39/52 - 23 Months Old Today!!

Today our Lil Man is 23 months! I can not believe he is going to be two in a month. I tried to get a full body shot of him but he is constantly on the go and it is near impossible. I managed to get this one. It is not the greatest (he's not in focus) but it will have to do.

 

 

He did say cheese and posed in his new favourite position for this one though.

 

 

Sometimes life gets a little bit busy as you can probably tell from our lack of posts lately, but that's life. When things are not so crazy around here I will be back with more weekly posts, but for now all we have are the Lil Man's weekly posts. I never realized how busy the fall season actually is until now.

Hope everyone is enjoying this lovely weather we have been getting this week. Happy Friday!!

Garden Update - September

This will probably be my last garden update. It is hard to believe fall official arrives this weekend. Overall, we were quite happy with our garden this year considering the yo yo weather we had at the beginning of the summer. Our cucumbers are finally done and to be honest I am kind of happy about this because I am starting to get tired of eating cucumber. Our beans also did really well this year. I picked what was left last week.  Our tomatoes really struggled this year and they were just starting to ripen but I had to pick a bunch of them early because we had our first frost a week ago (it was kind of early this year). We have had two other nights of frost this past week and yesterday the weather felt like summer again.

Last week I finally had a chance to take out our potatoes.

 

I was shocked when I started to dig up the potatoes and saw the size of some of them. They are the biggest potatoes I have grown in our current garden.

 

 

Our carrots also did well this year.

 

 

And so did our jalapenos and red chillies. 

 

Our Halloween pumpkin is almost ready to be picked. I am just waiting for it to turn completely orange. I always have trouble growing pumpkins in our garden, so I am so happy one finally survived.

 

At the beginning of this season I was not very optimistic that we were going to get much produce from our garden, but we were pleasantly surprised.

 

 

 

38/52 - First Dinner at a Restaurant

This past weekend we took the Lil Man out for his very first dinner at a restaurant.  Overall, the experience was not bad.  We skipped appetizers and tried to keep him distracted until his food arrived.

 

 

We did not go anywhere fancy, just Boston Pizza.   We ordered the kid's Pint-Sized pizza for the Lil Man ...

 

Byron had the Spicy Perogy Pizza

And I had a Zorba the Greek Pizza

 

 The Lil Man's doggy bag was so tiny.

  

I do not think we will be returning to BP any time in the future as we were surprised with our bill at the end of our meal (it was quite pricey for the amount of food we were served). However, I must add that the pizza I ordered was very enjoyable.

Happy Wednesday!

 

A Canadian Tradition {Butter Tarts}

I finally attempted making butter tarts for the first time from scratch. I may have not picked the best time for baking as it was a relatively hot day in the middle of July. Plus I was kind of mean to the hubby because he was away and was not able to taste them until he returned home the following day from his biking weekend with the guys. I may have tortured him a bit by posting this yummy picture on Facebook when I was done photography these delicious tarts ...

All I have to say is it would not be fair if only he had fun that weekend. I figured I was allowed to have a bit of fun myself. Which for me meant baking something yummy. Don't you think that is only fair?

 

I was really happy with how my first attempt turned out with a couple exceptions. My filling had too many raisins and my tarts turned out a wee bit too small because I did not have a larger circle circumference to cut out my pastry. My pastry however, turned out AMAZING. I always have issues with pastry but NOT this time.

 

You are probably asking yourself why the heck did she want to make butter tarts in the middle of the summer? The desire to make these tarts all resulted from two things - first my father-in-law kept mentioning butter tarts when he came over (I can't remember why they kept coming up in conversation but for some reason for three weeks in a row, butter tarts were always mentioned when my in-laws came over to visit) and thus I had butter tarts on the mind. Then in the June issue of Canadian Living they had a mouth watering photo of Maple Butter Tarts on the cover and the recipe was included in the issue. The picture looked so good and from the second I received it in the mail I wanted to make them. A couple days after I received the issue my mother-in-law  borrowed it to give them a try and shared some with us. I found the Maple Butter Tarts were a wee bit to sweet with the Maple syrup, so I used a different recipe for the filling. The recipe I used however, called for too many raisins and made too much filling so I was not very happy with it. I will have to work on finding something else.
 

 

 

Before I forget I must mention that I had my own personal photographer photographing me as I made these delicious butter tarts.  This is not a common occurrence but it sure did speed things up and she did a fantastic job -- it was my awesome sister (aka Tia)!

 

If you are interested in making the Maple Butter Tarts that were included in the June 2013 issue of the Canadian Living magazine it can be found HERE.

To prepare the pastry, whisk flour with salt in a bowl. Cut in butter and lard until in fine crumbs with a few larger pieces. Drizzle water and sour cream mixture over flour mixture, add more water if necessary to form ragged dough. Press into disc; wrap and refrigerate until chilled (about 30 minutes).

On lightly floured surface, roll out pastry. Using 10 cm round cutter, cut out 12 circles. Fit into 12 muffin cups.

The shells ready for the filling.

Ingredients for the filling.

Whisk together brown sugar, maple syrup, butter, eggs, vinegar and salt. Add raisins to pastry shells. Pour filling into each shell.

Shells filled and ready to go into the oven.

