Strombolis and Strawberry Shortcake

Land ho? Land NO. Eegad, it snowed a lot yesterday and it's raining this morning. I feel like I'm in some kind of apocalyptic winter world...oh wait...according to Hygge, I'm in a cozy winter wonderland and I need to take advantage of this day by cuddling under blankets with Alex right? I think I would be more accepting of that concept if this were January, not April!!! :) We make the best of things! I'll still be happy to cuddle, but I do miss being outside in the sunshine! 

And poor Charlie is depressed again, she won't eat...well, she'll eat her banana pumpkin cookies, but that's about it. She just wants to lie in Alex's office all day on the futon. We know she needs to be outside and we're doing the best we can, but it's never enough for her. Once the snow starts to really melt and we get warmer days, I spend most of my day out on the porch and this summer I'll be in the garden. She's happy as a clam on those days because she's outside a good 12 hours a day. But winters are long for her, we just aren't equipped to let her stay outside all day. When we buy our place in a few years, a large yard, fenced in doggie area will be one of our first priorities! But I think that Charlie and I feel the same way about this long drawn-out winter! :)

Last night I made strombolis, have you ever had one? They are basically a type of calzone. Very delicious! I started with sauté-ing some onions and fresh mushrooms in butter, then added some sliced sirloin for Alex and sliced chicken for me.

I made my usual pizza dough and divided it up in two large rectangles.

The next step is to layer some shredded cheese on to the dough, then your meat filling, roll, seal, brush with melted butter, sprinkle with Parm and bake! I overfilled them and I had to really stretch out the dough to seal them, so they leaked a little...but oh so worth the clean-up for all that yummy filling! :)

Last night was Philly Cheese Steak and Philly Cheese Chicken Strombolis! Usually the Philly style cheese steak has green peppers too, but we can't digest them too well so I omit them. Alex wanted to try half with Cheddar and half with Mozzarella but usually you stick to either Mozz or Provolone. The last time I made a stromboli it had just Mozzarella and ham and it was so delicious! We each had half and have leftovers for lunch today. There is so much you can do with pizza dough and any type of filling!

For dessert I made the strawberry shortcakes! They were really good. Alex had a double-decker. We mixed the leftover strawberries into the whipped cream and we'll definitely be eating that today!

The dogs got lucky and licked the whipped cream off the whippers!

I don't have much going on today...just waiting for the nice weather to come back! I have a list of "shoulds" though...

1. I should wash the curtains...
2. I should dust the shelves and ceiling fans...
3. I should look at recipes for the next meal planning cycle...
4. I should this, I should that...

But I don't feel like it!

So I'll spend the day reading my Year Round Vegetable Gardener book. That's much more pleasing to me. Her book is filled with stuff that I didn't know about and I've been taking notes as I go. It's going to be a lazy day, but not a wasted one because I'll be learning much more about year-round gardening!

A Nice Outing

Here's Alex with the canine kids! :)  Yesterday was such a nice, mild and sunny day. We had plans to go to that craftsman's workshop to buy some new breadboards this week, and since there is snow and rain in the forecast until Sunday now, we decided to go yesterday. He lives in a nearby town so we decided to bring the dogs with us so they could have a little walk by the river.

I wasn't surprised that Charlie jumped into that cold river...she LOVES the water...the shore was filled with burr bushes and we had to pick them off Charlie when she came back to the shore. This town is only about 30 kilometers south of us, but the snow is nearly all gone there.

Our snow is still hanging on. I took this photo this morning, the weather keeps jumping from rain to snow to freezing rain. It's supposed to be like this all week.

Whenever we go out, we try to hit the local thrift stores and flea markets. What a find yesterday! We are big fans of Trivial Pursuit and we found these four at a church bazaar. The "Young Players", "History of Music", "Genus 2" and "1980's" editions. Alex and I are collectors and this was a great bargain for us. It started our day off really well.

