Fantastic Quince

A great and easy start to 2012

Pimping my Preserves!

Back in the summer/early fall while I was unemployed and looking for work I made a ton of preserves.  In anticipation of things being tight this Christmas I made an extra 24 jars of fig jam, 12 jars of crab apple jelly and 12 big jars of spicy dill pickles that I could give for gifts come the holiday season.  Luckily I am now gainfully employed but really aren't handmade gifts better anyway?  Plus preserves also make wonderful hostess gifts.  

Is it December already?!

Don't worry faithful readers - we're alive!  Life has just seemed to get in the way of posting of late.  Between work and other commitments I've been developing a deep and meaningful relationship with our pizza delivery man.  Seriously.  He's become such a regular fixture round here that our dogs don't even bark at his knock on the door anymore and have started to wag their tails and greet him like a friend!  This weekend I decided this had to change.  We cleaned, shopped, cooked healthy meals for the week and then even went a bit further and bought a Christmas tree and decorated up the house!  I know right?  Will wonders never cease?

Girls and Guns

Or this post could alternatively be titled "Shana's 15 Minutes".  Several months ago I was approached by a friend of a friend who was putting together a little internet chat show about food.  Ever the fame whore I jumped on the opportunity.  I'm not going to lie - fantasies of being the next internet sensation did cross my mind.  Maybe I'd follow in Rachel, Nate or Dr. Oz's footsteps and be discovered by Oprah...

Fall garden adventures

It's getting colder.  There has even been some nips of frost in the mornings when I'm out on my beagle walks.  So these days I'm busy putting the gardens to bed, cleaning up the yard and preparing for winter.  This weekend I need to empty our rain barrel (so it doesn't freeze and crack this winter), reattach our downspout, rip out the rest of the annuals and collect a bunch of seeds from my purple pole beans.

October in pictures

I mentioned I had a new job and things have been a little crazy trying to get used to working 40 hours a week again.  We're still finding time to enjoy this glorious month and all that the harvest has to offer.  I even have a huge library of photos to show for it.  I decided to do a photo-based post to try and catch up with you all.  I wrote a couple times last year that fall is my favourite season and I'm even going to go out on a limb and say that I enjoy Thanksgiving more than Christmas.  All the great foods without the crushing disappointment of gift giving and having to play act that the airbrushed kitten sweatshirt from great aunt Mildred is just what you always wanted.

Potluck anxieties

A few weeks ago I got a new job at the YWCA Toronto (hence the lack of posts lately - getting back into the grind of full time work after a summer of taking it easy has been a bit of a challenge - the dog hair is piling up around here and we've been eating a lot of sandwiches for dinner).  Hubs keeps mentioning he might be getting scurvy but I'm just tuning him out. 

Making lemonade from lemons

Or rather how to make the best from preserves gone wrong.  Sometimes things don't work out in the kitchen.  I first saw this post on yellow tomato and basil jam on the lovely website Food in Jars.  I had a big crop of lemon boy and yellow cherry tomatoes (plus an extra brandwine that was hanging around) and I thought this would be a perfect little project to do on the side during my big salsa fest weekend where I put up 24 jars of salsa.  I was likely being over ambitious.  Our kitchen was trashed, my feet hurt and I hadn't eaten anything but salsa all day.  Not exactly a good time to start a new canning project.

A lazy girl's guide to preserving tomatoes

I'm sitting here writing this with a hoody pulled over my nightgown, a quilt over me and a warm beagle at my side.  It's been cold and rainy here in Toronto and I fear my garden's day are numbered. We had so many tomatoes this year I feel really lucky.  In addition to all the tomato sandwiches and salads I canned up some red salsa and made some tomato basil jam (more on that later).  With the cold weather coming I didn't want all the unripened tomatoes to go to waste.  I took a big number of the green ones and made big batch of salsa verde for the winter.  I left another bunch of them nestled in crumpled newspaper in a box in the basement and they ripened up nicely.