Time For Soup!!!

So, the weather outside is going to turn frightful, but soup-time is so delightful. And since we've got a bunch of bowls, Time for Soup, Time for Soup, Time for Soup. When I finally serve it up, half of it ends up on the floor. But if you'll just hang in tight, a ton of it'll end up inside!

Ok, that's just silly. I do make a mean Sweet Potato Soup though. It's fantastic on a cold and rainy day. Serve it up with a bun and a big glass of milk and you probably won't eat another bite for the rest of the day!




Pureed Sweet Potato Soup

(this makes a big pot)

three large sweet potatoes, washed, peeled and cut into cubes
one can coconut milk
one liter of chicken stock or water
one onion per sweet potato
garlic and ginger to your liking

I use grapeseed oil, but any veg/canola oil will do. Olive oil will do nicely too, but stay away from extra virgin olive oil because we all know you shouldn't cook with it!

saute onions until well done and then add the garlic and ginger. once garlic is cooked, about a minute, add the sweet potato and stir everything up together.

add the coconut milk and enough stock/water to barely cover the potatoes. bring to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes start to fall apart.

using a blender or immersion blender (hand blender) blend until everything is smooth. i pass the soup through a fine mesh strainer to remove all the clumps and lumps. use a ladel to push the pulp through. discard whatever is leftover in the strainer.

be careful because this soup is hot and holds onto the heat really well.

add salt to taste and white pepper. you can add regular pepper but it will be visible in the bright orange soup.

serve with a grilled cheese or toasty buns with butter. this soup can be made with any vegetable you want. sweet potatoes, white potatoes (yukon gold is the yummiest), butternut squash (which WON'T taste like pumpkin), carrots, turnips, rutabagas (please cook the rutabagas way longer than you think you need to to remove the waxy taste) or any other root or squashy vegetable you can think of. Use canned diced tomatoes and add a big spoon full of pesto instead of the ginger. Do whatever combo you like! Soup is easy to make and when homemade it's awesome.

The First Attempt

Bear Creek Water Park

Due to another episode of boredom, I searched for something new to do. I went to the Newton Wave Pool to get a bunch of flyers to see what was out there. I found a flyer for Bear Creek Trains. Hey! It was cheap (under $5 for an adult) and it was new. I asked my mom to come with us for the train ride and to explore the park while we were there. Violett wasn't exactly too keen on the train ride, a little bored I think. Thank goodness it wasn't more than a five minute ride. After the ride we went to the playgrounds. They have a big one for the bigger kids and a little one for the itty bitties. She went in the swing for a little while. Then I put her on the ground and just let her do what she wanted. Soon enough she found the water park...In she went, fully clothed. I would like for it to be noted that whenever I put the sprinkler on this past summer and had her in a little swimmer she would never get wet, but keep her dressed...well, that's a whole different thing! Bugger.

Wave Swinger

We had a chance to go to the Shaw B.B.Q this year and Scott wasn't too keen on some of the rides. The Wave Swinger was one of them, but he went on it anyway...what a weenie! Love ya, baby!

Cell Phone Pictures

Here's a bunch of pictures that I downloaded from my old cell phone. We bought some new phones and I didn't want to lose these old photos. They aren't the clearest, but they still are worth keeping...

Miracle Boule

I made zucchini crown bread the other day and wasn't very happy with the way it came out. Bland and Boring! So when I saw this bread on French Food At Home I just had to make it.




It's called Miracle Boule and was so easy to make! So easy that I've got a bowl of dough on the counter to bake tomorrow and will do the same for the next day! Thank goodness I still had this old Dutch Oven hidden away under the stove as my old Lagostina Dutch Oven kicked the can a while back. Remember this pot, Mom?


The bread came out of the oven and I brushed a bunch of the flour off of it (next time I won't use as much as I did today). I couldn't wait for Scott to get home to try it out with me so I sliced it up and smothered it in Strawberry Rhubarb jam. It was so good I think that I will be making this quite often! There isn't any left already!

Creme Brulee

While we were driving to the Corn Maze last weekend we realized that it wasn't exactly where we thought it was. I called Scott's Dad, Barry and he looked it up on the internet for us. After visiting the maze, I gave Barry and Edie a call again to say thank you for helping us and to invite you over for dinner!

Mmmmmm, I'm making Creme Brulee...so yummy. I had plans to make Butternut Squash soup and grilled cheese for dinner and so they agreed. We had a few hours to spare before they came over so I got down to work. With the soup on it was time to tackle the brulee. I had never actually made it before, but it was simple enough.

I used the recipe from my trusty Joy of Cooking. Some cream, some eggs, sugar and vanilla, into the oven and out it came in little ramekins of goodness. I got my blowtorch out and scorched some sugar on the tops, served them up and everyone was very happy. I'll be making them again for this weekend!

The Corn Maize

While a little bored last week I started to search the internet for stuff for us to do. I came across a website that listed outdoor activities in Vancouver and the surrounding area. I came across a site for a corn maze.




Lo and behold! It's just down the street from us and completely affordable! I checked the weather for Saturday and I seemed promising too. Only a 30% chance of rain and it hadn't been raining for about two days. It was on!




We took the wagon and Violett sat in it pretty well. She found that she could touch the wheels and when they got good and muddy she kept her hands on them. Boy was she messy! She kept getting thwapped in the face by low-lying leaves and sprouts. At one point she bent over when she saw some coming and avoided it! What a smart girl! Scott had a lot of fun too. He kept telling me that men have this natural sense of direction and he always knew where north was. What a CROCK! :P





The corn was still young and some of it was exposed. The brown yukky silk that you see in the store is the mature stuff, but this was a fantastic shade of pink! It was so pretty and I couldn't believe the colour!




At the mid-point of the first half there was a bridge. We were warned by the owners to just go around it and not to try to haul the wagon over it. Scott ran up the stairs and did the standard Rocky move. I got to go up there eventually and took the video.




We only got to do half of the maze because Violett wasn't happy with the thwapping after a while. The people going into the maze when we came out we kind enough to take our picture. What a good day! We stopped at a farm on the way home and got some apples to make pie. Mmmmmm.