Cooking up A Scoff

Now that I'm home more often than I was back in Wisconsin, (and now that I'm not swinging past a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's once a week) cooking on a regular basis has become a standard thing.

When we first moved in all I could think of was using the oven after having lived in the camper for 10 weeks! But now that I'm making up a batch of bread and pizza dough at least every other week the thrill has worn off a bit.

Just before we left I ordered a 10 cup Hamilton Beach food processor and I must say the joy of that has not worn off.  I use it to process leftover bread heels into crumbs for meatloaf, to shred cheese for pizza, and I even used it to make zucchini relish this summer.

Wayne fished cod all summer long, and the fall brought rabbit and moose, so we've had our share of traditional meals.  He loves using Seal-A-Meal and bought a gigantic upright freezer for the garage.

Like most Newfies he likes his cod deep fried while I don't like anything fried except the occasional french fry.  But I've been experimenting with the cod to see if I can tempt him. So far I've had to eat it all by myself.  No complaints!

Stewed chicken is a meal we all like.  Who's going to say no to gravy?

I've tried a few other things based on ingredients on hand as well.  What would we do with Google search?  All of us enjoyed the Greek Lemon chicken baked in the oven.

My favorite way to cook chicken breasts is cut it into pieces and saute a few minutes on each side in olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary.  I burn my fingers eating it right out of the pan most of the time!

Wayne's favorite meal? Bologna stew.  I wish I was kidding. He'll make a big pot and eat it until it's gone...all by himself. His other favorite is turkey soup, he'll even cook a turkey just for making it.

Candians are big into Chinese inspired dishes, as opposed to the Italian and Mexican fare I'm used to back in the States. But that doesn't mean I don't still whip up a good Midwestern pork roast!

I made a LOT of jam this September, some partridgeberry pancakes, and one blueberry pie.

Rosemary, olive oil and red pepper went nicely with the currants!

I also made currant chutney after having it on a sandwich at The Pantry Cafe which is run by the Autism Society in St. John's.  I loved it so much that I'll be on the hunt for my own currant bushes when the nurseries open up in the spring!

 A surprise to me was discovering that the chocolate sauce and the bourbon sauce from some cake recipes also doubled nicely as topping for ice cream! Wayne lost weight since the move (28 pounds!) with all the extra exercise he's been getting, but as you might imagine cake and ice cream and finding uses for chocolate sauce hasn't led me to lose any pounds. That will hopefully change, I got a lecture at the doctor about my high cholesterol so I will be making better choices and cutting out my recent "dessert every day" lifestyle and eating more salads.

After I got addicted to Lavender Lattes from Fiddleheads back in Wisconsin I had to make some Lavender syrup of my own.  It also makes a mean Lavender Tom Collins and you can buy organic dried lavender in bulk on Amazon for a very reasonable price!

That's my big food post, I won't do this again, it makes me too hungry!