Monday, October 08, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

No, I didn't get that wrong. In Canada, our Thanksgiving holiday is a little earlier than in the US. Here the harvest is a bit earlier and I'm sure that our forefathers were very thankful for full larders when heading into the harsh Canadian winters. According to the Farmers Almanac, we are in for a mild fall and winter. I can only say that I am thankful for that. Shoveling is not my favorite task.

We had all the grandparents over last night for dinner. It was the traditional turkey dinner with all the fixings. And for the first time, we also had a "kid table" in the next room. It actually worked out better than I could have imagined. No major squabbles. No food fights. No huge messes. Just the sounds of the kids enjoying each others company. Wonderful.


All the plants have moved inside for the winter now. This is my indoor herb garden. On the bottom shelf, from left to right are lemon grass, rosemary, and bay. They all seem to enjoy their summers outside and tolerate the move inside rather well. I have another shelf like this one that has even more plants on it, but there is some stuff piled in front of the shelf, and I like to pretend that I live in a clean, organized house. So we won't show that shelf yet. But you can see the edge of it in the photo below.

The last to come in was the grapefruit tree. I had to do some pretty severe pruning before bringing it it or it may have taken over the living room

Yesterday I also made two warps for my next two scarves. I didn't have quite enough (in my mind) to make a full scarf in Patchouli Dance, so I added a few stripes of black.
And, of course, here is "Mermaid Dreams". I hope to get both of these on and off the loom by the weekend. I also have a silk noil scarf to fringe before then. But maybe I'm being a little ambitious in light of all the other things I have to do.

3 comments:

David T. Macknet said...

Glad you have room for it all inside! Is it really time to start the move towards hibernation, though? When does it start to snow?

KansasA said...

I know I'm late but Happy Thanksgiving to you to! Actually we haven't had our turkey yet, I'm planning it for this weekend! Yum.

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving Jackie and family!

I was in the Scottish hills and so had couscous rather than the more traditional turkey. I now have only 40 munros left. Returning to thanksgiving, I wanted to share a good pumpkin soup recipe with you and your visitors. It gives you something to do with all cutout bits from your jackolanterns or with the bits of pumpkin that don't make it into the pie.

120g pumpkin flesh (peeled and seeds removed)
120g carrots (peeled)
120g celeriac
two or three leeks (you can use a medium onion if you don't have leeks)
1 stock cube
3/4 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/4 to 1/2 jalapeno pepper (optional)
finely chopped corriander leaf for garnish (optional. I think you might call it cilantro over there).

1) chop all the veg into cubes add some jalapeno if you want a bit of zing.
2) put into a sauce pan with the stock cube and add water until the veg is just covered
3)boil for 20 minutes
4) leave the soup to cool and then run through a blender and add salt and pepper to taste. I find that I add a LOT of black pepper (less is needed if you also have jalepeno)
Note you can easily scale this recipe way up. It freezes and microwaves a treat.
5) reheat to serve, top with some finely chopped corriander leaf

P.S. Celeriac, for those who don't know, looks a bit like a large turnip, but tastes like celery.

Bonus: Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
1) Wash all the pumpkin mess off your seeds.
2) Spread them out on a baking sheet (I didn't even bother drying mine out and they worked fine)
3) Put the tray on the top shelf of a preheated oven (grill or broil setting). I put mine on the top heat which is 260 C on convection. Keep an eye on them and flip them over now and then until the shells look toasted. Mine took about 10 minutes. Do keep an eye on them, ovens vary and these guys can go from almost toasted to burnt very quickly.
4) For that added bit of pizazz to your soup, top with toasted pumpkin seeds and chopped fresh corriander/cilantro.
Note: I have seen other accounts of toasting pumpkin seeds which recommend that you leave them to dry overnight and then lightly roast for 15 to 20 min at 160-170 F (75C). Sorry, I wasn't patient enough to try this out.