Candied Ginger - day 3

December 14, 2009

Although the weather has been below 0C, the lake still has a small open patch that you can see in this panoramic photo. Compared to the photos from the previous days, you can see an obvious difference in the lake with it gradually freezing over.

And now, it's time for the Candied Ginger update.

The recipe called for "one seeded sliced lemon" to be added on day 2. Unfortunately I didn't have a lemon yesterday, so I got one today and added it. Cutting up the lemon certainly puts a refreshing scent into the air - it is no wonder that so many cleaning products have a lemon scent to them.

Here are the lemons in with the ginger, boiling once again. And here is the next part of the recipe.

Canton Candied Ginger
Day 3:

• Reboil, stirring frequently to avoid scorching.
• Add one cup sugar, and stir. Simmer 30 minutes.
• Add one more cup sugar. Bring to a boil.
• Remove from heat, cover, let stand overnight.

Candied Ginger - day 2

Before we get to the candied ginger update, I want to include some photos of Tawny, since I am sure you are all wondering what she has been up to.
Sunday December 13, 2009

This panorama photo shows that the lake is still not completely frozen over.

Sunday dawned and it was quite nice. Not too cold and not too windy, although it did pick up a bit later. Tawny enjoyed taking in the air on the deck. Her fur looks darker in winter, although I'm not sure if it only looks darker because of the contrast with the snow.

Both Tawny and Taz were fascinated by this spot in the snow, although Tawny was more so. She completely buried her head in the snow, and pawed at the snow to expose more of the amazing scent, whatever it was.

Here is Tawny, pawing at the snow again. Dogs do this to disturb the snow and grass etc, and dislodge more scent particles so they can figure out what it is they are sniffing.

Well, time for the Candied Ginger again...

Canton Candied Ginger
Day 2:

• Reheat, simmer gently for 15 minutes after coming to a boil.
• Add one seeded sliced lemon, and one cup of light corn syrup.
• Uncover, simmer 15 minutes more, stirring occasionally.
• Remove from heat, cover, and let stand overnight.

I didn't have the lemon today, so I will get one tomorrow and add it in then.

Candied Ginger - day 1

December 12, 2009 - pano

The day dawned on a beautiful winter day. Not too cold, but a bit cooler than I would prefer, especially with the wind.

What to do on a cold day but --- make candied ginger!! (Apologies to Dickens and Scrooge...) It's a five day process, so this is Day One.

The first step is to peel the ginger. Mum says the spoon is the best way, and it made peeling the ginger very easy indeed.

The next step is to cut it up into little cubes. I didn't realize that ginger was so yellow. The aroma of the fresh ginger was really wonderful!

Then you put the ginger on the stove with some water and sugar.

This is the recipe:

Canton Canded Ginger
Day 1:

• Have enough ginger cut into 1/4" pieces to make one quart. (about 1 1/2 lbs)
• Put ginger into a large stainless steel pan, cover with water (enough to cover it, but not too much water, or you will have to boil it away at the end).
• Bring slowly to a boil and simmer, covered, until tender, about 20 minutes.
• Add one cup sugar, stir until mixture boils. Remove from heat and leave covered, at room temperature overnight.

Making soup

So I decided to make a batch of vegetable soup. The comments for the recipe I chose said "filled up both my crock pots", so I figured I would need to use our big stock pot.

This is our big stock pot, after all the peeling and cutting and chopping. It includes carrots, celery, green onions, green peppers, cabbage, squash, parsley, mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic, chicken stock, and zucchini. Except for the tomatoes and the garlic, everything else was fresh. The squash was the last thing I put on top, and that was before the addition of the tomatoes and chicken stock.

Freda said "oh my, that pot isn't big enough". So we divided the contents up into another, and then another, and then another pot, so we ended up with four pots of soup.

That is a lot of soup! I also added salt and pepper, and white peppercorns and some chili too. It wasn't ready in time for supper last night, so we ended up having something else. I had it for supper tonight and it was quite yummy.

The downside is that there is so much soup that we don't have room for it in the fridge. We put quite a bit in the fridge, but the rest we put in containers outside, since it is below zero quite handily right now...

The Million Dollar Storm

The first winter storm is OVER!

Pano - December 10th, 2009

I took this panorama this morning before I took the dogs for a walk. We got something on the order of 20 cm of snow. You can see the lake is still open in places (might need to click on the photo to see the full size version). The press is reporting that the snow clearing for this storm cost a million dollars, as if it's a big deal or something. Well, that cost was budgeted so it was expected - I think they just like to throw big numbers around.

The really tricky part was that although the snow had stopped falling, the wind was pretty strong and created a lot of drifting. I had to call for the road to get plowed when I came home. Someone had made a path down the road before the snow plow went down the road.

At least it wasn't cold (like it is out west), except for the wind.

Making cookies

What to do on a blustery, snowy evening? Well, how about making cookies!!

I decided to make two different kinds of cookies. This first kind is called Molasses Crinkles. The description reads:

The zing of ginger and the sweetness of molasses combine in perfect proportions in this cookie, sent to us by Jane Booth Vollers of Chester, Connecticut. Her grandmother, Helen Dougherty, made batches and batches of them every holiday season.

