Ramone Peddles Jewelry

My boyfriend and I recently adopted two cats. They are 5 month old brothers, the grey one is Pedro and the orange one is Ramone. We didn't name them but we liked the uniqueness of their names. Apparently, whoever named them was on a Mexican kick. A friend of mine has been making up stories about them based on them being Mexican. They have a taco stand on the beach, peddle jewelry and various other things.

Ramone has made it clear that he does have a thing for jewelry. He has knocked over my earrings on my vanity several times. This weekend I decided I needed to come up with a new way to store my earrings so that Ramone can't get at them. I can't really put them in my jewelry box as I have a lot of chandelier earring or dangling earrings and they will just become a tangled mess. I had a picture in my head of a series of small wires running horizontal on my wall that the earrings could hook over. But then the more I thought about that it seemed impractical and like it would put a lot of holes in my wall! Then I thought about getting some nice pictures frames and putting mesh or a fine chicken wire in them. I looked in a few stores for frames I like but the ones I liked were really expensive. I ended up at store on 4th called Kitchen Corner, this store is a bit scary as stuff is piled high and you can barely fit down the isles. But you occasionally come a way with a great find so it is worth the hazard. This time was one of those times! I found some decorative embroidery hoops with a hook for hanging on top. I decided instead of buying chicken wire to use the leftover screen mesh we had from making screens for our windows.

I think it worked out pretty well! I am just waiting for Ramone to figure out how to climb the wall now!

Tip #1- soup tips

If you like to make soups I have a couple of tips for you. If you are going through your veggie crisper and you find some limp celery, wilted carrots or slightly soft tomatoes, don't throw them out. Put them in the freezer to use for soup. I keep a zip lock bag in the freezer that I put these kind of things in. I recently made baked stuffed tomatoes and I put the centre of the scooped out tomatoes into this bag as well.

After you steam your veggies for a meal, don't dump out the water, freeze it. You can put it in an ice cube tray, zip lock or jar you keep in the freezer. The water from your veggies is full of nutrients and flavour. This is great to addd to your soup broth or even just instead of water to a sauce.

Thai Spiced Butternut Squash Soup

This is a great soup and definitely not your traditional squash soup. I made it this Thanksgiving as the first course. I like to add a non traditional dish or new twist on a classic dish for traditional meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This soup does take awhile to make, so I like to make a large amount and freeze it to make it worth while. It also is great if you have a helper!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegtable oil
1 leek sliced
2 onions chopped
8 cloves garlic cruched (or more if you are like me!)
1/4 cup coarse chopped ginger
2-3 chilis finely chopped (I have used dried chili flakes instead)
1/2 cup dried coconut
1 kg seeded chopped butternut squash
3 lemons (finely shred off some of the rind before juicing the lemons)
1/4 cup brown sugar
50 gms shrimp paste
1 cup chopped coriander or cilantro
1 litre chicken or veggie stock

For garnish:
toasted shredded coconut
sliced green onion

Heat the oil in a sauce pan (large wok works well too). Cook the leek, onion, garlic, ginger and chilis over medium heat until they soften. Cover for 5 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, the let simmer for 25 minutes. (or squash is tender, you can shorten this time by cooking the squash in the oven ahead of time but that adds another step)Blend this mixture in small batches, blend until smooth. At this point you can taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. If it is really thick you might want to add more broth, too bland add more garlic and chilis. If you feel the need to add salt, use sea salt.

Serve in individual bowls with toasted coconut and green onions as the garnish.

(this recipe serves 8-10 people)

Oatmeal Cookies

One of my favorite things to make is oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. This recipe was my Great-Grandmothers. It took a while for my Granny to properly re-create these cookies because the recipe wasn't exactly accurate. 1 cup did not mean a metric cup, it meant whatever chipped tea cup she used for baking and the temperature of the oven was measured by feeling the heat on your bare arm int he wood burning stove. But eventually my Granny figured it out and it is now a family favorite.

1 cup butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup chocolate chips or nuts or raisins (or whatever your preference is, I have used Skor bits also)

Using a mixer blend the butter until smooth, add the sugar, once that is mixed add the eggs. Pre mix the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Add a few spoonfuls of this at a time to the butter mixture. Once all the flour is added add the oatmeal and chocolate chips.

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes in a 375F oven (190 c).

Halloween

This Halloween I thought it would be fun to do a group costume. I remembered that I had a lion costume from a few years ago and I had already thought about recycling it. Perhaps the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe... or the Wizard of Oz. I suggested this to a group of friends and they thought the Wizard of Oz would be fun. My boyfriend agreed to be the Scarecrow, his friend wanted to be the Tin Man. So then Dorothy and the Lion were left to either myself or Tin Man's girlfriend. Tin Man decided to save himself time and order a costume on line. I have a hard time wearing a bought costume though, I have always made my costume in the past. The only problem was I decided to make both the Dorothy costume and the Scarecrow costume all in 5 days. But it worked out. I sewed both the Dorothy costume and the Scarecrow, plus I made a bag for Scarecrow to carry around. He said he needed it for his "candy". Just as our counterparts were on their way over I decided that the lion needed a badge of courage, definitely helped make that costume more authentic.

Our costumes were well received. On the way to the first party we had people stop us on the street to take out photo! Even at the party we had people asking where we got our costumes! I already have people requesting my to borrow my Dorothy costume, I think I have it booked for the next two years.