just the sauce that wasn't so yum.

It was a combination, of ketchup, sour cream and dill.  There was just something missing.

Pasty Success

Our pastry making session was pretty much a success.  We ended up making far more pastry than we actually needed by accident.  But that's ok.  I now have enough pastry put away in the freezer for about 4 more pies.

We did have one accident with the pastry making.  We had several Deep Dish pie plates and a couple of shallow ones.  We had a cherry pie filing for one of the pies.  When we put it into one of the deep dish ones it kind of,  well, wasn't quite enough.  So the brilliant group of us decided to try a whole pastry transfer to a shallow plate.  Didn't work too well as you can see from the photo, but it was funny as all hell and we named our cherry pie "Victim Pie".

All in all it turned out fairly well.  I need to work on my pastry rolling skills.  I found it wasn't as thin as my Mom's usually is.  But that will come with time.  We may try the blind baking too so the crust doesn't get to soggy too.

All the pies together

The bats

The great pie transfer

The Victim Pie

Pastry

Today is the day I'm trying to make pastry for the first time.  Hopefully it will go well.  My Mom has given me the recipe for her never fail pastry dough and some of my friends are coming over to partake in the pastry madness.

Here's hoping it goes well.

We will be attempting, cherry pie, raspberry pie and chicken pot pie.

It's a cooking and cleaning type of weekend

On Wednesday night we hooked up our new freezer.  I have been wishing for a freezer for a good long while.  I hate always having to wonder if I have enough room in the freezer when I'm at the grocery store if I see something on sale, or having to eat spaghetti sauce twice a week because there is no room in the  freezer after making a big batch.  We've also got fairly busy schedules so it's nice to be able to have something reasonably easy to thaw and heat up.

I've been very excited about this and have gone on a cooking binge as a result.  Last night I made a nice large batch of spaghetti sauce that should last us a good while.

Today, I had the bright idea that I should try making meatballs since we had no special plans for the night.  I've only ever made meatballs once.  And that was with a friend's help.  They were actually turkey meatballs from Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes by Gilda Laurentiis.  These ended up being quite tasty and I should try making some again.

For some reason making meatballs has always intimidated me.  But tonight i decided to go for it. I found a recipe in Make-Ahead Meals (Original) from the Company's Coming Series.  I keep being gifted with these cookbooks and there are usually a few good recipes in each one.  So far they seem to have turned out well, none have fallen apart.  I did for some reason think it would take all evening to make the meatballs, but it didn't take me super long.  Waiting around for them to cook on the other hand.....


Now I'm debating whether or not I should bake myself some corn muffins.  Could be tasty and good to take to work next week.  It might be more fun than the cleaning I've also been doing.