Bake in 350 ⁰C oven until filling is set and pastry is golden, 20 to 25 minutes.  Let cool in pan for 20 minutes. Transfer to rack; let cool.

 

The butter tarts looking oh so yummy. At this point I could not stop snapping photos ...

 

I received a wonderful comment from my Hubby when he finally was able to have one. He informed me that my pastry was perfect -- the thickness, texture and taste!

Do you have a go to butter tart recipe? If so, leave a comment I'd love to hear what it is!

 

 

37/52 - Wooden Shoes + Sunglasses + A Little Under the weather

The other day the Lil Man decided he wanted to walk around the living room with some shades on ... I guess it was a little bright in the house.

 

 

Things have been a little busy around here and I have not had much time to blog lately. I meant to post this photo last week but never had a chance so I decided to include it this week. Last week Hugo decided he was going to try walking around his room in his wooden shoes. He did not get very far but he was very persistent and comical to watch.

The Lil Man has some molars breaking through and as a result he has not been feeling the greatest. Usually, these three things (his blanket, Teddy & his soother, which is behind his teddy) stay in bed until naptime or bed time but when he is not feeling well it sure is hard to take them away from him. He just loves his Teddy so much. My cousin gave Hugo this Teddy the first day he came home. Once we realized it was his favourite, I went out and bought a second one (which I now switch back and forth between the two and you almost can not tell which one was the original one he received).  He is so cute with Teddy, he will give him a hug and a kiss, it's adorable.

 

 

Labour Day Weekend

Hope everyone had a good weekend and Labour Day. Our long weekend was busy. I must apologize in advance as this post is going to be a long one, plus I had to back date it as I did not get a chance to finish it off early enough. Things have been a wee bit busy around here so I am just getting around to posting this.

Last year my sister in-law suggested a new tradition for us to start  - before she goes back to school to start a new school year (she's a teacher) we have a family dinner. Last year the dinner was at our place but I can not remember what we had (I think we had pizza but I am not positive). This labour day weekend the tradition continued, however, we had dinner at my in-laws and they ordered in some pizza (Hugo's favourite). For dessert this year we did something different, we went for ice cream from the original Paisley Lorna Doon in Wasaga. Since we had not gone there yet for our yearly summer treat, Byron thought it would be a nice way to end the summer. It was on our to do list for the weekend, so it worked out that we were able to cross it off the list on Saturday and enjoy a wonderful dessert!

 

This was Hugo's first taste of the original Lorna Doon's Banana Split (Byron asked them to leave the coconut out so Hugo could share it with him).

 

 

 

The Lil man enjoyed his banana split.

 

 

I had a Brownie Sunday. Every time I have one of these it reminds me of the time I was pregnant with Hugo. The first time I had one while I was pregnant with the Little Man he moved around a lot in my belly (probably from the sugar overload). Towards the end of my pregnancy there was a day that he just seemed to have stopped moving which made me quite concerned as he usually moved around a lot. Byron and I went to the original Lorna Doon's and I had a Brownie Sundae in hopes that it would get him moving around, but it did not do the trick and we ended up going to the Hospital to get monitored and everything was fine. I guess he just wanted to rest more that particular day.

On Sunday and Monday I was a busy lady in the kitchen! 

 

To my surprise I was able to get some canning done. I was able to convince Byron to look after Hugo before he went riding. Sunday morning before Byron left for biking I made pizza sauce and we processed it once he returned.

On Monday, I tried a new salsa recipe (I did not make a big batch like I normally do because it was a new recipe and I was not sure if we would like it). I've been canning for the past 4 or 5 years. (I didn't can the year I was expecting Hugo because Byron did not think it would be a good idea). In past years I've had Byron's help with all the prep but this year I did it solo as he was looking after the Lil Man for me.

 

 

We found another use for the burner that came with the deep fryer last year! I was able to process the jars outside which is so nice because it reduces the heat in the house, plus it was a lot quicker to get the water boiling.

I am not going to lie, it is ALOT of work canning but the end product is so worth it! Knowing exactly what you are eating is wonderful, especial when a lot of the ingredients are right from your garden.  

On Sunday evening after dinner Byron suggested we go for a drive and a DQ treat. Another fabulous idea from my awesome Hubby!

 

We brought our treats home to enjoy - I had a vanilla cone which I shared with the Lil Man and since Byron had shared his past two treats with Hugo he had the Peanut Buster Parfait all to himself minus a spoonful.

It's a good thing we had the ice cream earlier in the weekend because the weather sure did cool down by the end of Monday. It felt so cool and crisp out. Definitely back to school fall weather. I can not believe summer is over. It sure did go by fast!

 

36/52 - Elmo + Lil Mr. = Big Smiles

I just love these pearly whites and this smile ... it sure is contagious ...

 

On a side note - the Lil Man just loves Roxy's black blanket. It seems every time I turn around to grab something, he pulls it off her chair and is laying on it on the floor. The other night I was looking all over the living room/ kitchen for Roxy and could not find her on any of her mats. Since it was a bit dark in the house and with her being black it made it a bit difficult to locate her. Then I spotted her ...

 

I guess she figures since the Lil Man can steal her blanket she was going to steal his blanket and couch. It is slowly becoming her favourite spot.