A Day of Cooking

Where I live January tends to be the coldest month of the winter. This year has decided to make no exceptions. I think January is probably even more difficult to get through because there are no cheerful Christmas lights or warm family gatherings to look forward to anymore. It's just kinda the daily grind... and then Mother Nature drops another foot and a half of snow. Not Awesome.

This past weekend there was a pretty decent snow storm that lasted a lot of both Friday and Saturday which made doing anything at all pretty unappealing. On Sunday however, my Husband and I needed to get groceries and all either of us really wanted right then was piping hot homemade soup.

We decided on our two favourites, French Onion Soup, and Borscht. We realized at the time that this was going to be kind of a task to get everything done, but to have enough soup for the next week or two would be worth it!

Cooking up onions and beets, and then the pots of finished soups simmering on the stove!

For the Borscht we used:

4 Cups of Shredded Beets
3x900ml Boxes of Beef Broth
1 can (1.36 Litres) Tomato Juice
3 Medium Yellow Onions
1/2 Cup White Vinegar
2 Tbs Sugar
2 Tsp Black Pepper
1 Tbs Dill

Chop the Onions and fry until slightly browned in a frying pan. While the Onions brown, pour the Beef Broth and Tomato Juice into a Large Pot and set the stove to Medium - High. Add the Onions to the Beef Broth and Tomato Juice once they've browned. Fill a Medium Sized Pot with water and bring to a boil. Add the beets to the boiling water and turn down the temperature to medium. Cook until the beets have lost most of their colour. Strain the beets and add them to the hot beef broth and tomato juice.

The Vinegar, Sugar, Pepper, and Dill should be added to taste. I sort of wrote in about how much we used, however. We've made this soup a few times now and I think every time we make it we do things a little bit differently, but it always turns out to be delicious!

We decided also to make Perishky or Sauerkraut Buns to go with the Borscht. We fried Onions and Mushrooms with the Sauerkraut to make the filling, and I didn't know what kind of dough to use (and by this point was pretty tired...) so I just made a pizza / bread dough recipe that I already knew I could make as I've made it a few times before. It's actually the Jamie Oliver Pizza Dough Recipe and I think it tastes really good and is really easy to make!

For the Filling We Used:

About 2 Cups of Chopped Mushrooms
1 Medium Sized Onion
1 1Litre Jar of Sauerkraut

We fried the Mushrooms and Onions separately from the Sauerkraut as the Sauerkraut just has to brown slightly and we wanted to cook the mushrooms and onions a bit longer.

 I think maybe next time I will only make maybe one soup at a time, and maybe we'll give the Perishky their own separate day as well... But all of this cooking was totally worth it! And even though we were crazy tired by the end of it, it was really nice getting to spend the whole day cooking with my Husband as we usually sort of just go off and do our own thing. It's kind of surprising how little you can interact with someone on a day to day basis, even when you live in the same little house! So it's really nice every now and again to slow down and do something fun together.

Thanks for reading!
Keep Warm!
xoxo

Day 14: Decorating with Household Items

So, this probably seems pretty obvious to most people, but when I think of decorating a space I usually gravitate towards cute nicknacks, candles, and vases. I was thinking today about how I have so little space, and don't really want to be cluttering it with a ton of little things; I would rather just have a nice looking usable space. This got me thinking about what a useable space was to me. Being that it is fall, going into winter, I like to have people over a lot and hope that they will feel free to help themselves to a nice cup of tea! Unfortunately I have all my tea stuff in like, three different cupboards, so it's not really easy for guests to just quickly make themselves tea. Because of this I decided to make a little tea area on the counter.

It's kind of nice having all the tea stuff set up and ready to go for me too, because it will also be a lot easier for me to make a cup of tea, and I think it looks nice on the counter.

I'll probably end up changing around the set up a little bit with time, but for now I really like it, and it was a really easy way to add some interest to my kitchen without buying anything! I just decorated with some household things that I already had.

Some things I for sure eventually want to add is a better way to organize the tea, like, maybe getting a little basket for the tea pouches. I'll probably also get a canister for the teas I buy a lot of at once, like orange pekoe. I'm really excited for this new little space in my kitchen, and I'm really excited about the idea of making different places around my home look a lot more finished, while also making them more functional!

Thanks for reading!

Day 3: Craft for the Sake of It!

Hey Guys! So basically I was thinking today about how crafting, for me anyway, has become sort of a means to create things for my home or to create something to sell. Either way, everything has a purpose, and it's always "productive". I decided to go back to crafting just for fun today, and actually wasted a good couple hours (VERY unlike me) to make something I've been wanting for a while.

I bought a travel mug a little while ago that was all black, and had a removable insert that you could decorate to have a custom travel mug. I bought it with the intent of making a ton of different inserts so I could really have fun with it and change it up all the time. I FINALLY got to making one, and I couldn't be happier with it.

So for starters I pulled out the black paper insert and sort of used it as a template. I cut out the cardstock and got to designing.

I took inspiration from a lot of the hand painted white ceramic mugs I've been seeing lately. I just love how some of them look like the string from a tea bag hanging out the side of the cup! I wasn't really sure if drawing on cardstock with a permanent marker would have the same look, but it was worth it to try.

I just love it! I proudly showed it to my sister who was over at the time, and she thought I should maybe add some color. Sounded like fun so I gave it a shot.

Coloring took a little lot longer than planned because I could not find any markers, and ended up using a green and red colored pen!

I'm so excited with how it turned out! I think the color really was worth it as it added to the charm. I'm so excited to use this cup now, even though it's the exact same cup I've been using for a while now! It can be really fun to re-vamp something you already have to make it fun again. I think I'm going to be making a LOT more inserts for this cup.

It was also really nice and kind of relaxing to just do a craft for fun. It really did make me feel kind of like a kid again. Back when doing something "productive" and "fun" were the same thing! Do you have any crafts or hobbies that you do just for fun? I think it's about time every body goes out and picks up a pack of construction paper and a box of crayons.