We already have the original "Genus" and "Baby Boomer" editions that we also found at a thrift shop. And for a Christmas gift, I found the "Silver Screen" edition for Alex since he's such a movie buff. Now we have 7 of them! :) We like to sit in bed  or if the weather is nice, we sit in the hammock, and ask each other trivia questions. :) 

But THIS was the real reason we got out of our pajamas's and drove to town! Look at these lovely cutting boards! We got such a good deal on them. They are made of many different woods including maple, cherry and a wee bit of walnut. We're lucky we got them when we did because the guy said he's in a transition where he might stop making them. He said people don't want to pay his price (which is really inexpensive), people come in and say things like "I can get the same thing at Walmart for $10". That kind of made us feel bad for him because he puts so much work into these products. Sure, you could buy a $10 bread board at a big discount store:

Just like we did before Christmas. One broke and the other cracked. And not for lack of taking care of them. Alex sanded them, oiled them and we are careful not to soak them etc...they lasted 4 months. Since we both have sensitive stomachs, we were kind of worried about bacteria getting into those cracks. We feel so much better with the good quality ones now. I think it's sad that good quality homemade craftsmanship is something people will turn their noses at now just because they can get it cheaper somewhere else. We did that out of need for a while, which is understandable, nobody has a money tree growing in the backyard! But to compare his work to what discount stores sell...I would be a little insulted.

A glimmer of hope!!! Could my big green lemon be finally turning yellow???

We were so tired when we got home that we just heated up a freezer pizza and brought it with us to bed! Cozy! :) We watched a few movies and then played Trivial Pursuit. I really love my life! :)

Baking Day Saturday; Sunny Warm Sunday!

Since I was hunkered down yesterday due to the snow and wind, I made it a baking day. Our youngest husky Charlie has leaky anal glands, without going into too much detail, feeding her some pumpkin helps with her natural musk so to speak...but she hates it! I have to mix a little into her food and hide the rest in cookies. She gets two of these each day and it helps. I tried a new recipe as opposed to my regular Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Cookies. It was terrible to work with and the blog poster never answered many questions people had over the last few months, so I won't grace my blog with the link. I want to try to stop using peanut butter since Alex has an allergy, it could be dangerous if I miss something, so I was looking for a recipe with pumpkin and banana. I found it, but...anyway, I couldn't use my dog bone cookie cutter, boo hoo, too sticky. Next time I'll use my own recipe and substitute the peanut butter with mashed banana. Solved. The dogs still loved these though!

I gave myself a baking challenge to make homemade cheese nips since the batch I bought at the store was burned. I made these Cheese-It's and though they turned out nicely and looked the part, we still found them a little too flour-heavy (for our taste). I'll keep trying different things in the future to see if I can perfect this recipe. I'm glad I only made half the recipe though. Even with the floury flavour, they are all gone as I type this lol...beggars being choosy? :)

After I read Sam I Am's post about her lemon cakes, I just had to make one! Sorry Sam, I hope you don't think I ripped apart your recipe...but I didn't have self-raising flour, nor a fresh lemon...so I scoured the internet for a similar recipe that I could make based on what I had. Plus instead of a lemon/sugar syrup drizzled on top, I made it my own and drizzled it with Limoncello. DELISH! Here's my adapted recipe: Lemon Drizzle Cake.

We had breakfast for dinner last night! Blueberry pancakes with bacon and my fricassee potatoes. I just cut up 2 small potatoes, a small onion and cook them in butter in a frying pan on low, stirring occasionally, for about half an hour...they are really good! Since we had the lemon cake, the strawberry shortcake will fall to tonight's dessert...or maybe a sweet lunch :)

What a difference one day makes!!! It's sunny, mild and all that snow we got yesterday should be melted by sundown!

I see the lawn in the middle of all the doggie prints!

