Good for the soul.....

I'm having a great day. Today is my first real day off in a while and I'm loving it! The two days that I took off last week, although I wasn't working, they didn't leave me feeling fulfilled and ready to go back to work. One was a sick day and the other was one of those errand days where you run all around doing way too much. Anyways, today I slept in, checked my email and then headed right to the kitchen. After 2 hours of productivity from start to finish (clean up and all) I had all of these delicious goodies made.

How yummy does all of that look? (from back left to front left) The cookies are for a friend whose mother in law has passed away. The circumstances around why I baked these sucks however I was excited to be able to do it. Normally when I make chocolate chip cookies I have to make the recipe Jason likes because they're for him. This time I got to use my favorite recipe from one of my sister's friends. The secret ingredient is vanilla pudding. They're so yummy! The sweet bread is an applesuace bran loaf. I decided to make this and the next thing instead of muffins for a change. You see I've spoiled myself so much that I only like my high fibre healthy things that I bake for breakfast now. I get really cranky when I have to have toast or cereal. Next to the loaf is baked oatmeal. Have any of you ever had this? It's so yummy. It's like a big oatmeal cookie or muffin with a hint of cinnamon and apples. I don't know it's hard to explain. Throw some fruit and yogurt on top and it's delicious for breakfast, dessert, whatever. Then the last fatttening ooey gooey thing you see there is the beginnings of a caramel chocolate truffle pie. I have to wait until the crust and caramel cool before I can put the topping on. I've only made this once before. However we're heading to a friends house tomorrow night for games so it seemed like a good occassion to pull out a great recipe.

Okay so how many of you are thinking I'm insane? I only have one friend, who now lives in PEI :( who enjoys doing this. Everyone else really thinks I'm nuts. I so love baking. I can't even begin to explain it to you. I was reminded of how much I love it because of how I felt while doing it today. It had been so long since I got to just spend a few hours in my kitchen and do this all by myself. I just love making yummy things that bring people together I guess. Oh and the compliments I always get help too...ha ha ha.

I hope each one of you are able to pick a day some time soon where you're able to do what you truly enjoy without interuptions. Now I'm off to the couch to watch cooking shows!

Our house.....

Although we've been living here for over a year now I realize that some of you still haven't been here to see it and have asked me some questions. One of you was even trying to figure our house out from the pictures of Jason and I baking (too cute). So it got me thinking that I should post some pics on here. Our house is definitely an original design so it may be hard to follow but I'm going to do my best. Also it is a work in progress. Some things are working right now because we don't have the time/money to change it. Now onto the pictures.

1. This is the shot of the outside that was taken by the house inspector a while ago so that's why it looks all green and such.

2. One major change that Jason's done to the outside for a BBQ and a patio set is build a 12x12 deck extension because the deck wrapping around the house isn't wide enough. So from the picture above the door on the side by the satellite dish now has this when you go out the door (it will be my fun job in the summer to stain it since you have to let it weather for a year... little tip there from the girl who used to work in the paint department).

3. Now the door that we use to get into the house is the one that you see next to the garage. When you walk in this is what you see (the room in progress but border is working with my old furniture so it has been left for now)

(to the right of this is the garage, no need to show you pics of that mess. In the background where you see the closet doors the one to the left is a closet and the one on the right hides our washer and dryer)

4-6. Now when you go up the stairs if you turn to your left you see a small hallway with 2 bedrooms (neither of which have been changed because someday they will be children's rooms and who knows what we'll decide to do with them then) and a full bath

(please tell me you all have a room like this where everything that you don't know what to do with ends up?)

7-9. I hope this isn't getting too confusing....so if you go back to coming up the strairs from the basement and look straight and to your right you'll see our favorite part of the house.

(there's the side door that goes out onto the deck extension that I should you earlier)

10-13. Now we're going to go up those stairs that you see in the last picture. So here's some shots from the landing up there.

(took the last picture for a contractor who's going to attempt to change our ceiling fan into something more my taste...hooray!) oh and here's what I see when I walk out our bedroom door

(this picture was on Sunday before the last storm hit)

14-16. So those previous pictures were if you went to the top of the stairs and turned right. If you turned left you would enter into our bedroom and then another left to our bathroom.

(my side of the room)(Jason's side of the room.....it used to annoy the heck out of me that he didn't put his clothes away. Now after 4 years I could care less, ahhhhhh how freeing.)This is our small bathroom but we really don't need anything bigger, plus just having to clean a stand up shower is so much better than a full bath (we never use the downstairs one).

So that's it. That's our house. Hope that made sense to you. I'll leave you one last shot of our view (this one is from the front door in the livingroom/kitchen/diningroom area) that was taken this morning. Hopefully you'll all be able to come out and visit some time. Although the drive gets annoying at times we love it here. We feel so blessed to have this wonderful house and view. If I'm honest sometimes I feel guilty for all the space that we do have. However Kitty and Alpine seem to enjoy leaving hairy messes in every room for me to clean so it's kind of like I have 2 kids most days, other days it feels like 3 :)

Africana......

