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 29: Try Try Again

Hey Guys! So today I tried something new, and it seemed like a really simple project, but was still something I'd never done before. Basically, I was trying to make a frame for a cork board I bought. (Hopefully I'll get to show you the finished product in a few days, if everything goes well!!) I bought a really basic looking not-that-cute cork board to go up in my office and I was going to frame it with, basically a base board that I picked up at a hardware store, to give it a little more personality and make it look a little bit nicer.

I figured this would be crazy easy. My husband has a saw that cuts on an angle, so I got him to cut the pieces, and then all I had to do was glue them together, and then glue them onto the board! Easy peasy. =)

A LOT OF THE TIME I look up how to do a project and because I fully understand all of the steps and the basic concepts, I figure it's gonna work out like a dream the first time around. This ACTUALLY does not make any sense. If you have never done something before? It's not going to be a familiar action for you, and it will not likely work out like clock work. That being said, if you can get past that, and work through it, you might actually end up with a workable finished product!!

When I was trying to put the pieces together, and they weren't fitting or staying the way I wanted I got super fed up, and said it "wasn't worth it to fight with a $5 piece of base board anyway." Which is really just silly! Yeah, I didn't pay much for the project, but that was kind of the point! I wanted a nice looking cork board without PAYING for a nice looking cork board.

Anyway, we stuck with it (thanks honey!!) and now the pieces are drying in the basement, and (hopefully) tomorrow I'll have a frame that I can paint and turn into a really nice cork board. Much nicer than a pile of supplies sitting in the garbage can outside. I'm hoping I actually do learn from this, and give myself a bit of a break while I try to learn to be a bit more handy. Who knows! Maybe one day I'll actually be doing cool things like re-finishing furniture.

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 13: Make Your House a Home - With Houseplants!

Hi Guys! Lately I have been looking into different affordable ways to kinda dress up my home, and to create some more finished looking spaces. Being that I can't paint or put anything on the walls, I decided to try getting some plants! We don't have a very long summer where I am, and I think bringing green into the house will really cheer me up during the winter months.

I was planning on getting some plants for my house in the hopefully near future, and have spent quite a bit of time looking up which house plants are hard to kill good for plant beginners and there are actually quite a few to choose from! One that I was really interested in was a Peace Lily. I think they are quite popular house plants, and maybe aren't super original? I was really drawn to them because they are so pretty, and they are also really low maintenance! They just need a shady spot, and to be watered once a week. Sounds easy enough to me!

While I meant to wait for a little while to get a plant, only because I wasn't in a huge rush, sometimes things just don't work out that way! I happened to be in the grocery store last night, and they happened to have a stand of all kinds of lovely houseplants for very reasonable prices. Needless to say I spent FAR too long considering each and every single plant, but I ended up coming home with two that I'm really happy with!

So this is my Peace Lily, which is keeping my little Owl Oil Burner company. I think the Peace Lily really completes this space as my little owl was looking pretty lonely on that end table all on it's own. 

Owl Closeup!!

And then this is the other plant that I bought. It's a little Calla Lily! I'm really excited about it and, even though it wasn't listed on the easy to keep plant lists I found, hope that I'll be able to keep it alive for a long time. And it's pink! I always think of Calla Lilies as being white, so I'm really excited to see this one come into full bloom. 

After getting these plants I was super excited to go out and buy several other plants to put all around my home, but I think I'm just going to start with these as my green thumb is barely even in training. I still need to get new planters for them, and will likely find myself moving them around to see how I like them in different rooms of my home, but I am just excited to have them! Who would have thought that spending $11 on two plants would be so exciting?