April 2nd, the first day that I sat out in simply my pj's and slippers! It's 5 Celsius on the thermometer, but in the sun, it felt about 15. I stayed outside for 3 hours this morning, reading my anxiety book. I needed some real Vitamin D...gosh I hope this isn't just another weather tease! That's the thing about our "spring"...it's complete winter then boom! Over a week's time it's spring, then a week later we're into a heat wave...I saw a few flies while I was out which reminds me that Alex is going to make me a screened-in porch at the end of April. Last year I hung pieces of an old camping dining tent...it worked but tore a lot in the wind so he's going to make it nice and permanent! Alex uses the bedroom screened-in veranda during the summers to hang out on his hammock...the backyard porch is mine! :) I spend time out there in the yard, this year will be also in the garden and with the dogs. It's nice to have our own outdoor spaces that we can share once in a while too. :)

I finished this book while I was out on the porch this morning. I wrote my review here. Generally speaking, I go into the why's in the review, I didn't really find this book eye-opening. Probably because years ago I did all the same research on my own and implemented mostly the same ideas that she has in her book. I was expecting something different. Anyway, I've found in the last few weeks, that just eating sensibly, practicing a cozy lifestyle, exercising on the rebounder daily, getting outside, staying hydrated and meditating has pretty much squashed the anxiety bug in me as long as I keep it up. I eat sugar, gluten, dairy and grains. I drink coffee and wine too. These are some things she suggests eliminating. But I think I've found my balance and I feel so much better. I don't regret buying the book because I learned a few new things, but in the end, self-help books are always a bit of a gamble anyway!

One thing though, she mentions that companies are not required to list genetically modified foods on their list of ingredients (this book was written in 2011 and she is referring to the States). I feel so ignorant, because it would be a good assumption that companies ARE required to do so. I just looked it up on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's website...no requirement. But they do say that Canada produces 4 GM products: modified corn products, sugar beet, canola and soybean. That doesn't mean that we don't import other GM foods from other countries though...We really need to watch what we buy and consume!

As for this book, The Cozy Life, I read it yesterday. I did like it, it was better than the Little Book of Hygge in my opinion! I took a lot of notes as I read it, and I wrote my review here if anyone wants to read it, it's rather long so I put it on a separate page that I posted! I also wrote a list of hygge activities to bring more coziness and comfort to your life - this list is customized to my own home life, but it's a good motivational list to get you thinking about how to make your lifestyle more cozy and comfy for you. I think this book is worth the read!

But again, I'm already doing most of these things that the hygge concept suggest doing! Even sitting on the porch in my pyjamas this morning with my coffee felt so cozy. Actually it's funny because Alex and I thought we coined the phrase "Pyjama Lifestyle" which is how we describe our own way of living. Little did we know the Danes have been doing it for years already!

The girls, husky bookends, enjoying the sunny warm weather.

Ooh! Too bright for Jack!! :) Maybe some sun glasses would help! :) I hope everyone has nice weather and enjoying their Sunday!

And as I often say, thanks for reading!

Fondue and Snow

It's still snowing this morning. It started yesterday late afternoon, and it's coming down really lightly - it's actually very beautiful!

I was hoping that the forecast was an evil April Fool's prank, but no such luck lol...there should be more snow after the weekend, then some fun rain to make things all muddy and slushy. :)

The dogs love it though. Even Jack wandered around a little more than he usually does. For him it's usually out/quick business/back in to burrow under covers! I spent some time outside just enjoying the quiet, it's so peaceful when it snows. I was lucky, the tourist neighbours were still asleep when I went out, so there was no unwelcome noise to ruin the experience.

My efforts to be cozy seem so natural, that I resist calling them efforts. I built a little fire when we all came in and we all just chilled and enjoyed the dancing flames. I don't like to make fires too often just because this fireplace, as gorgeous as it is, is an energy-sapper and we already pay enough monthly for Hydro. 

I think a big part of living a cozy lifestyle is fragrance. I baked bread yesterday and I just love how it makes the whole house smell cozy!

And of course, to celebrate our new fondue pot, Alex made his Italian fondue! We were looking through the fondue cookbook to maybe try a new recipe, but we didn't want to start buying all sorts of big ingredients so we stuck to what we had on hand. It's fun to eat different food, but I must stick to my food budget!! Though we didn't manage to bring the fondue to bed :), it was still a comfy, cozy meal. I'm already planning some different fondues for April and May's meal plans!