Last night we had a very fun night at our house. We decided to have an African night with some guests. Everyone made African dishes to share, we had African music, and some even dressed in African attire for the event. Unfortunately no one thought to take any pictures. However trust me when I tell you that it was yummy!

The previous weekend we had had an Indian food night which was yummy and fun as well. However those dishes were difficult and expensive. Therefore when it came time to prepare for our African feast Mandi and I were a little concerned. It makes sense though that foods from Africa would be less expensive and complicated due to limited income and available resources. Anyways, aside from some prego nausea due to smells from my best buddy everyone seemed to enjoy the food and fun. I'm thinking this could become a monthly ritual for the Constables!

Anyways, I wanted to post some of the recipes for those of you who are interested in trying them. Again they are easy and you don't need to run all over your city trying to find the ingredients. Everything can be found right in the grocery store.

For those of you who get adventurous and try these I'd love to hear what you thought. Also for those of you who are reading this and ate these goodies last evening feel free to leave your comments so that others will know what you thought. You may also leave those recipes that I do not have on here that you made. Now on to the recipes....

Ginger Tea from Kenya
Boil:
2 cups of water
Add:
1 Tbs. diced ginger root
4 tsp sugar
Simmer 10 minutes or longer for more flavour
Add:
4 black tea bags (preferably fair trade)
Simmer 3-5 minutes, stirring as needed.
Remove tea bags and add:
2 cups of milk
Heat until very hot but do not boil. Strain into cups to remove ginger.


Curried Split Peas from Kenya
Heat to boiling in pot, turn off heat and let stand 1 hour:
1 cup split peas (green or yellow)
3.5 cups water
After an hour bring to boil, then simmer until soft and mushy (about 45 minutes)
In a separate pan sauté over medium heat in 2 Tbs of oil until brown:
2 medium onions
4-6 cloves of garlic
Add to onions and garlic:
2 Tbs. curry powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
Fry 1 minute. Mix with cooked split peas.
Add:
2-4 Tbs. chopped cilantro
Simmer briefly to blend flavours.

Chick-Peas in Coconut Milk from Tanzania
Combine in saucepan:
2 cups canned chickpeas that have been drained and rinsed
1 chopped tomato
4 whole cloves or 1/8 tsp ground cloves
2-3 cloves of minced garlic
1 1/2 cups of coconut milk
1 1/2 tsp of ground turmeric
1/2 tsp of salt
Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for at least 20 minutes to blend flavours. Serve with rice.

Meat Loaf from South Africa
Soak one piece of bread in:
3/4 cup of milk
In a frying pan melt 1 Tbs butter and fry until golden:
1/2 cup diced onion
Add:
1 Tbs. curry powder
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp salt
dash of pepper
1 Tbs. lemon juice
In mixing bowl combine:
soaked bread (squeeze out milk and reserve)
fried onions and seasonings
1 egg
1 lb. ground beef or turkey
Mix well and put into well greased casserole or loaf pan.
Whisk together and pour over meat:
1 egg
reserved milk
dash of salt and pepper
Bake at 375 F for 45-50 minutes or until egg mixture is set and meat is cooked.

Ginger Pudding from Lesotho
Combine in a 9" square baking dish:
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbs vinegar
Stir until sugar dissolved. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine:
2/3 cup margarine/butter melted
2 cups flour
2 Tbs apricot jam
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
Mix well, add a bit of milk if the batter is dry.
Preheat oven to 375 F. Drop cake mixture by small spoonfuls into syrup.
Cover tightly with foil (so it steams) and bake 50-55 minutes or until set.
Serve with custard or whipped cream.

Where in the world is carmen Sandiego....

So it's no secret to most, I'm very horrible at geography. I hate it, especially in the job I'm in, that I can't tell you where a country is when we get a product in. Or when I hear about something on the news. Or even worse when I'm actually in a place and really have no idea where I am. For example a few years ago I flew to Pennsylvania for a work orientation. I had no idea where I was. I knew that I was somewhere on the eastern part of the United States. However if you showed me a map of the US, I could not point and say I'm here. It's really quite pathetic I know.

So I've been trying to come up with little ways to teach myself just where exactly places are in the world. I clearly absorbed nothing in geography from my school years. However I'm okay with Canadian provinces....phewf....I think it helps that I've been to most of them though. At work I've printed off a map of Africa. I try to look at it often to memorize where some of the countries are. It was also my mission to do this with the states in America. Last June my sister I travelled from Florida back to New Brunswick with my dad. I loved it because I was getting to learn just what state connected with what (and we went through Pennsylvania...how exciting). However this was probably the 10th time that I had done this drive in my life. I clearly didn't care before. I've also drove from Florida to Texas and back and have no recollection of the order of the states. However when we travelled to Arizona last year and did the loop through California, Nevada and back I got that. I seem to understand shapes perhaps? Ha ha ha.