Hmm, it sounded yummy and it reminded me of the cookies my mum used to make. So I had to give it a go. Here it is in Freda's pink (yes, pink!) mixer, just before adding the flour.

The second kind of cookie I thought I would try was Macadamia Butter Cookies with Dried Cranberries. These sounded yummy too! The description for this one read:

We love these thick, satisfying cookies as humble as peanut butter cookies but not as crumbly. Dried cranberries provide a slightly tart counterpoint to the macadamia nuts' richness.

This was after mixing up the dough, and adding the chopped cranberries, but before they were mixed in (yah, so obvious, I know!!).


Here they are after they came out of the oven. The molasses crinkles are all done, and the first tray of the macadamia cookies just came out.

I left Freda to take the last tray of the macadamia cookies out of the oven while I went out to snowblow the driveway. That wasn't too much fun because there was a fierce wind blowing...

Sometime later...

As the photos on the store-bought cookies say, "enlarged to show texture". This looks almost good enough to eat, doesn't it? Actually, they are very yummy, although they are crisper than my mum's cookies.

I had a difficult time finding the coarse sugar (also called 'sanding sugar') that the cookies were dipped in. Stores just don't seem to carry it. Strangely enough, I had a difficult time finding caster sugar, or extra-fine sugar, that is used to make meringue. Some stores had that, but they called it 'instant dissolving sugar'.

This is the one of the macadamia butter with cranberries cookies. The recipe said to dip them in regular granulated sugar, but since I had extra of the sanding sugar in the bowl, I just used that. I like the look of the extra texture that it gives.

Guess what? The cookies were all awesome!!! In fact, we decided that we needed to freeze some of the cookies otherwise they would all disappear far too rapidly! :)

December 8th

It was quite cold today. I guess Mother Nature is setting us up for the 15-20 cm of snow that we are forecast to get tomorrow. Taz feels the cold a lot more than Tawny, so I got him a vest that is like a windbreaker. This photo shows Taz modelling his new vest which has some retro-reflective strips on it. Taz is also licking his lips, anticipating snacking on foolish burglars...

Pano - December 8, 2009
Click on the photo to see the full size version. The lake isn't much different from yesterday's photo - still large expanses of open water. There were geese out there early this morning, honking away, but they flew off before I took the dogs out for their morning walk.

Tonight I made a pot roast encrusted with rosemary and peppercorns. It smelled wonderful.

Oh, I also made a green peppercorn gravy - yummm-mmy!!!

World's Best Security System

Here are the two employees of the World's Best Security System. Well, maybe Tawny doesn't really contribute much for the guarding, but Taz sure does. Taz is a big, black, fearsome looking dog, and he sure has a 'guard dog' attitude (barking) when people come to the door. If you don't know the dogs, they are fast and unpredictable, have big teeth, sound scary, so that's probably the best deterrent for burglars.

And besides keeping the floor clear of extra food, they also make nice bed warmers!!!


We put up the Christmas tree on the weekend. This photo turned out quite well, all things considered.

Canada Geese

I was beavering away on applying for a job on Friday morning, when suddenly Taz started barking up a storm, as if we we were being stormed by a horde of banshees!! I looked out the window and saw all these Canada Geese on our lawn, which is obviously what Taz was all excited about. By the time I got out the camera, they had strolled (yes, if geese can stroll, that's what they were doing) across the road and started down towards the lake.

Pano - Dec 6, 2009
I took this panorama on Sunday morning for several reasons. First, I had just been reading the news about the big snowstorms that hit Calgary and Edmonton, and was feeling thankful that we didn't have any snow yet. Second, this was the first morning that we could see notable coverage of ice on the lake, although it is not frozen over. And thirdly, there were no geese on the lake!!

Okay, I spoke too soon about the 'no geese on the lake'. When I was taking the dogs out for a walk, the geese starting flying in, honking at everyone to get out of their way.

Wow! What a lot of geese! And there were more coming too!!

As the geese were coming in to land, most heading right for the water. A few came in over the ice and skidded around. The ice was strong enough to hold their weight, well - maybe not if a whole lot of them were together.

It was interesting to see that some geese saw their was ice below them as they came in to land. When they got fairly low, maybe 5-6 feet off the ice, they leveled off and started flying towards the open water. You can see four of them doing just that in this photo - at the bottom right , behind the tree. You can also see a couple of geese standing on the ice at the middle centre of the photo.

Yummy supper

This week pork tenderloin was on special at Metro. The flyer said to check out their web site for recipes. So I did just that and found an interesting recipe for Pork Tenderloin in a Gingered Pear Sauce (click here for the recipe).

This is what we had for supper last night (and leftovers tonight too - yummy!!!). Besides the pork, we had a spinach and tomato salad, mango acorn squash, and basmati rice. For the squash, I cut an acorn squash in half, cooked it in the microwave, then scooped out the innards into a bowl, mixed it up with butter and a dash of mango juice that livened it up nicely.