*****************

Besides reading, today I'll be doing some baking. I'm challenging myself to make those Cheese-It's. If anyone else makes them, let me know so we can compare! I'm also making some dog cookies, ran out last night...and IF I have it in me, I'm going to try Sam's English Lemon Drizzle Cake. I may wait on this though because, as suggestible as I am, Mama Pea mentioned strawberry shortcake last week, so I have that planned for dessert tonight! :)

My Goal: COMFORT

Let's get some business over with first...of all my complaining lately, did I even tell you guys about the stale Kit Kats that I bought after Christmas? I can't keep track anymore of all the crappy stuff, complaining process, returns, hassles and finally refunds and coupons....anyway, Kit Kat sent me a coupon for $10 to 'enjoy' their product. I didn't expect that much, but I am grateful. :) Oh, the burned cheese nips? No response yet and I re-emailed the same complaint this morning.

So..yesterday I was talking about a shift in our philosophy towards purchases. Alex and I had to go out this morning and on the way back, we discovered a local store that sold kitchen supplies. The owner has been in the business 60 years, taking over his father's door-to-door "chaudron" (pot) business. He told us the history of fondue pots and the manufacturers here in Quebec. He also had one of these gorgeous enamel fondue pots left that he got as overstock and offered us a 40% discount. I think we were in that store a good 45 minutes before we decided it was worth the expense. This is quality! The pot is pretty heavy and the base is cast iron...and even though it means we have to cut down a few other expenses now, we are so proud of our purchase! And this is exactly the type of store we want to invest our money in.

Of course, this is the perfect opportunity for me to make one of the fondues from my new cookbook tonight! :) I was telling Alex about the Hygge and the Danish way of being cozy and he said that we need to find a way to have cheese fondue in bed lol...I don't think we'll every accomplish that but it's a nice cozy idea!

Speaking of cozy and comfort, I read through this book yesterday. It was a fun little book to read, and I admit I skimmed through some of the longer paragraphs that focused only on statistics. The whole concept, in a nutshell, is to make your life cozy with dim lighting (mostly candlelight), cozy nooks with lots of blankets and pillows, comfort food, warm beverages, a fire burning, time with loved ones and pets...and anything else you deem cozy.

Personally I found the focus on social interaction as a precursor to happiness to be a little off topic for me. I'm a self-admitted hermit and anti-social homebody. Alex is the same way. Society and social interactions actually have the opposite effect for us - we become mentally exhausted and stressed out. We much prefer quiet time with just the two of us and the pets around us. Maybe that's why I got through the book so quickly, I just skipped over those parts. But all in all, it's a wonderful concept and I have realized that I am already hygge-filled in my life! Everything I do is to create comfort for myself and Alex. I'm still going to read the other book I got "The Cozy Life" to see if there is anything different in there!

I used the last of the fresh tomatoes and lettuce to make BLT's yesterday for lunch, well, BLTC's since we add Cheddar. :)

I wanted to use up the leftover roast beef so I cubed it all up and made Alex a shepherd's pie. For me, I baked a chicken breast in barbecue sauce...it was such a comfort meal! :)

We stopped by the pet store to buy more bones for the dogs. Charlie looks crazy looking at me while she's chewing! If the dogs don't get a good solid chew each day, we find they get restless and antsy so I always have a "bone budget" for the winters. During the summer, they don't need as much because they're more active like us! :) 

Speaking of dogs, Alex is putting together a file for the next town meeting with regards to the loose dog and feral cat problem here. He spoke to our neighbour and they're forming a team to speak to the mayor. We heard some disturbing things about the condition of the canine control inspector's premises, the lady who is contracted out to this town. Apparently it's borderline neglectful, the stories were horrible and heartbreaking...we can't just look the other way. Ironically, we heard similar stories from two strangers we interacted with today, so we feel they must be at least close to being truthful. Alex knows that my mental health can't take too much of the stress so he's going to do all the talking and petitioning, but he definitely has my full support. We're actually going to do some investigating before mid-April's town meeting by visiting her premises. She doesn't know us by sight...it'll be like those private investigators in the movies lol. I'll be posting about this issue now and then! 

It's been a long day for us already, so Alex made us each our favourite version of an Old Fashioned and we are off to watch a few movies before the cheese fondue! I hope we don't lose power, the storm has just begun.