Anyways, all this to say with embarrassment that perhaps some of you may enjoy a link that was emailed to me by a friend earlier this week. Try it out and see how well you can do. You simply click and drag the states to where you think they should go. At the end they'll give you a score. I got a whopping 54% the first time I tried. I'm up to 74% now so I'm getting a bit better. It's different every time you play.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html

I'm curious to know how the rest of you do. Am I the only one out there who knows nothing about our neighbour's geography? I think I remember learning this in elementary but that's it. Anybody have any good tips for remembering where all these places are located on a map? Hopefully someday I'll move past Africa and America. Sheesh I have a feeling that Europe and Asia will be my biggest challenges.

Baking together....

So Jason is a sucker for anything with chocolate in it. One night he decided that we should make cookies together. I love baking but it's something that I enjoy doing by myself. However that night I thought why not. So here are some fun shots from the night. I'm not a big cookie eater but by the time everything is cleaned up you can always be certain that I've got a tummy ache from all the cookie dough. I know I know raw eggs....mmmmmm so good :)

I love this man....yes he really is that excited about chocolate chip cookies...

Then he had this brilliant idea

As for my "E" I wasn't sure whether I should put the real Erin shot or the fake one. So how about both.....

Do note all the dough on the fingers that would have been ingested quite quickly after this shot was taken. Jason's says I do that on purpose when I'm making cookies and he may be right :)

These were actually some of the best cookies that we had made thanks to the bulk bag of fine quality fair trade chocolate chips that I bought. They were a bit pricey but so worth it for the obvious fair trade reason and the fact that we notice a huge difference in their yummy chocolately taste. Also my best friend bought me some real vanilla extract because she knows I really want it but can't justify spending the money on it. Another soooo worth it product!

Hope you're not craving cookies now :)

Food for thought.....

Wow 2 posts in one day....how about that?

Since I'm on the road of thankfulness right now I thought I'd share this with all of you. A co-worker sent this to me through an email. I found it interesting. It's allowed me not to get so frustrated on those nights where I don't know what to cook for supper even though there's loads in the deep freezer and fridge.

As you look through this notice the family sizes, food costs and amount of food. It's nuts that the bigger the families get the less there seems to be.

Italy: The Manzo family of Sicily

Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide

Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis family of North Carolina

Food expenditure for one week $341.98

Mexico: The Casales family of Cuernavaca

Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09

Poland: The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna

Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27

Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo

Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53

Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo

Food expenditure for one week: $31.55

Bhutan: The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village

Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03

Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp

Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

So that means the weekly cost per person is:

Italy 52.00

Germany 125.00

U.S.A. 85.50

Mexico 37.80

Poland 30.20

Egypt 5.71

Ecuador 3.51

Bhutan 0.41

Chad 0.21

I don't know about you but I can't imagine feeding Jason and I on only 30.20 a week each let alone 0.21. Really makes you think huh?

What are your thoughts/observations/feelings after seeing this?

Long awaited update.....

I'm almost embarrassed to post right now and actually thought about just deleting this and giving up. However some of you actually miss my rantings (I know I'm just as shocked as you are right now). I'm not sure why I don't post anymore. Lack of time? Lack of content? I'm not sure. So a quick update on things I'm thankful for:

1. We're on our way to Disney World in April so we're counting down the weeks until that. 11 weeks from tomorrow!!! We're so excited, we talk about it all the time. The other great part about this trip is that we've actually paid for this sucker in full already (hooray for Christmas money). Now we just need to start saving for all the mickey in red pants stuff that Mr. Constable is going to want to buy.

2. Another count down that we're greatly looking forward to is the birth of Greg and Mandi's baby. We've found out the little blessing is going to be a boy so of course like any good auntie I've already started stashing some presents. Oh dear that might be another part that I need to add to the Disney budget "presents for baby Lawson". Oh I can only imagine the cute boy things that they're going to have at Disney. We're only 16 weeks away from the birth. I can't wait to hold him in my arms!!!

3. We had a great Christmas with friends and family. Jason and I feel so blessed. This was our fifth Christmas together. We found ourselves reminiscing a lot and can't believe how fast the time goes. The only sucky thing is that my dad didn't come home. However he'll be here in April (funny that we're going down there the same time he's coming up here) so we'll see him then.

4. Villages was hopping this fall. We surpassed the 500 000 mark. We are all thrilled! That means that through the store in Petitcodiac and the festival sales in Atlantic Canada we were able to provide for (schooling, clothing, shelter, food, etc) 145 families of four for one year. That's the equivalent of a small village. Thanks to all of you who purchased some goodies for friends, families and yourselves over the past year. Your purchases certainly made a difference in the lives of our artisans all over the world.

5. I'm loving all the snow we're getting. It reminds me of the amounts of snow that we used to get when I was a kid. Jason finally got to go to Canadian Tire and purchase a snow blower. After much protesting from his wife he finally won. However I'm thankful for this decision that we made because we have a huge driveway and we both have bad backs. So in the long run it makes way more sense than paying someone to plow it in our minds. It only took me shovelling the driveway once (and I didn't do the turn around spot nor the full double width) to convince me. Thank goodness for 12 months no payments no interest plans :)

So there's a little update for you for those of you that miss stalking the Constables. I'm going to try (seriously) to post more. I know I know I say this all the time.....