Sunshine, Sprouting and Some Shifting of Habits

I LOVE the sun! See those three sinkholes on the left of the photo? Yeah, that was me lol...at this time of year the snow is still really deep but not solid enough to keep me from plunging down. I'm taking full advantage of the sun today because the forecast is now 5 inches of snow tomorrow overnight to Saturday. I'm going to spend the weekend mostly reading, speaking of that...

I downloaded these two books this morning. Thanks to Yarrow and Sam I Am for the suggestion. I've been having such a hard time this winter and I think reading these books on making life cozy at home will do me some good! One of my goals in life is comfort and making our lifestyle as cozy as possible - especially while renting because we can't do anything we want with our rental, but I can make it cozy and peaceful to be in. I'm looking forward to reading through these, although they are digital version, which I usually don't like, I'll make the effort!

You guys are going to think that all Alex and I eat is pizza lol...It's true we do love the stuff! We had one of the frozen bacon and cheese pizzas for lunch yesterday, delicious! (Sorry for the ooey gooey cheese photos again Kymber) 😋

This is Mr. Snowy, he's my winter porch decoration. He's smiling because he's thrilled that it's going to snow tomorrow...I had to burst his bubble. It's time for him to retire for the season! I made him last November from some pallets that our lumber yard gave us. He is now housed in the storage room in the basement, I hope he's still smiling! :)

This morning I re-painted my Tweety Bird and Sir Dusty Buttons - buttons dusty no more! At least for now!! They needed a tuneup. Tomorrow I'll put a gloss paint over them so they'll be all ready to guard my new garden when the weather gets better! For now, they're keeping an eye out on the basil growing on the window sill. :)

With all of the lousy products out there, Alex and I have decided that we are going to slowly make a shift in our habits with regards to buying products; by that I mean, we are going to invest rather than buy for the best price. See these nice flannel sheets? We bought these at a reputable store, The Linen Chest. They were regular price $90 for the set and we saw them on sale 60% off so we took advantage and bought 3 sets of them...I can't believe they sell these for $90 to begin with because we got these at the end of January and already two of the pillow cases are torn and one of the sheets...it's so terrible. 

Anyway, we weren't always in a position to buy based on quality vs. price, and I know how hard it is to get by, a lot of folks just don't have that choice. We still live paycheck to paycheck what with paying back debt, saving for a down payment and just living the lifestyle we enjoy. For our first few years together, we had major car, pet and moving expenses and basically we were broke. 

Here's one example, all we could afford were dollar-store cutting boards. I don't know what you're experience is, but our experience is that they last a month - if that. Alex even tried sanding and curing them, but the knife marks go right through them and you can really smell the leftover onion and garlic on them, despite using baking soda and lemon to clean them. And the splinters...okay, I could go on and on, it's just one example. This photo is from a local craftsman's workshop. He makes all of these breadboards and pizza peels from cherry and maple wood. He guarantees them for 20 years if you follow his instructions on care. We're going to go to his workshop next week and invest some big bucks in buying a large and a small cutting board. I think from now on, we're going to keep this philosophy whenever we can afford it. I used to cringe at the words "locally made" and "locally grown" simply because I just didn't have the money...now we will opt for these things as we can afford them, and do without until that time because I'm sick of wasting money on crap. What about you all out there? What are your experiences? Are they as discouraging as mine? What's your philosophy on product purchasing? We both wish we had better skills to make more of our own things.

Do you sprout?  My fellow Canadian friend Dianna suggested a company called Mumm's to me a few days back as her go-to seed sprouting supply store. I've never sprouted before, but have been getting more and more interested as the quality of the lettuce in winter declines. I'd love to hear about every and any experience with home sprouting because I unfortunately fell upon an alarmist news article about the frequency of salmonella in sprout seeds...anyway, since I don't know much about it, I'd like to hear the good and the bad from people who actually have done or do sprout now! If you've written a post(s) about sprouting, please include the link(s) for me, I need to be more educated (and please never even think of a lengthy comment as being too long, I love them long!). I don't want to have a pre-judgment based on one article, but it does linger in my mind unfortunately. Anxiety anyone? Lol...okay, I'm still working on it!

And last but not least, a no-shame photo of Oscar suntanning, using Jack as his foot rest!